A Good Effort

Rating: 7/10 (26 May 2019)

This film is the second one of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, after "Iron Man". It's not as bad as people make it out to be. It's actually quite a lot of fun, that is if you ignore its many flaws.
The producers of this film decided not to completely film The Hulk's origin story here, except through the opening credits, a decision they would repeat 10 years later on Spiderman: Homecoming. At the time it was probably seen as a wise decision, since a previous standalone version, Ang Lee's "Hulk" came out 5 years before and was already on the minds of comic book fans. However in hindsight, I feel this lessens the impact of the character in the minds of fans.
Ed Norton is in it, and he's excellent. However he was a poor choice of casting by Marvel, because he's a difficult to work with. There was absolutely no doubt in my mind that this was going to be his only Marvel movie at the time. His reputation was already known.
In many ways I prefer this Norton's version to Ruffalo's. This is a real movie, and Hulk is a true character, rather than the comic relief he serves as in later MCU films. He has a love interest in Betty Ross, who is played excellently by Liv Tyler. William Hurt is also perfectly cast as General Ross, and outdoes Sam Elliot, who appeared in Ang Lee's "Hulk", which is no mean feat.