When He's In Hulk Mode, Watch Out

Rating: 4/10 (1 July 2008)

With The Incredible Hulk Edward Norton can now take his place in the superhero genre besides such contemporaries as Tobey Maguire, Robert Downey, Jr., and Ben Affleck all of whom have played comic book superheroes. It's the in thing to do in Hollywood these days and I have to say the films for the most part make money.
When we meet Norton he's living in obscurity in Brazil trying to control his emotions because the experiment that turned him into the green guy have already gone horribly wrong. Norton is scientist Bruce Banner who made the mistake of experimenting on himself. Now if you get him mad it's not a pretty sight both to look at him and to see what he can do.
General William Hurt wants him back at any price. His scientist daughter Liv Tyler wants Norton back as well. She's carrying a Statue of Liberty size torch for Norton who when he's in Hulk mode would use that torch as a matchstick.
To track down the Hulk, William Hurt has imported a real bad dude from the British Royal Marines in Tim Roth. At some point Hurt decided he'd like a lot of what Norton has and of course the final confrontation is with them. I'm still not sure why we had to import him from the United Kingdom, but the match between them reminded me of Andre the Giant versus Big John Studd back in the glory days of the WWF.
Though the cast looked like they were having a good time, I'm not sure The Incredible Hulk gets beyond the comic book stage. TV's famous Doctor Banner, Bill Bixby made a cameo appearance via a clip from another old series of his, The Courtship of Eddie's Father. And when the late Mr. Bixby was in Hulk mode he was Lou Ferrigno who plays a small bit as a security guard who can be bribed with pizza.
If this film succeeds I'm sure there will be a sequel, in fact one was kind of set up during this film. Let's see if we get to explore that in the next Incredible Hulk film.