If Marvel hit a home run with Iron Man, this is a solid triple.

Rating: 8/10 (15 June 2008)

Essentially a sequel to both the last film (Banner was in the jungle at the end of Ang Lee's film) and the TV series (Lou Ferigno and Bill Bixby have cameos and we hear the theme music) the film is also a restart of it all.
As the film opens Banner is is Brazil working to try and find a cure for his problem. When the military shows up to capture him he flees and eventually heads home so that he can make contact with a scientist who is helping him via the internet. Much damage ensues.
The action scenes are spectacular and much better than I thought they would be. Its great that even though we are watching what are often CGI characters running around we still have a sense of danger. Betty or any other puny human could very easily get hurt. The battles are not neat affairs and there is considerable collateral damage which plays out in little pieces on TV screens and else where once the battles are over. The battles are also epic in ways that only movies and comic books can be. Hulk is larger than life and what happens when he is engaged in battle is too.
The real joy here are the characters which are invest with real weight. I've been reading the comic for decades and this is the first time that General Ross wasn't one dimensional.Kudos to William Hurt for giving us a real character. Tim Roth is a blast as Blonsky/The abomination. The real story here is Liv Tyler as Betty Ross and Edward Norton as Banner/The Hulk. We feel the weight of their relationship. We feel the love they have and that they are joined forever together. Its amazing. The feelings they have is the reason that much of the film has a real emotional weight. Its nice to have the Hulk smash things but at the same time we care about the characters. We feel the pain in the Hulks eyes when he realizes Betty is in danger. we feel the anger when someone hurts her. Its adds greatly to the film.
When the film is "on", which is most of the time, its one of the best comic films ever made.Its not just action and heroes its people and characters with real emotion. Much of the film is right on target.
The problem with the film is that at times action sacrifices character and a clear plot. We're dropped into the action in such away as to make us feel that we're missing something. Yes 45 years of the comic, the TV incarnations and the Ang Lee film sort of fill things in, but at the same time its coming in on chapter two of a serial. There is also the publicized battle between Marvel and Edward Norton.Norton wanted a longer more thoughtful film and Marvel wanted this action packed cut. Give me Norton's cut. I could be wrong but there are several times as we jumped through time and space or from action scene to action scene, I got the sense that something was missing. More than once I thought a little something was lost- details mostly- that could have strengthened or deepened what we saw. For all I know this maybe the best cut of the film, but at the same time since the action works because of the characters and plot I think that the 15 or 20 minutes that Marvel chopped out could only make things better.
Yes I liked it. Yes I frequently said-out loud- "thats it thats it they got it right". Yes it moved me.
Go see it.
8 out of 10 (maybe a little less but not enough so you'd notice)