Review: Louis Leterrier’s “The Incredible Hulk”

Before I get right into this I’d like to point out that a lot of the thoughts being expressed were formed in part by discussion with my good friend, Eric.  Eric spends far more of his time than is probably healthy thinking about comic books and all manners of heroes who run along the ground and fly through the air.   So, essentially, if you disagree with anything written below, go ahead and blame Eric.

The Incredible Hulk has never been one of my favorite comic book characters.  There’s just something about him that I’ve always found less than compelling.  I think it boils down to my general disinterest with Bruce Banner.  To me he is a less than satisfactory alter ego, not as entertaining or engaging as Peter Parker, Tony Stark, etc.  That’s not to say that he doesn’t have his own endearing qualities.  He just seems somewhat lost in a sea of more charismatic peers.  Fortunately, this insecurity actually helps flesh out his character, and for this reason I’ve never completely written him off.

Despite these initial misgivings I was genuinely pleased with how the film turned out.  Though certainly not the best comic book adaptation, I would definitely consider it better than average.  I didn’t enjoy it as much as Iron Man, but I liked it much more than all of the Spider-Man and Fantastic Four movies combined.  I felt that the key to the success was twofold.  The first being a successful introduction to the character.  I felt as though Leterrier really learned a few things from Batman Begins. Namely, presenting the audience with a simple and quick, but still effective, summation of the origin of the character.  We start in a world where the Hulk already exists, and this does wonders to keep the plot moving.  Essentially everyone going to see this movie knows something about the character.  If they didn’t see Ang Lee’s failed version of it five years ago then they certainly heard about it.  There’s no need to spend forty minutes showcasing Banner’s research and inevitable accident, and I was glad that those moments were relegated to a reasonable number of flashbacks (though honestly I could have done without some of these, as well).  Secondly, there seems to have been a lot of thought put into the Hulk’s initial appearance.  I feel seeing everything at once would have ruined the experience, and Leterrier does some really interesting foreshadowing, primarily involving quick flashes of the color green in a number of the earlier scenes.

I felt that the acting in the film generally left something to be desired, and was one of the definite drawbacks that kept this film from being as good as Iron Man. The only performance I really enjoyed was Edward Norton’s, which is both fortunate and expected, seeing as he drives 90% of the movie.  On the other hand, I feel that Liv Tyler is a screen cypher.  Her face remains almost uncannily expressionless for almost the entirety of the film, which makes the several scenes of tense, lovelorn dialogue between Betty and Bruce particularly unbearable.  The only scene between them that I enjoyed took place in a cave during a thunderstorm, shortly after Hulk’s second appearance  And even then, this had more to do with the depiction of Hulk as a being that is never fully at ease, constantly on the edge of an endless rage.  Also, Betty Ross is purported to be a scientist of some accomplishment, there is no indication of this either in the action of the film or Tyler’s characterization. I would have greatly preferred swapping out her performance for that of Jennifer Connelly’s in the 2003 version.  I also had some problems with William Hurt’s General Ross, if only because I felt that his performance was more introverted than what the script seemed to necessitate.  Tim Roth’s performance was very good, and I felt he captured the ruthless obsession of Emil Blonsky extremely well.  My only negative comment about it is more fleeting and general, which I will save for after the review, in all its ranty glory.

Finally, I thought that the action scenes were handled very well.  They were entertaining but not over the top, which I think is a big accomplishment when your main character is a giant green human of basically unlimited power.  The powers of the Hulk were scaled back in a way that I felt was true to the spirit of the character while fitting much better in the world of CGI and flesh and blood.  In the comic book it’s perfectly acceptable for The Hulk to collapse an entire skyscraper instantly with one punch, or to leap several miles in one jump.  This kind of thing doesn’t necessarily translate very well to the screen, as the last Hulk movie showed us.  Also, they gave Hulk another monster to fight, which greatly breaks up the monotony of having him knock over Humvees and helicopters.  It’s a way to show the truly brutal side of his nature without having to worry about a bunch of dead soldiers.  Wise move, indeed.  So overall I enjoyed the film.  It could stand to be about ten minutes shorter, and some of the Bruce/Betty scenes drag like crazy, but it’s worth a watch.  Which is more than I can say for the overwhelming majority of comic book movies that have been released in the past ten years.

Miscellaneous Rant:

I hate it when movies set up ways to “explain” the lack of a character’s expected accent.  They used to do this all the time with Sean Connery movies.  In this film it takes the form of Ross’ expositionary dialogue of Blonsky’s origin, which is something to the affect of “Born in Ukraine (or some other Eastern European country), raised in England.” I mean, why bother even trying to justify it?  Blonsky was only Russian in the original comic because we were in the middle of the Cold War and it made him an obvious villain.  It’s 2008 now.  He can be a British Special agent.  No one is going to care except the purists, and they’re going to be mad anyway, because for some inexplicable reason you kept his origin, but made it moot.  Tim Roth is a good actor.  He’s done accents before, I’ve seen him.  So either take the trouble to have him learn it, or completely get rid of it.  Honestly I could care less which they choose, but I hate it when they stick us with this half-and-half shit.  It just comes off as lazy.

I guess that does it for my Incredible Hulk review.  For those of you surprised that I actually chose to comment on a movie made this decade, don’t worry.  I’ll be back to reviewing movies that were released twenty years before my birth in no time.