The Hulk has never been one of Stan Lee’s most complex characters. He is the raging id-unleashed from Bruce Banner, a fairly bland, stock-character scientist aside from his better known alter ego. What a surprise, then, that when Ang Lee (Lust, Caution) tried to turn the mighty green one into a heavy psychological case study, the result blew up as an utter failure – Hulk brooded aplenty, which cut into valuable smashing time.
Five years later, with Marvel Studios now in full control of its creative properties, The Incredible Hulk takes a second, far more visceral pass at the hunted superhero. Undoing the previous film with an opening credits sequence explaining Banner’s life-altering accident in a university laboratory, Hulk surpasses Lee’s failed attempt in leaps and bounds.
Though not quite as snappy and slick as Iron Man, Hulk achieves all it really ever could while staying true in spirit to the comic book and popular television series. Opting for a decidedly less esoteric approach, Marvel put the director of the Transporter films, Louis Leterrier, behind the camera.
Aside from a great knowledge of how to blow things up frequently and convincingly on screen, Leterrier brings an economic shooting style to the film. The guy knows quite literally how to cut to the chase.
After an experiment in military technology goes awry, Banner (Edward Norton, The Painted Veil) flees America for the winding, favela slums of Brazil, where he waits in relative anonymity to find a cure for his odd affliction. He trains to control the beast within while yearning for home and the love he left behind, Betty Ross (Liv Tyler, The Strangers).
Without a terrible amount of characterization to sift through, Norton and Tyler bring incredible veracity to the romance behind the big-budget fugitive tale. An inevitable series of events prompted by Betty’s father, Gen. Ross (William Hurt, Vantage Point), brings us the first of several deftly-executed chase-then-fight scenes. After escaping to Guatemala, the hero in exile begins the long trek back to America, to the university and the woman he was forced to flee from.
Playing up the movie-monster angle of the film, Leterrier keeps his Hulk well-masked in the shadows of the first act as a military crack squad confronts him in a Brazilian factory. Later, when we do finally get to witness the Hulk in his entire glory, cinematographer Peter Menzies Jr. integrates the CGI creation almost seamlessly with a predominantly green visual palette.
The new Hulk almost feels like green flesh and blood, a significant improvement from the Jolly Green Giant on steroids look used quite unintentionally in the last film. Visually, 600 lbs. of gamma ray-induced muscles will always look a little awkward tearing across the big screen, but the top-notch effects work brings Hulk into the realm of stylized pseudo-reality.
And yes, this time around, “Hulk smash.” Structured largely around three successively grander fight scenes, Hulk still owes a great deal to its stellar cast and lean screenplay for bringing together the moments in between the explosions.
Tyler plays Ross with an appropriate pout and just enough toughness around the edges to make her a worthy counterpart to her hulking significant other rather than another damsel in distress. As the hero on the run, Norton delivers some much-needed subtlety to contrast with some of the more colorful characters.
For the part of the slimy villain, Emil Blonsky, Leterrier and company could not have found anyone better than Tim Roth (Virgin Territory), an underappreciated actor of vast talent. Blonsky, a mercenary hired by the general to bring down Hulk, seeks to level the playing field with some of the military’s experimental performance enhancers.
Transformation figures heavily in Hulk‘s briskly-paced script, not as an intellectual concept so much as a physical manifestation of good versus evil. Leterrier and screenwriter Zak Penn (with Norton uncredited for rewrites) understand thes Hulk for what he is – unchecked aggression personified.
The creative team does well not to force anything too grandiose or Freudian on the Hulk. He is a fairly simple character and gets treated as such.
Hulk is spectacle filmmaking at its high water mark – exciting, character-driven and not without a serious shelf life. As in the first feature film from Marvel Studios, Iron Man, there are no universe-threatening baddies – just a personal rival, a girl and a hero with some extraordinary personal issues to resolve.
zherrm@umd.edu
Verdict: 4 stars out of 5
