2008 | Dir. Louis Leterrier | 112 Minutes
"You don't understand the power of this thing. It is too dangerous. It cannot be controlled!"
After suffering a blast of gamma radiation in an experiment gone awry, physicist Bruce Banner transforms into a colossal green berserker when under extreme emotional duress. On the run from US military forces led by elite commando Emil Blonsky under the orders from General "Thunderbolt" Ross, Banner is chased from a favela in Brazil back to America where he hopes to reunite with his girlfriend Betty Ross and find a cure for his condition.
Five years after director Ang Lee's Hulk was met with mixed reviews from film critics, and outright disdain from comic book fans, Marvel Studios restarts the story of Bruce Banner in an attempt that is only a qualified success. Treating the source material with more respect, Louis Leterrier's The Incredible Hulk offers grounded character motivations and appropriately captivating action scenes that serve the narrative well. However, the narrative itself is quite rough around the edges and, at times, tonally confused. Although the CGI can be rather dodgy, the film features three mostly competent action sequences that feature the Hulk in all his destructive glory, a darkened sequence in a Brazilian bottling plant where he is mostly obscured, a siege on a school campus in which he is bombarded by General Ross's forces and a serum-enhanced Blonsky, and the final Harlem-leveling showdown between the Hulk and the fully-transformed Blonsky Abomination. Fun action aside, the film is missing a satisfying emotional arc, with a romantic subplot that fizzles and head-scratching ending scene that suggests Banner is embracing his Hulk persona despite the journey of the film centered around his struggle to rid himself of it to the very end.
Acclaimed actor Edward Norton commits to the role of Bruce Banner completely, instilling the part with considerable pathos and vulnerability. Liv Tyler does her best with her limited acting range as Betty Ross, struggling most with scenes in which Betty is required to display emotional strength, having very little romantic chemistry with Norton. Tim Roth shines as the power hungry combatant Emil Blonsky, exuding ambition that gradually turns to madness. William Hurt performance as General Ross is pretty one-dimensional due to the limitations of the screenplay. Tim Blake Nelson plays the super-enthusiastic morally-ambiguous Dr. Samuel Sterns, a modern day mad scientist and Ty Burrell appears very briefly as Betty Ross' doting new boyfriend Dr. Leonard Samson.
Perhaps due to Edward Norton's controversial involvement in rewriting the script, The Incredible Hulk comes off as a monster movie masquerading as a character drama. At best, the film is a flawed superhero smash-fest. At its worst, it is flimsy, muddled, uninspired and less than captivating. However, it is still a vast improvement over the previous attempt at a feature-length Hulk film.
STAN LEE CAMEO
Stan the Man unwittingly takes a swig from a bottle of imported guarana soda with Bruce Banner's gamma-irradiated blood.
FRAGMENTS
- The final scene features Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) meeting General Ross in a bar to inform him that a team is being formed - In Marvel One-Shot: The Consultant (a short film available on the home video release of Thor), it is revealed that Stark was sent to meet General Ross to discourage him from allowing Blonsky to join the Avengers
- It is revealed early in the film that fateful experiment that changed Banner's life and the chemical solution injected into Blonsky (retrieved by General Ross from a Stark Industries canister) were attempts at reviving the Super Soldier Program; the program is a key plot point in Captain America: The First Avenger
- Betty buys Banner a giant pair of stretchy purple pants, a nod to his signature look from the Marvel Comics
- Paul Soles, the voice of Bruce Banner in the 1966 Hulk cartoon, plays a kind pizzeria owner named Stanley, Banner's friend who offers him a place to stay during his time in Virginia
- A variation of The Lonely Man theme from the popular Incredible Hulk television series that originally ran from 1978 to 1982 can be heard at the start of Banner's journey home
- Early in the film Banner watches an episode of an old television show featuring Bill Bixby, the actor who played Bruce Banner on The Incredible Hulk television series
- Bodybuilder Lou Ferrigno, who played the Hulk on the television series and provided the voice of the Hulk in this film, appears as a Culver University security guard
- MMA star Rickson Gracie plays a martial arts instructor that teaches Banner to control his emotions with breathing exercises
- Comedic actor Martin Starr makes a cameo appearance as a Culver University lab tech enjoying a slice of pizza
- It's amusing to see Ty Burrell before he was famous for playing Phil Dunphy on Modern Family, and equally amusing to see comedic actor Tim Blake Nelson play Dr. Samuel Sterns
- Incidentally, the characters played by Ty Burrell and Tim Blake Nelson have much larger roles in the comics, although it remains unclear if their characters will be revisited in future MCU films or television series
