The Incredible Hulk

Day 18/192-The Incredible Hulk: Starring Ed Norton and Tim Roth

Sometimes, I go out and I get drunk, and sometimes, in the morning, I watch films. Today, on this morning, of all the films I could have watched, I watched The Incredible Hulk, now if you do read this and are thinking "Oh The Incredible Hulk, I haven't seen that, might be worth a watch" Then you must heed these words of warning: The Incredible Hulk is shit.

Now let's be clear, I'm still a bit drunk, but that does not excuse The Incredible Hulk from being one of the most misguided, wrong-footed attempts at a comic-book film. Trapped somewhere between Dark Knight and Spiderman, The Incredible Hulk gets it all wrong, CGI heavy, plenty of actors in the wrong roles and... well the list goes on and on.

The plot sees Bruce Banner (Ed Norton) in exile after his "incident" trying to find a cure, while living his life in a factory in Brazil. Through correspondence with a mystery figure on his computer he begins to think there might be a way to rid himself of his inner hulk. With mounting pressures from the army and a rival Hulk (in the form of Tim Roth) growing, Bruce must learn to utilise his powers in order to stop this Abomination.



I'm not sure how anyone else feels but I think The Hulk, in cinematic terms, is an abysmal character. No emotion or soul, a lumbering idiot, so much so that the script has forced him to attempt dialogue which just makes it even worse. When you look at a film like King Kong which makes no secret of the fact that its protagonist is a giant monkey, how does Hulk get it so wrong?

With the recent news that Norton has been dropped from The Avengers, it makes me wonder who could do a better job, but Norton does get Banner all wrong. In my research of comic-book film, I watched Ultimate Avengers: The Movie and in that feature, Tony Stark was different, but very much suited to Robert Downey Jr's portrayal. In Hulk, Banner lacks the depth and emotional turmoil required.

Because, when you are dealing with such an emotionally void character as the Hulk, you need his alter-ego to provide everything that he cannot. Whether the director has missed this point or whether Norton had grown tired with what is undoubtedly a miserable, lazy script is irrelevant because the end result is the same.



So to sum up, I didn't much care for The Incredible Hulk. Completely unaware of what makes The Incredible Hulk entertaining, this is just a complete misfire in almost every way. It makes me eager to go back and watch the Ang Lee version to see which is worse but from what I have read it will be a close call.

4/10