ELFSAR BLOG

Heads up… Spoiler Warning!!!!!!! If you want to be completely surprised throughout the film then forget reading the following.  Read after you view the film.

Well if you don’t succeed at first, then try… try again.  Marvel Studios decided to give their potentially lucrative Hulk comic book franchise another shot.  There second film is following the success of Iron Man and the new movie is simply titled The Incredible Hulk, hinting that this time around the movie has more in common with the popular late-1970s TV series.  However, I think comic book fans will be generally pleased with the film this time around.

Louis Leterrier, the director of Transporter 2 takes over at the director’s chair from Ang Lee who attempted and oddball art house flick meets superhero comic book that was 2003′s Hulk. The screenplay is by X-Men: The Last Stand and Fantastic Four scribe Zak Penn along with actor Edward Norton (writing under a nom de plume). Note that Penn is a busy guy as he has already been signed to script 2011′s upcoming Avengers and Captain America movies for Marvel Studios.

The Incredible Hulk assumes that audiences already know the character and his back-story: following an accident involving gamma rays, scientist Bruce Banner becomes the raging green-skinned monster The Hulk whenever he gets angry.  Of course the U.S. military in the guise of the corrupt General Ross – who also happens to be the father of Banner’s girlfriend, Betty – is interested in getting their hands on the Hulk and using his blood to manufacture a new breed of super soldiers.  Banner becomes a fugitive, hoping to find a cure for his condition and rid himself of the Hulk before Ross and the U.S. military industrial complex can get their hands on him.  In that sense it is more of a sequel than a remake than some of the “let’s give it another shot” talk may have let on.

Anyway, I think this is the movie that audiences wanted to see back in 2003. There was a brilliant use of what I would like to call the Hulk cam during the opening credits.  No dull existential angst and weird split screen film techniques.  No mutant Hulk poodles either.  Instead we get a kind of sneak peek at what a Captain America movie might be like as Tim Roth’s character get’s injected by the super-soldier serum and is shown running faster than a normal man and performing super human like feats.  He meets the Hulk 3 times in the film, each time further on his way to becoming The Abomination, an over-sized monster against which the Hulk faces off in a no-holds barred epic battle at the movie’s climax.  We are also treated to some nice comic asides, including my favorite cameo by Stan Lee so far and a riff on those mega-stretchy purple pants Banner always seems to wear.

Overall I was entertained, however I was left with the feeling that this was all something I had seen before.  The plot was pretty straight forward from A to B and was ‘formulamatic’ in it’s development of the antagonist.  I am sure if I saw this at a 12 year olds perspective this would be the greatest movie of all time, but this film was not nearly in the same class as Iron Man. By comparison to the 2003′s Hulk, this was a good movie for comic book and TV Hulk fans alike.  It’s a good summer movie that won’t bore you.  Lots of action, a few lighter moments here and there, and you see the hulk smash stuff.

************* Small Spoilers**************

As a comic book and TV Hulk fan this movie was a perfect amalgam of both without straying too far from it’s comic book roots at any point.

TV References

1. Appearance by Bill Bixby on the television Bruce Banner is watching.

2. The familiar piano tune of the “lonely man walking” theme song we always heard at the end of the Incredible Hulk TV show.

3. Lou Ferrigno cameo as a over-pumped security guard who can apparently be bought with pizza. Lou also does the voice of the Hulk as he did earlier in the 90′s Hulk cartoon show.

4. Jack McGee appears briefly as a student newspaperman.

5. Paul Soles appears as Stanley.  Paul Soles did the voice of Bruce Banner in the 1966 cartoon series. He also did the voice of Peter Parker in the old 1967 Spider-Man cartoon series.

6. The beginning sequence featuring a quick glance at the Hulk’s origin features a lot of scenes similar to those used in the Bill Bixby TV series such as the radiation chair.

Comic Book Favorites

1. The Hulk thunderclap was used to perfection in once scene. The Hulk claps his hands together with such force as to put out a fire instantly.

2. The military uses some classic comic book sonic cannons against the Hulk.

3. Use of term, “Hulk Smash!”

4. Tony Stark meets with General Ross. This happens right before the credits. The audience went crazy with applause when he appears. Everybody stayed around till the end of the credits, but unfortunately there was nothing tagged on at the end. Tony makes a remark about forming a new team, the Avengers obviously.

5. Stan Lee makes his usual cameo. He drinks from a bottle tainted with Bruce Banner’s blood and winds up sick from it.

6. Samuel Sterns appears aka the Leader.

7. Doc Samson (not the suped up version with the long green hair).

8. Of course you all know the Abomination is the big villain of the film.