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Incredible Hulk

zenophite

zenophite

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Rear Admiral
here's my opinion of the Incredible Hulk:


Pros:
John Hurt makes a better Gen. Ross than I was expecting.

The film is not nearly as slow as the Ang Lee version.

Tony Stark cameo - 'nuff said!

I thought it was a nice detail that he can't even have sex because of his heart rate.

So-Sos:
the Hulk - they tried to give him so much detail that it was distracting but overall about what one would expect from a cg character.

Cons:
Ed Norton. He's a decent actor and I was expecting good things but to me he's just not a believable Bruce Banner. maybe I'm just unconsciously typecasting but he doesn't make a convincing scientist. I though Bana was a bit better at capturing the brooding scientist played so well by Bill Bixby.

Liv Tyler - I've never been impressed by her acting chops and this is no different. Even worse she has to be compared to Jen Connelley which is no comparison at all. Also does not make a convincing scientist.

Tim Roth - I'm not sure what it is about his performance that underwhelmed me but I just thought he was not well cast in the role of a spec ops soldier.

Abomination - he supposed to have a lizard face dammit! ;)
 
It's faster-paced and has more action, but it lacks the depth of Ang Lee's movie. And yeah, Liv Tyler was a huge step down from Jennifer Connelly.

I also didn't like the CG model for the Hulk as much.
 
I liked the movie. Good attempt at a reboot. Norton and Tyler was good in the role. It also had a way better villain then the first Hulk movie. Abomination was waaaay better then the jellyfish absorbing man that was actually Banner's dad all along. That last plot point really ruined the movie for me.

They dodged a bullet with Iron Man because they almost had Tony's dad the main villain in his movie too.

While Iron Man was the better film overall Incredible Hulk has the superior final fight.
 
^ I also liked it and in the end I think it's a better outing than the first version. You're right about the fight thing:
iron man: great movie - kind of a disappointing final fight and resolution.
hulk: decent movie and nice end fight (though i thought it was rather stupid to have betty stop hulk from killing abomination)
 
I actually nodded off a couple times during Ang Lee's version, though I loved how he handled cut scenes. That's about the only positive thing I can say about his, though.

That said, I really enjoyed the Incredible Hulk. I thought Norton did a fine job of combining aspects of both the normal and Ultimate versions of the Hulk. I liked how they introduced the Leader and Roth did a decent job with his character even if the casting was off (he didn't feel very Eastern European to me and he didn't have much to work with personality-wise). Liv Tyler was... Liv Tyler. The fight scenes were a lot of fun, the transformations were great, and we got to not only see the power difference between a calm Hulk and an enraged Hulk, but we got to see him go all "HULK SMASH!" to boot. Total win.

All said, I think they did about as good a job as can be done with the Hulk. He's not a very big screen kind of character. He's basically a "good werewolf who just wants to be left alone" kind of character, so it makes writing stories in that medium kind of hard to do.
 
The latest Hulk was little substance, but enjoyable to watch.

I missed the GREAT depth and complexity the first movie explored, but this one really was an entirely different direction.
 
Ben Sisko3 said:
You're thinking of William Hurt, there.
Click to expand...
You're right, of course. you know actually I had the sense that I was mixing up my Hurts but i was feeling to lazy to look it up to confirm. John hurt is first victim of the eponymous Alien.
 
I thought this movie was a much bigger improvement (compared to the first one by Ang Lee) in terms of plot, character development and overall cinematography. Edward Norton portrayed a very anguished and tormented scientist who had to live in isolation and be extremely wary of his emotions lest he unleashed a destructive force. I didn't really care much for the CGI Hulk in this movie or the first one, but I honestly don't know how else they would pulled it off. I'm actually going to buy the DVD for my three-year-old nephew, who's quite a Marvel enthusiast.
 
This one had more action than the Ang Lee film, but it didn't approach the scale of that one. There was nothing here to rival Lee's desert battle with the military, for example...even if you had to sit through five hours of psychodrama to get to it. There are only so many times you can show the Hulk smashing up a car....

On the pro side, while I didn't like Norton's pipsqueaky voice, he did capture the essence of Banner from the TV show and the classic comics in that he had you rooting for him not to change. In Lee's film, you wanted Bruce Bana to change and kick some ass because he was such a cypher/tool otherwise.
 
^

That's funny I always thought Banner would have a 'pipsqueaky' voice.

Look how he's drawn in those first 7 or so years of the comic--he was a pipsqueak.

"Who is the man with the raspy voice and pockmarked face---SHAS"
"He's an ugly mother-fu......."
"Shut your mouth!"
"But I'm talkin' 'bout SHAS !"
" Yo' damn right !"
 
I would have given Banner a "weak", mild-mannered, thoughtful-sounding voice...but he wouldn't have been an out-and-out pipsqueak.
 
I enjoyed it. Loved the nods to the television series, and thought the effects and editing (especially in the opening act) were far more effective than anything found in the Ang Lee film. Which I find anything but a film containing depth. Ang Lee is a great director (I point to Lust, Caution and The Ice Storm), but he was out of his capabilities with The Hulk and it shows in the bizarre, incomprehensible action sequences and the flashy, but ultimately grating comic-book editing style.
 
I was underwhelmed by it.

One complaint was the final fight scene. I think when you have just about ANY climatic battle in a film there should be some foreshadowing about how the hero defeats the villain. In this movie, they fight. Hulk strangles him. Big whoop.

In Iron Man, at least they talked about that reactor thingy beforehand, plus the problem with the armor freezing. In Batman Begins, they fight on the train his dad built, crashing it almost into the HQ of the company his dad owned. In Spider-Man 2, Parker reminds Ock of a time when he was somewhat sane.

In this one, they just fight. No depth. No cleverness.
 
So, every fight has to end with a contrived piece of "cleverness"?

For example, Detective Sgt. Sykes defeats the drugged out newcomer alien (Terrence Stamp) by throwing him in salt water at the end of Alien Nation, which has obviously been established as acidic to newcomers in the first act for no other reason except to facilitate the end of the fight.

Now I don't mind such things in all cases, but can't a fight just be a fight sometimes?
 
The final fight did have some depth to it. You just had to know the character. They demonstrated, quite convincingly, how "powered up" the Hulk gets as he gets angrier and angrier.

At the start of the fight he was no match for the Abomination (as demonstrated clearly during the first blow when they charged each other). As the battle continued, the Hulk became more and more enraged, until the final bout when he went over the top after realizing the Abomination was about to kill Betty. Completely enraged, he shouted out his one trademark catchphrase, and was all over the Abomination... to the point of being able to tear out an entire bone-spike with ease and nearly ripping his head off. The Hulk from the start of the fight would never have been able to do that.

The guy playing the Leader even foreshadowed it to an extent when he was talking about the limitless power the Hulk possessed.

So yeah, if you're not really familiar with the character or weren't paying close attention, it could have looked that way. But it was all there. The Hulk is just a hard character to put on film.
 
At least this time Hulk killed in his rampages. Ang Lee's version had tanks tossed about and guys crawling out like a GI JOE cartoon.

Jennifer Connelly's overrated. Guys are just so :luvlove: with her.

Not that Liv Tyler's all that, either, but the role is just a bunch of daddy-hating and cryfests anyway.
 
A Clockwork Lim said:
The final fight did have some depth to it. You just had to know the character. They demonstrated, quite convincingly, how "powered up" the Hulk gets as he gets angrier and angrier.

At the start of the fight he was no match for the Abomination (as demonstrated clearly during the first blow when they charged each other). As the battle continued, the Hulk became more and more enraged, until the final bout when he went over the top after realizing the Abomination was about to kill Betty. Completely enraged, he shouted out his one trademark catchphrase, and was all over the Abomination... to the point of being able to tear out an entire bone-spike with ease and nearly ripping his head off. The Hulk from the start of the fight would never have been able to do that.

The guy playing the Leader even foreshadowed it to an extent when he was talking about the limitless power the Hulk possessed.

So yeah, if you're not really familiar with the character or weren't paying close attention, it could have looked that way. But it was all there. The Hulk is just a hard character to put on film.
Click to expand...

Problem is, I remember watching this film and thinking they've never said "the madder he gets the stronger he gets". Yes, they establish that anger makes him transform, but not that it makes him stronger after being transformed. But I'm not totally positive about this, to be honest, if someone can prove me wrong, please go ahead. I know that they establish it in the first movie, but I consider that a separate continuity.
 
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