“The Incredible Hulk” is the story of a chase. The chaser is the U.S.
government, led here by the sour General “Thunderbolt” Ross (William Hurt) and
his fleet of helicopters, missiles, tanks, and armed soldiers. The chased is
Bruce Banner (Edward Norton), a gentle man who voluntarily became a lab
experiment with the help of Betty Ross (Liv Tyler). Whenever the newly minted
and likable Bruce becomes angry, he morphs into The Hulk, a frightening giant
who reflects Bruce’s anger with growls and howls of rage. An angry man becomes
an angry hulk.
The
filmmakers obviously love the morphing process. So much so that they create a
second monster from malleable clay: Blonsky (Tim Roth, able to catch evil in a
single expression). Blonsky invites an injection of the blood serum that will
put him on equal footing with his adversary. Of these two guys, one nice, one
nasty, one of them is always in a state of transmogrification.
Early on, the
movie promises to be a nice thriller with periodic appearances by Hulk, but as
time passes and the filmmakers become enthralled with their own special effects
talents, the battle between the army and Hulk swallows the picture whole. We
lose Edward Norton who we were ready to follow on the road to curing himself of
his monstrous self. Along with the movie, Mr. Norton disappears into the barrage
of special effects set to a score of relentless machine gun fire. It’s a little
pathetic that we find ourselves waiting hopefully through the gunfire for Bruce
to succeed with his anger management techniques so he can be with Betty –
anything but those machine guns.
We learn
rather gradually that the general wants to extract “It” (the transformative
serum) from Bruce in order to make all powerful weapons and that Bruce, wants to
destroy “It” even if his research buddy Mr. Blue wants to use it to help
humanity. And so it always goes: if something can be used for evil, it will be.
Fairly straightforward, that. And genuinely dull.
There are
some nice shots of 4WD vehicles jumping hedges, but after a while we question
our tolerance for watching the two hulks pick up and slam them together as if
they were tiny barbells. When the gentle giant clasps Betty in his hand and
saves her from a roaring inferno, we know this scene belongs to King Kong alone
and deserves no comment. We watch a brief, very brief, love scene of tangled
limbs knowing that if Bruce gets too excited, he will Hulk.
If only the
story had absorbed us, we might be thrilled to watch two Hulks racing toward
each other in the climactic battle in front of the legendary Apollo Theater.
Because the movie has none of the charm of the wonderful “Iron Man” it’s hard to
get our hopes up as Bruce races across the rooftops of New York straight into
the making of a sequel.
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