Psychology and Smashing Things 101. Review on The Hulk Movie

One of the more or less highly anticipated comic book adaptations in recent memory, Ang Lee’s Hulk is also one of the more visibly deceitful and accordingly disappointing. A great sociological experiment, Hulk reveals volumes about the film-going populace in relation to itself, bad word-of-mouth and its surfeit of merchandising and advertising while simultaneously speaking as little as possible for its actual content. That its content is hardly more than an emaciated psychodrama with infrequent booms and flashes, is respectable in bringing such pretension to the artless audiences of summer but the task ultimately folds under such a weak construction, clearly doing more damage than good in the epic to popularize more artistic films. However, less an artistic film and more a doomsday account of its titular character’s transformation than even a comic book actioner, there’s further something odd at work here when a small few (very few mind you) defend and confuse its brand of tightly-stretched-and-over-drawn behemoth-like origin narrative as a sort of enlightening psychological dissection rather than the tedious and unstructured, gimmicky beast that it is.

Treading, and consequently brutalizing, the lines between high comic book camp and a grave cerebral study, former (and perhaps again someday) auteurist Ang Lee’s approach is a mismatch of the ill-conceived and the unconceivable. The flowery kinetic CG action work is a glorious paucity and consequently the bulk of its focus is woefully enamored with its characters’ embarrassed relationships and inevitably peculiar dialogue. Wooden, if occasionally admirable performances, frequent the film as well, posthumously exhausting the material to its death, if such a notion is even possible. One would think (or would like to think) that Lee’s diverse résumé (e.g. The Ice Storm, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) could envision the material beyond its artificial, and antiquated pop psychology (courtesy of legendary Stan Lee, who makes a cameo along with Lou Ferrigno), somehow amalgamating its story of schizophrenia, rage and psychodrama with more ambiguous qualities, while exploring the mutant hulk aspect in manner less animated (literally) and more realistic. And if such a proposal is inappropriate then I ask you to simply marvel upon the horrifically disproportionate splendor that Lee has allowed his name to bear. Unless, of course, that was what Lee was going for and somehow was totally disrupted by a rapacious summer production scurry. But not likely.

Bruce Banner (Eric Bana) is an introverted geneticist with a slight case of repression, and fond of playing with mutant amphibious molecules and dangerous chemicals, working along the side of his recent ex-girlfriend Betty Ross (Jennifer Connelly), whose father is military martinet Gen. Ross (Sam Elliot), natch. Years previous, a very young Bruce was exposed to chemical experimentations by his unhinged geneticist father, David (unhinged great, Nick Nolte), who was shut down by a young Ross á la Space Cowboys’s opening, subsequently went mad, caused a disaster and murdered his wife, traumatizing Bruce. Back in the present, Bruce and Betty discuss the bland aches of their relationship and perform a chemical experiment that results in the accidental mutation of Bruce’s already corrupt genetic structure. Thus, our antihero’s past resurfaces; he transforms into a destructive green oaf at every choleric mood, and therapeutically destroys various things.

Admittedly, I have seen worse computer generated images. ILM’s texture and depth here can be impressive, particularly in a scene when David Banner touches his monstrous son’s digital face, the cheek blubber rolling quite realistically. But what I think goads me is that filmmakers, particularly ones as gnomic and talented as Lee (outside of their element), are so persuaded by avaricious producers and studios, themselves, or what have you, that they sabotage any tangible quality of their work with computer animation in the context of their real-life film (as opposed to an entirely animated feature, where it’s obviously appropriate). Antediluvian fans of fantastical cinema will plaint for the days of the daedal craftsmanship in model building, prosthetics, elaborate sets and the very essential elements that can correctly stride those thin lines between fantastical camp and chic popular incompetence. Personally, innovative use of rotoscoping and make-up would have done it for me, not an impossibly smooth computer gummy blob that battles hopelessly cartoonish mutant dogs and leaps ridiculous miles. Maybe that’s just me.

Hulk is so much a vapid and yet supererogatory (and draining) experience that even Lee as its unseen sapient seems less that and more a nameless miscreant running his camera amuck, unvaryingly obsessed with marrying the story’s disparate elements. Hell-bent on studying the effects of genetic mishaps on the psychological state, there isn’t anything much vainer or bombast other than that on sight for nearly half its surplus running time. And for all its anguish and time, the only detectable theme is one of elementary insignificance: we all have rage inside of us and if we’d all be subjected to genetic alteration then we’d want to destroy things (but perhaps that’s the comic’s fault). And if it wanted to be a film simply about madness and involuntary rage, then it nearly succeeded, of course in an entirely unintentional manner. Some time into its flavorless amble on psychological distress and the Oedipus complex, there are bits of interest but they’re rummaged among a concupiscent for a comic book interface editing style that happily depicts montage after angle change after scene change, endlessly. And I mean endlessly. The continual utilization of this editing effect seems to be pointless other than to remind the audience that Hulk is still based on a comic book. However, if this is a true graphic novel adaptation then we’ve come a long way. Unfortunately, this is the wrong movie for the job.