An incredible disappointment. Review on The Hulk Movie

The Incredible Hulk. This popular TV series in the 70s and early 80's caused a sensation! The idea of a bio-genetic experiment gone completely out of control causing mild mannered Dr David Banner to turn into the imposing and in every sense of the word, incredible Hulk was revolutionary, very well conceived and most of all, well ahead of its time. Having watched many episodes of the Incredible Hulk when I was really young, I was very excited when news of the 2003 release of The Hulk reached my ears. Like everyone else who had seen the Hulk back in the day, I was curious to see how this powerful character would be depicted in 21st century Hollywood. And what was more it was directed by Ang Lee - the director of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, a movie I couldn't get enough of!

The second the opening credits started, I started getting a feel of the direction the movie was going towards. The all too familiar 21st century computer generated special effects cliche. Dr. David Banner (played by Nick Nolte - who by the way looks nothing like Bill Bixby who played the original Dr Banner) is an ill tempered scientist who is on the throes of making a discovery - gamma radiation that would genetically enhance humans to have superhuman strength. Not surprisingly he is doing this as a highly classified project for the US military. But things go wrong when Dr Banner wants to try this on himself! In the course of doing so - he ends up killing his wife - in front of his son. But the son escapes and many years later - coincidentally enough gets involved in the same research project at Berkeley - and from now on it's the story of Dr. Bruce Banner(played by Eric Bana) - and his colleague/ex-girlfriend Betty Ross (played by Jennifer Connelly).

The story takes a different pitch from here. Starting with a very stretched out sequence in the labs - doing different experiments. About a third of the movie runs like a science documentary on the Discovery Channel. And finally when you're beginning to drum your fingers - there he is - the excessive gamma ray exposure goes in and now you see Dr Banner, the young man with the beast inside of him - waiting to come out when he gets mad. Finally when in the lab - Dr. Banner's alter ego comes out for the first time - the first thing that comes to your mind is - we waited so long to see this??!! Genetically enhanced Banner in all his green menacing glory is no more than a maze of green pixels meshed together! Then starts the demonstration of the Hulk's super powers. Yep smashing buildings, tossing cars across the street - the whole nine yards. Is it believable enough? Sadly not. Of course since the director really couldnt put you through 2 hours of computer animated mayhem - he adds the twist. The older Dr Banner is still alive - and watches his son living through his own dream! And wants a piece of the action for himself!Then you have a bad guy who wants to take over the lab to patent the Hulk's powers for his own benefit And finally, there's the military - under who's jurisdiction this whole project was conceived!

So - between the frying pan and the fire - you watch the young man and the beast suffering the repressed memories of his mother's death and denial of his right to lead a normal human existence - after a while you begin to feel sorry for the guy. Then as if his life weren't bad enough, there is a power struggle between mad-scientist father and son. All in all, there's just too many things going at once - and you're not really sure who the bad guy is. I was disappointed at the different dimensions added to this story not to mention the flashy film style with comic book style multiple screens and screen dissolves. You will ultimately get to a point where you are not really sure whether you want to enjoy the impossible things the Hulk is able to do (like tossing huge army tanks or even being able to make those superhuman leaps across mountains and valleys)or suffer the pain that he is going through.

Now that I think about it, when Spider-man had come out last year and blew box office records out of the water, it was not all that Hollywood had cracked it up to be. Apart from watching Spidey pull off some impossible stunts which really failed to impress because they were so blatantly fake, there was nothing else! Taking a comic book superhero and essentially converting him into an angst ridden young man with a dual personality somehow didnt give me the warm-and-fuzzy that I had expected. Similarly hen I walked out of the theater after watching the Hulk I had the same feeling - what is it with directors adding these multi-dimensional attitudes to superheroes? Gone are the days where good guy beats bad guy - good guy wins and everybody's happy! If you argue that it's an old formula, let me tell you, it's a formula that works.