Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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23 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
In the Opinion of the Humble..., November 16, 2003
The "Hulk" is a good movie, often times great. The first half of the movie is a long, methodical character study of people under immense emotional torture, especially Bruce Banner (a pitch-perfect Eric Bana) and Betty Ross (Jennifer Connely). It is hinted that they share a dark past filled with absentee fathers and a secret military project that they might now be working on again, 30 years later. This first half or so is the reason why the "Hulk" was not well recieved among viewers and critics. People were expecting either another "Spiderman" or another "X-Men" or its sequel, filled with those films' brimming everyman qualities and light-pacing throughout, or the Hulk of the 70s t.v. show, who aided people when he had and anger spell. But director Ang Lee opted for a more tragic approach, with plenty of Freudinized angst, along the lines of repressed memories manifesting themselves in dreams. And while Lee sometimes overdoes it, his decision ultimately makes "Hulk" far more interesting than the t.v. show whose premise wore thin after a few episodes and a little more intriguing than Marvels past comic-book adaptations . However, action junkies need not fear. Things kick into high gear in the film's fast-paced and action-packed final act as Banner escapes from a military compound where they were hoping to harvest him for their own purposes. He then proceeds to tear up the california desert in a wondrously shot sequence that shows off the ILM's incredibly life-like and belivable Hulk creation and the films' unique style of editing that makes the film feel like a comic-book with skillfully juxtaposed images from various camera shots that describe various scenes that occur simaltaneously in the film.It should be said, though, that "Hulk" is not as artistically accomplished as Director Lee's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" or perhaps other acclaimed films in his catalog. "Hulk" at times suffers from uneven pacing, some mind-numbing psycological probing and timid acting. But overall, "Hulk" stands on its own as a dark, brooding and spectacular comic-book adaption that had the balls to take the "Hulk" to places no one ever expected something like the "Hulk" to go. And while having the guts to do something daring is instantly laudable, "Hulk," even with its flaws, still succeeds surprisingsly well.
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Fantasy Come Back To Haunt Us All!, July 3, 2003
For any of us brought up with regular overdoses of big, big Lou Ferrigno as the Incredible Hulk on TV, the leap into the computer-created Hulk on the silver screen is a mind-boggling jump indeed. This is a very entertaining movie, and while it may not always make a lot of sense, it brings out the wide-eyed kid in all of us as the far-fetched idea of a secretly genetically-enhanced body of young scientist Bruce Banner get a mighty dollop of gamma-ray contamination, and this sends his biochemistry into serious overdrive. By the time the plot finally winds around to a situation when Bruce gets cornered and suddenly becomes enraged, I found the audience around me cheering for the appearance of the unbelievably big and powerful green monstrosity at last. The movie is very well made technically, although the same cannot be said for the drama of the piece. So as the Hulk begins his involuntary rampages, we are awed by the pyrotechnics and sheer overkill innate in a creature of such stunning size and power. Indeed, he is a radical bodybuilder's dream, with an upper body to die for, a veritable nightmare of deltoids, pecs, lats, and incredible traps, a guy with biceps so big he could squash a Studebaker with them. Bu this is guy isn't a circus clown intent on entertaining the public for pocket change. This is a tortured soul with plenty of attitude. And the authorities accommodate that attitude by compounding his pain with angst and anger. So the rampage goes on. Of course, this is all punctuated with the subplots anyone familiar with the comic book series is aware of, and a few new to the twisting and turning plotline. The love interest and humanizing factor in the Hulk's rage is his dimwitted recollection of Banner's erstwhile intellectual foil and main squeeze wanna-be, the lovely Jennifer Connelly, who must be dumbfounded indeed to go from playing the wife of someone with a brilliant mind in her last Oscar winning performance to now being the plaything of a big, brawny green monstrosity here. But she plays it straight, and gives a good performance in a movie that really is a set piece for the big green guy. Another cast members perform equally as well, and one is impressed by the quality of the cast, which includes people like Sam Elliott, Nick Nolte, and of course, Eric Bana as Bruce Banner, the Hulk's calmer alter-ego. Ther is also a nice cameo by Lou Ferrigno as a Security Chief that provides a nice tribute to his former incarnation as the big green guy himself. I recommend this movie, which I view as a great continuation of the old classic monster movies of the 1940s and 195os. I think we can all rest assured that the Hulk will return for any number of sequels, and long may he rage against the machine! Enjoy!
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11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
What's missing? Why I cannot praise this film., February 21, 2004
For fans of the HULK in all of his incarnations, this film cannot be the best thing ever, because of reasons I want to suggest here. I rented this after missing it in the theaters so maybe I am missing the big screen experience, but here are my thoughts after watching the film and the extras. If you havent seen it, then don't read this review. there are some spoilers (I do think fans should see it, but I also was disappointed) so stop here if you do not want the experience ruined for you.Okay, first we have the origin story. What made the Hulk's origin so moving is the desperation of the test with the "gamma bomb" and Bruce Banner saving Rick Jones, and sacrificing himself to the bomb's rays. Here in the film, we have a pseudo-scientific update using "nanomeds" bathed in gamma rays that Bruce already possessed due to his Dr. Frankenstein-like father (Nick Nolte, I will say more about him later). I have problems with that because why complicate the issue by making another prior origin to the event that transforms Bruce into the Hulk? It becomes anti-climactic when Bruce is sacrificing himself in the movie. I may incite arguments from people who loved the film, but really think about it. Why have his transformation be a two step process? Unless the father/son thing was the impetus for the whole film (which it should NOT have been). It is true that Peter David has psychoanalyzed Banner in the comics, and it is entertaining to a degree, but to make Bruce and his hulkness a product of his father's tampering, is to change the origin completely! The tragedy of the Hulk (presented in HULK #1 by JACK KIRBY (shame on the filmmakers for not giving him more credit!) and Stan "the man" Lee) is that it is an accident, that happens to a decent man who is also a genius. No offense to Eric Bana, but the Bruce Banner in the film is basically there to become the hulk. You do not buy into his being a genius. He is too young. My idea of a Banner would have been Kevin Speacy, who could have played a genius, and capture the humanity of the scientist. Bana is not bringing anything to the table, and he admits it in the 2nd disc. The other thing that I noticed was the misuse of Nick Nolte as the father. What could have worked were flashbacks to Bruce's childhood and maybe the intro of the anger issues. But to use the father as the villain is (I'm sorry) stupid. What made spider man such a success is that the origin story is straightforward, the villain intense, and the tragedy inherent. HULK is the opposite. The story is convoluted, the villain nonexistent (the army was always just a 3rd party that hunted the hulk. They do not qualify as "villains". They are just "puny humans". Again, Nick Nolte as the final "showdown villain" makes no sense, even as we have been given his sort of backstory of madness and being locked up for 30 years (?) except maybe to show off some special effects) and the tragedy is less powerful than it could have been because of these things. Why not have a pure villain? (The Leader, for instance, the REAL absorbing man, or even The Abomination) The film would have been SO much better if the origin was relegated to the first 30 minutes (like Parker's in Spider man) and the rest of the film the plight of the monster, but I guess I am just wishing for things here. For a 2 1/2 hour film, the editing did not speed up the process of telling the story at all, even with the split screening.
I want to say something good about the film, and this is because I love comics. It does try very hard to be a serious drama and succeeds in that you do not laugh at all. They gave HULK the big budget treatment, with a hot current director. The music is intense from Danny Elfman, and worthy of praise. It is an emotional film to a degree, but it is so bleak that you feel drained after watching it. I compare it to Spider man, because Sam Raimi treated spider man seriously, but he kept the element of FUN and ADVENTURE that fans loved. Ang Lee is so talented, but he is more interested in telling stories about people and their problems, than telling a straightforward action tale. I don't fault him though, this was a project that probably had hundereds of people poking their noses into it until there was no story left to tell. On the second disc, Gale Anne Hurd (producer of such epics as the terminator series, and the Abyss and forgettable fare like the Relic and Virus.) says that they really "tried to capture the essence of the comics and what comic fans loved about the Hulk." Kudos for trying, but speaking as a long time fan of the comics: "You failed Gale."
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