The Incredible Hulk (2008)

Thank God for Homosexual cowboys! Well at least that must have been what director Ang Lee uttered under his breath once the enormous critical and box office success of Brokeback Mountain helped him sweep his dull, confusing and all too dramatic 2003 Hulk movie under the red carpet. Unfortunately though, it left a bit of a mess for Marvel to clean up with too, regarding getting one of their most recognisable and popular comic hero's back to the big screen and favourable once again with the fans.

Ang Lee's Hulk was actually very critically acclaimed, it was hailed as a super hero movie with intelligence and explored the deep and emotional side of Bruce Banners inner rage...the only thing is though, is that was never a direction a Hulk movie should have gone in. Well not to the extent that it did. It was like serving a truck driver a plate of caviar at a road side cafe when he was expecting a bacon toasted sarnie. The Hulk was meant to be an action packed "fun" movie with the big green guy smashing the scenes off the screen. Instead we got some weird over long trip into his tortured mind and when we did get to see the Emerald anti-hero...he was barely angry and mostly in a solemn reflective mood. The few action sequences that were in it were unsatisfying and mainly very dark and hard to make out (OK the tank smashing scene was arguably the highlight of the movie but not enough to carry the movie to an agreeable state) and featured stupid and daft enemies such as 3 ravage mutant dogs (whoever thought a killer poodle would make a great rival to The Hulk was a damn fool) or his clearly unbeatable shape shifting father for the unexciting and weird climax of the movie.

I was always hoping The Hulk would be given a second chance to prove himself a worthy big screen franchise, so I was pretty excited when I heard The Incredible Hulk was hitting the big screens as a follow up/reworking of the previous movie, with Edward Norton starring as The Hulks alter-ego Bruce Banner. My wife Caroline and I went to see it in the cinema on the night before my birthday and I was thoroughly satisfied with the experience. Transporter 2 director Louis Leterrier handled the responsibility of unleashing The Hulk with a lot more respect and with the fans interest at heart, using different origins of the character, noteably the "always on the run" stories from the 70's world wide successful television series. The movie doesn't retell the 2003 Hulk story but gives a brief alternative history to the characters' creation in the opening credits before getting the movie started some 5 years later in Brazil, so it does kind of feel like a sequel without actually being one. The movie is fast and fun as we meet Ed Norton's Bruce Banner in hiding trying to cure himself of the beast or at least learn how to control it. Soon located by William Hurts' General "Thunderbolt" Ross and the military an awesome chase sequence through a small Brazilian town leads us to our first glimpse of The Hulk. The Hulk comes across very threatening and you could feel the danger of his presence on the screen, something that was totally void in Ang Lee's The Hulk. This movie didn't try to be anything it wasn't, it had a simple structure and moved along at a very digestible pace and although I loved all the action sequences served up, I found myself enjoying the non Hulk sequences that joined them very much too. I think the cast handled their roles respectively, none of the talented cast having to push themselves at all but all being pretty solid to support the mighty green fella. I was mostly surprised with how much I enjoyed Tim Roth's character Emil Blonsky, as throughout the movie he is slowly transformed into an arch enemy more that suitable to rival the Hulk, in the form of the menacing Abomination. The climatic battle was all I could wish for for a perfect Hulk movie, the cgi characters never actually looking convincingly realistic but solid enough to get you roaring in The Hulks corner as he really finds his match in the bigger enemy. I left the auditorium fully pumped up, wanting to clench my fists and roar at the top of my lungs and rip the seats out of the floor as I walked past them on my way out and throw them across the cinema! Yup, I was a satisfied customer!

I know The Incredible Hulk will either having you wanting to see it or not interested at all from the get go, but at least this time around, it definitely does what it says on the tin, and despite not setting the box office alight, it still out grossed the previous effort nicely to hopefully confirm a further outing for the character.

The Incredible Hulk "Full force, fast paced, exciting and fun action movie for the family...at last!" *** 1/2