{"id":2244,"date":"2008-06-14T00:29:40","date_gmt":"2008-06-14T04:29:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinemacrazed.wordpress.com\/?p=2244"},"modified":"2008-06-14T00:29:40","modified_gmt":"2008-06-14T04:29:40","slug":"the-incredible-hulk-2008","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2008\/06\/14\/the-incredible-hulk-2008\/","title":{"rendered":"The Incredible Hulk (2008)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"After the unfair lambasting of the disgustingly underrated and under appreciated \u201cHulk\u201d from director Ang Lee, I found myself brutally conflicted on Louis Leterrier\u2019s reboot (Remake? Revision? Restart?), because frankly, it was an apology to fans on a movie that didn\u2019t need one. Lee tried something new, and was punished for it. Sure, Leterrier goes for the obvious, he goes for the simplistic, he shoots for the predictable, but that doesn\u2019t mean \u201cThe Incredible Hulk\u201d isn\u2019t an entertaining movie. While I will be faithful to Ang Lee\u2019s vision of the Hulk, Leterrier puts up a good argument for his version, too.<\/p>\n

Paying subtle lip service to Ang Lee\u2019s interpretation, \u201cThe Incredible Hulk\u201d is a chase film where Bruce Banner is now living in hiding and forced to run from the government who is stalking him and hoping to bring him in before he hurts someone badly. Both parts \u201cThe Wolfman\u201d and \u201cThe Bourne Identity,\u201d LeTerrier turns Banner into a complex and interesting tragic hero with Edward Norton almost perfectly taking off what Eric Bana perfected. Now a man anxious to control his emotions, he becomes the ultimate repressed male in an aggressive society attempting to stay at peace when violence lurks at every corner tempting him.<\/p>\n

His persona as the Hulk is almost a seductive urge, and one that he invokes almost like a sinfully desirable id that is his one and only natural state of being. The Hulk is almost the perfect example of the modern primal man, and when he comes across the top agent Emil Blonsky, there\u2019s a perfect rivalry between the two as alpha Male Blonsky (played with usual psychotic brilliance by Tim Roth) fancies himself the top dog in his platoon when he\u2019s sent to capture Banner. But once the Hulk proves to be an undermining of his form, he seeks physical enhancements to compete with the hulking monster and soon the two primal males butt heads.<\/p>\n

Blonsky becomes the Abomination, a manifestation of his evil and sadistic violence, while The Hulk becomes the more controlled being who can grasp his beastial affliction thanks in part to Betty, who literally tames the unabashed model of raw male emotion and urges. Most of the film is built around Banner running from the government looking to capture, cage, and dissect him while covering up their own accident in the process. When the Abomination finally emerges in the streets and seeks a \u201cReal fight\u201d i.e. his only true nemesis and equal in strength, body mass, and power, it becomes the dominant beast battling the opposing beast in a fight for the lives of city residents.<\/p>\n

Banner must sacrifice his humanity in order to save the very people who wanted to hurt him. Not to mention the trailer doesn\u2019t fool us. There is a rather fantastic showdown in New York City between The Hulk and The Abomination as Penn pays respects to all fans even allowing the Hulk to scream his famous two word catch phrase. LeTerrier doesn\u2019t pull off the complex look at trauma and childhood pain Lee does, but for the people still convinced Marvel has dumbed down this franchise, there\u2019s still plenty of psychological undertones to keep us debating for hours, and for that it gets an A for effort.<\/p>\n

And the cameo in the finale is also a nice nod to folks who have committed to the Marvel gallery for decades, and a sign post leading into a (hopefully) landmark franchise of superheroes protecting New York City. Kudos. We\u2019re still not at that point in CGI where the Hulk can look like anything other than a computer generated character, and for all the slack Ang Lee\u2019s hulk received Leterrier\u2019s version looks no different. He looks like an overgrown computer generated monstrosity with almost no resemblance to the actual man. And while these insignificancies can be ultimately ignored, the simple fact is that the engineers behind this movie never work for as much consistency as the aforementioned director. Why does Bruce\u2019s goatee disappear, and hair extend when he becomes The Hulk?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s never explained, but it\u2019s enough of a continuity error to yank even the most unbiased movie goer out from the narrative, instantly. It sounds like I\u2019m being nitpicky, but I simply found it unusual. As for the writing, most of the time Penn can never decide what motivates his characters, which leaves the audience conflicted in where to ally themselves. Captain Ross is sometimes the doting concerned father forced to choose his military duties over his daughter, and other times he\u2019s exploiting his daughter to get to the Hulk. Sometimes he wants to help the Hulk, and next we discover he wants to use him for a super soldier serum. One moment he\u2019s an honorable soldier, the next he\u2019s a scheming US politician.<\/p>\n

Half the time Emil Blonsky seems distrusting of his government angered at their misinformation and despising their policies, and the next moment he\u2019s prepared to trust them without question and abide by their quick solutions for war. Betty contributes nothing beyond reacting (typical Liv Tyler acting duties) and screaming \u201cNo!\u201d and \u201cBruce!\u201d every other minute. And then there\u2019s Mr. Blue who Penn can never decide is exploiting Bruce, or truly trying to help him in his infliction. If Penn would only decide where to take his characters, LeTerrier\u2019s movie wouldn\u2019t feel so confused and jarring. Penn seems to be riding the line between Lee\u2019s psychological dissertation, and LeTerrier\u2019s simplistic character tones, thus each and every character is everything at once; villains and heroes.<\/p>\n

Protagonists and antagonists. Meanwhile he also wants to focus on Bruce\u2019s efforts to keep The Hulk at bay, but also seems obliged to keep the story moving for fear of boring the audience. That keeps his script poorly paced, in the end. Ultimately, Leterrier\u2019s version of the Hulk is a flawed unofficial follow-up with fuzzy characterization, continuity problems, and a story that\u2019s unevenly paced. Years from now I may regret the positive score after repeated viewings. But for such a considerably shortened running time, writer Penn pops off a lot about the male ego, the intricacies of male dynamics, and what happens when the primal man is let loose in two utterly repressed individuals. It won\u2019t steal \u201cIron Man\u2019s\u201d thunder, but it\u2019s a damn good time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After the unfair lambasting of the disgustingly underrated and under appreciated \u201cHulk\u201d from director Ang Lee, I found myself brutally conflicted on Louis Leterrier\u2019s reboot (Remake? Revision? Restart?), because frankly, it was an apology to fans on a movie that didn\u2019t need one. Lee tried something new, and was punished for it. Sure, Leterrier goes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[58,64,71,491,633,635,678,829,874,906,922,1049,1063,1087],"class_list":["post-2244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-action","tag-adaptation","tag-adventure","tag-i","tag-marvel","tag-marvel-comics","tag-monsters","tag-reboot","tag-romance","tag-science-fiction","tag-sequel","tag-the-avengers","tag-the-hulk","tag-thriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2244\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}