The last few years have proved to be a cinematic golden age for
Marvel Comics, which has seen most of its top comics turned into hit films. Yet
for every hit, such as the X-Men, and Spider-Man, there have been
disappointments…like the Hulk. Directed by Ang Lee, who made such memorable
dramas as The Ice Storm, expectations were high that he would revitalize the
saga of the "big green guy", who was not only well-known from the comics and the
1960s cartoon, but also from the memorable 1970s TV show that starred Bill Bixby
and Lou Ferrigno. In a nod to this series, which changed the name of the main
character from Bruce to David Banner (played by Bixby), Lee’s Hulk reuses the
David name for Bruce’s father, who is something of a mad scientist hard at work
at a desert military base on finding a way to boost the human immune system, so
that soldiers could withstand all manner of biological weapons.
When he makes progress with animals (animal lovers may wish to skip the title
sequence, which shows various critters being subjected to some harsh experiments)
Banner wants to experiment on humans, but the base commander refuses on moral
grounds. Undeterred, Banner Senior simply experiments on himself. When his wife
gives birth to a bouncing baby boy, Banner inadvertently passes his weird
mutated genes onto little Bruce. Not too concerned with the health of his only
child, Banner proceeds to monitor the kid--at least until a massive
confrontation occurs between him and his wife, leading up to an explosion on the
base of a giant green mushroom cloud.
Years later, little Bruce (Eric Bana) grows up to be a scientist himself,
working on gamma radiation experiments with his estranged lover Betty Ross
(Jennifer Connelly) that make frogs explode. Things get even more hairy for
Bruce when he gets accidentally caught in the gamma radiation booth. But
instead of dying, Bruce begins to hulk out whenever he gets angry, and that’s
when the fun really begins. The Hulk isn’t a terrible movie, but it’s
certainly not the best of the Marvel Comics adaptations, either. While Ang Lee
may be a superlative filmmaker, I got the feeling that he just didn’t "get it"
with the Hulk. He tries to amp up the drama quotient in the film, and the
superb cast is more than capable of handling these talky scenes, yet it also
gives the Hulk a great deal of emotional baggage that also bogs the narrative
down to a deathly crawl.
Another problem is the silly comic book framing that Lee constantly inserts his
scenes into, which cancels out whatever seriousness he attempts to achieve, and
gives the film a very uneven feel overall. There are some satisfying moments of
Bruce Banner "hulking out" here, especially a lengthy sequence where the Hulk
battles the United States Army--single-handedly bashing a quartet of M-1 Abrams
tanks, and then taking on a squadron of attack copters in the high
desert--that’s great fun to watch. But these scenes are overpowered by the
muddled metaphysical mess that occurs at the film’s climax. Jennifer Connelly
and Sam Elliot are the two standouts of the cast--they both effectively managed
to make their characters very sympathetic--while I felt very sorry for Eric Bana
and Josh Lucas, for having been given the thankless job of breathing life into a
pair of cardboard characters. The Hulk may be an interesting film for comics
fanatics to sample (mostly as an example of how not to make a comics adaptation),
but as far as I’m concerned, the 1970s TV show still remains the definitive, and
far superior, take of the Incredible Hulk.
--SF
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