The Incredible Hulk (2008)

Hot off the heals of the mega-successful and first cohesive Marvel Movie-verse film Iron Man, came The Incredible Hulk. Unlike Iron Man however, the early production news of Hulk was painful and depressing. First was the decision to pretend the first movie never happened, which while understandable it did not give a sense of comfort. Secondly was announcing the Zak Penn, the hack who wrote X-Men 3, would be writing it. And then lastly was announcing that Louis Leterrier, director of The Transporter 2 which featured some astoundingly ridiculous action scenes, would helm it. But then a funny thing happened, Ed Norton was cast as Bruce Banner and all of my fears vanished. A little known fact is that Ed Norton has a clause in his contracts that allows him to re-write scripts as he sees fit and while that may sound like a d*ck move all writers who’ve worked with him have said that typically he works very respectfully with the writers and actually brings added reality to the characters. And according to many interviews and other blurbs, Norton and Leterrier rewrote the pretty much entire script.

(SIDE NOTE: Why do I think Zak Penn is a hack, aside from the entirety of X-Men 3 that is? In an interview about the movie he stated that the character of Emil Blonsky would not be called Abomination because it’s a silly name. Yeah, because casual movie goers are going to be turned off by a silly name like Abomination. Because Magneto, Professor X, Doctor Octopus, The Thing, Doctor Doom, Silver Surfer, Punisher, Spider-Man, Sandman, Mr. Fantastic, and even Batman, Superman are in no way silly. Actually Abomination is less silly then every single one of those. Again, Zak Penn is a hack.)
But did it work?

Hell yes!

I still enjoy the original, the way they addressed the inner demons idea to the Hulk and what not, but this movie was THE perfect Hulk movie. A fantastic move in that the origin is told via images and small clips played during the opening credits therefore allowing the story to pick up with Banner already on the run. Plenty of action, incredibly well laid out characters, a couple great cameos, many references to the original TV series, and some actions that are now considered classic Hulk staples such as the Hulk Clap (not an STD). Everything about it felt pure and true to the comic while at the same time telling a pretty original story.

All the actors brought their A game which to me helped to further eliminate the pretentious idea of, “it’s just a comic book movie.” Tim “Mr. Orange” Roth is absolutely polarizing as Emil Blonsky every time he’s on screen, even in scenes where he’s just sitting and waiting for something to happen you can just feel this urgency inside of his character. William Hurt does a phenomenal job of making General Ross a complete @$$hole who honestly believes that what he’s doing is the right thing, something completely lacking from the very likable portrayal by Sam Elliot in the first one. Liv Tyler, though not on the same level as Roth or Hurt, did bring an added human feel to the character of Betty Ross that I just can’t put my finger on how to describe, it just felt natural and real. On that same note Ed Norton was of course awesome taking over the roll of Bruce Banner.

There are plenty of geek out moments such as the introduction of Dr. Leonard Sampson (though this can be missed) and Samuel Sterns (if you don’t know who that is and you haven’t seen the movie, I won’t spoil it for you). Also they reference a few Marvel-verse things such as certain World War II points of interest as well as another S.H.I.E.L.D. reference (which is impossible to miss), and of course a line that were horribly lacking from the first movie. I’ll leave you to guess what it was.

Marvel Movie Score: 9.5

Why This?: It is impossible to make a fun Hulk movie. Well it is possible but that’s not what the Hulk is about. Since it’s about inner demons and what not it’s going to have to be a little dark and therefore not as fun as Iron Man, and therefore it’s the only reason I can’t give it a 10. But obviously I believe it to be a great movie and I’m sad to hear that there may not be a sequel because they really set one up, though depending on how they do the Avengers movie that could easily work as the sequel. Additionally Ed Norton had a little bit of a disagreement with Marvel Studios as he wanted the final cut of the movie to be a little more story driven and a little less action. Hopefully he now understands that they were really gun shy about doing this after the fallout of the first movie.