Movie Info
Rating:
PG-13
Starring:
Ed Norton, Liv Tyler, William Hurt and Tim Roth
Director:
Louis Leterrier
Everything that the ’03 attempt at revamping the Hulk with Eric Bana wasn’t, this enjoyable romp is. The earlier Ang Lee-directed installment went auteur and was actually a tad heavy-handed with the scientific references. Moviegoers felt like they were back in 10th grade chemistry class, not a cinema. This one doesn’t even bother showing scientist Bruce Banner (Norton) making his first boo-boo in the laboratory. It simply explains it all in a quick montage: Too much radiation. Too little his love, Betty Ross (Liv Tyler), could do to keep him from harm’s way. Too big of a problem for Gen. Thunderbolt Ross (William Hurt) to restrain to a lab.
Hulk officially opens with Banner as far from Ross and the U.S. military as possible- the impoverished hills of Brazil. He’s laying low in South America as a day laborer at a bottling plant. One day Bruce cuts himself and a dab of his blood spills into a bottle. An old guy back in the States (Stan Lee, in his typical, quick-cameo fashion) gets the juice, drinks it and dies from a gamma reaction. The General finds out the source of the contamination, rounds up his troops (including a fearless Tim Roth) and heads down there. The manhunt is on. Unfortunately for them, Bruce isn’t the biggest fan of manhunts.
You, on the other hand, are gonna love it when Banner’s angry. While we’re certain technology’s improved since Ang Lee’s version dropped, it’s hard to fathom how different the two green giants appear on screen. This one runs smoother, crushes stuff better and simply looks cooler. It even does the Hulk Smash. (Old school heads will know what we’re talking about.) And you can’t say enough about Norton, an actor’s actor who’s carrying on the recent trend of comic leads (The Dark Knight’s Christian Bale, Iron Man’s Robert Downey Jr.) who play the hero yet do so with a pinch of vulnerability.
But who are we kiddin’? Most folk giving up their $10 to see this flick are doing it because of the carnage they plan on witnessing. You won’t be disappointed. Long after the credits have rolled, action fiends will still be talking about the frantic fighting sequence between the Hulk and Abomination (Roth, after his own spine-tingling transformation) in Manhattan. It’s bold. It’s over the top. It’s Marvel Comics doing what it’s supposed to be doing on the big screen.
