The Hulk Review
by Michael Redman (redman AT bluemarble DOT net)October 2nd, 2003
Banner's Shadow Fun But Overly Grandiose
The Hulk
PG-13
138 Minutes
*** 1/2 (out of *****)
By Michael Redman
There's a monster inside all of us just waiting to be unleashed. Or so some people would have us believe.
Certain religious sects and philosophers preach about the dark side of individuals that must be kept down. It's so powerful that punishments from the gods are threatened to keep people in line. Give in to the monster and sin and you go to hell or are struck dead by a lightning bolt or have to fight your son with a light-sabre.
Carl Jung takes a more integrated approach and says we must incorporate our shadow into ourself to be a whole person. Mild mannered and extremely repressed Bruce Banner has buried his shadow so deep that when it comes out, it's an entirely different entity: big, green and full of rage.
The Hulk is director Ang Lee's ("The Ice Storm", "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon") conception of Marvel's comic-bookized Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Although the Hulk has undergone several transformations since his creation by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in the early sixties, the one constant is his famed line: "You're making me angry. You won't like me when I'm angry."
Lee's film is an ambitious one, succeeding more often than it fails. This movie is big enough to contain the massive Hulk and his savageness. Both the scope and scale are grand. When the gigantic behemoth tears apart tanks with his bare hands, it feels tangible.
Like other recent comic book adaptations, the effects are generally first-rate. Even the French Poodle Hulk comes across much better than it has any right to.
Most of the time, the Hulk looks and moves as if he could exist in the real world, but there are problems during a few scenes. Sometimes the Hulk looks authentic and the desert backgrounds are remarkable, but they don't appear to exist in the same universe. The comic Hulk has had several looks over the years as various artists have interpreted him. The film would have been better served by choosing a slightly different version that didn't look so much like a heavily stylized drawing.
The details are part of what makes the film enjoyable. When the army fires at him; the bombs land near the Hulk, he sees them and then they blow rather than the traditional explosion upon impact. That second of quiet anticipation in the midst of chaos is a masterpiece of direction.
Lee's vision is grandiose and unfortunately, overly so. The reason for Bruce's transformation into the Hulk is unnecessarily convoluted. His father experiments upon himself before conception, Bruce is exposed to gamma radiation, there's a recovered childhood memory and he has nano-somethings in his blood that the movie doesn't make very clear how they got there.
The attempts to make the film look like a comic book by using stylized wipes and pictures within pictures, like a comic page, don't work well. The reason comics use these designs is because they have to. The figures don't move; they're frozen images. Film is a very different medium. To use the concepts that comics have borrowed from movies to create the idea of movement when you actually have movement to work with seems backwards and is distracting.
The acting ranges from excellent to acceptable. Eric Bana turns in an adequate job as our hero, but Bruce is such a dull character that it's a pleasure when he's replaced by computer animation. Sam Elliott, he of the great voice, is General "Thunderbolt" Ross, the Hulk's military nemesis. Elliott is satisfactory, but his quirky cockeyed head-tilt, speaking out of the side of his mouth is distracting. Jennifer Connelly's character, Betty Ross, Bruce's love interest, is the only woman of major screen time and a disappointment. Her character could use some assertiveness training and a pair of scissors to cut daddy's apron strings.
The real standout is Nick Nolte as Bruce's crazed father. Although it might not be much of a stretch, Nolte has his mad genius role finely honed and rants and raves with the best of them. When the Hulk-Dad's powers manifest, it's the best effects in the movie.
The message of the morality play in the film is obvious. Give your dark side the respect and time that it deserves. If you don't believe this, watch The Hulk and see what is going to happen when your shadow takes over.
Michael Redman has written film reviews in Bloomington since before the invention of movable type. You can contact him at [email protected] with tales from your dark side.
[This originally appeared in the Bloomington (Indiana) Free Press]
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