Review: Hulk (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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X-RT-RatingText: 3.5/5