The Hulk - My Thoughts

[chernabog_ca]

Okay so I went with a couple of friends to see The Hulk last night. I went into the movie with low expectations considering everything I’ve heard and considering how poorly it’s doing at the box office. The theatre was busier for a Monday night than I thought it would be, maybe due to the holiday on Tuesday.

What can I say about the movie? It’s not your typical comic book adaptation movie. It is very much character driven. There seems to be two halves or acts to this movie. Now some people might find the first half boring, slow and unnecessary. I am not one of these people. I welcomed the fact that Ang Lee wanted to try and develop these characters and the fact that he spent so much time laying the foundation and showing us how Bruce became the big green machine. The second half of the movie is probably more of what people were expecting when going to see this movie. This is when we get to see the Hulk do his thing. The action sequences are a lot of fun. The only thing I did not like about the movie was the final confrontation. It was way too dark and just something about it bugs me.

The performances are all good in this movie. The two standouts for me however aren’t Bana and Connelly but Elliott and Notle. I don’t normally like Nick Nolte at all but I really enjoyed his performance as the older Banner.

Finally, the CGI Hulk. When I first saw the Hulk in all his CGI glory in the trailers, I was disappointed and thought it looked horrible. Well now that I’ve seen the final product, I must say I was impressed. ILM has done a great job. I found that even though he was computer generated, he still had a human quality about him.

Now why is the Hulk a box office disappointment? Well people are going in expecting a typical comic book movie and that’s not what they are getting. My two friends let the world know what they though of the movie as they stormed out of the theatre going on about how much it sucked and how it was the worse movie of 2003 loud enough for everyone to hear. I wanted to slap them up side the head but I figured I’d let these Ebert and Roper wannabes continue. They even went so far as to say that not only was Godzilla a good movie, but that it was better than the Hulk. I couldn’t help myself but turn around and laugh my head off. They went on to say how they didn’t care for or wanted a plot, just action. That right there says it all.

Film, like all forms of art, is subjective and everyone sees and enjoys different things. It’s too bad that a movie isn’t always judged by how good it is, but by how much money it makes.

[radstar]

i liked it. it wuz quite a ride. would definitely buy it on DVD. and just so you know- i'm not so picky as most of you guys.

[Granite]

I thought the movie was fun. Not the best, but good. The comic-book split screen format that Ang Lee uses was a bit distracting at times, but was an interesting departure from the formats of Spiderman and X-Men. Jennifer Connerly was great as usual. I think I agree that Sam Elliot stood out as well, but not till the second half of the movie. The movie made me think of Doctor Jekel crossed with King Kong.

Also two "easter-eggs" caught my eye. The "marvel" intro piece had shots of the Hulk comic book. Makes me wonder if the intro piece for spiderman and x-men had shots of the repective comic books. Also notice how Stan Lee had a bit part in Hulk (unless I was seeing things he also appears in a window in the San Francisco sequence of Hulk). I think he was in spiderman too (and I wonder if he was in x-men.

[chernabog_ca]

Originally posted by Granite
IAlso two "easter-eggs" caught my eye. The "marvel" intro piece had shots of the Hulk comic book. Makes me wonder if the intro piece for spiderman and x-men had shots of the repective comic books. Also notice how Stan Lee had a bit part in Hulk (unless I was seeing things he also appears in a window in the San Francisco sequence of Hulk). I think he was in spiderman too (and I wonder if he was in x-men.

Yeah I noticed the Marvel intro was mostly Hulk related and if I remember it had a greenish tinge to it.

Stan Lee does make a cameo. He's walking out of Berkley talking to a security guard played by Lou Ferrigno!!

[Gaumont]

Originally posted by radstar
i liked it. it wuz quite a ride. would definitely buy it on DVD. and just so you know- i'm not so picky as most of you guys.

getting the DVD aswell. And im picky =)

I liked this movie a lot. I thought it was well made and plot moved along well. Diden't really miss the lack of more action. Was happy too see that Ang Lee chose the character way insted of action way. Good preformances all around, and good CGI work.

Have to give this a 4/5

[Frequency]

I was happy for what I paid for. Eric Bana & Jennifer Connelly are a matched couple but what I found more of a relationship was with Nick Nolte & Eric Bana. I enjoyed and love the talks whenever Nick came on the screen. Felt some type of on screen bond between Nick & Jennifer. Maybe its because they started in Mulholland Falls but sceens worked with them. The ending was alittle weird but when a friends brother explained the ending to us, we understood and liked it.

[editman]

Did check out Hulk last night (finally) and man I can see why people don't like it - it's not your regular superhero action movie. Or at least it's trying very hard not to be.

Whoever the editor of the flick is he stole the freakin' spotlight with all those fancy/frenzy multiscreen and 'seamless' FX transitions b/w scenes. But those distracted me from the story. I mean honestly, now that we know they rolled 5 or 6 cameras (or couple of very identical takes) when the helicopters are going to the desert base, do we need to know in the first place?

God I hate that editor. Makes me look like 3-rd rate material. editman MAD!!! j/k.

I dunno. The kinda eye-catching fancy editing are for trailers and commercials to grab attentions. But when you're telling a story, why do you wanna distract people from it unless you don't have much a story to tell? Other than that, and a disappointing climax, the film's okay (or maybe my standard's too low).

[carl]

Ang Lee is not exactly the first person you'd think of when someone mentions a comic book character, yet he was the director chosen for The Hulk, the latest comic book character to be converted to the big screen. Like all good directors though, he's decided to stick to what he knows best. In his own words, he doesn't know comic books but he does know Greek tragedies. That's essentially what he's managed to craft with The Hulk. At it's heart The Hulk is not a story about a monster, but more a story about broken relationships, with The Hulk working, surprisingly enough, as the only Link that keeps these relationships intact.

It opens with a way of introducing the first of these relationships in a quick prologue for the film. It sees a Dr. David Banner, a husband who loves his wife greatly, experimenting in genetics. More specifically he's experimenting in a way to make genes self repairing, with both the medical and military uses for such technology being made evident to the audience. Unfortunately he can't seem to get the process right as the animals he is testing on keep melting down. Eventually though he does make some progress, don't ask me when he made this progress because the prologue was kind of rushed through in order to get to the main story faster. Anyway at some point he made enough progress that he felt he was ready for human testing. Unfortunately the military disagree with the level of progress he feels he's made and so a General "Thunderbolt" Ross comes to his lab to give him the news that human testing is forbidden. This event though marks the kick off for the tragedy of all of it's participants. Dr. Banner decides to ignore these orders and, as usual for these type of stories, decides to do the experiment on himself. The next thing you know his wife is telling him she's pregnant, again I'm not exactly sure how much time has passed between these 2 events but it's a safe bet that it wasn't as soon as he got home. Anyway this is where the tragedy of Davids life becomes evident, because he's a doting father. He loves his son Bruce greatly and loves to play with him, but the scientist inside of him is obsessed with the military applications of his experiment. He will occasionally find himself removing his sons dummy and causing distress purely so that he can observe the physical changes that he begins to notice. Eventually he discovers something that horrifies him and he becomes desperate to find a cure, except that the army also discover his research at this point. In a final act of desperation he destroys his lab and then sets off home to do something. What exactly happens next is not yet revealed, but we do know that it was so horrible that young Bruce had to repress the memory of it.

With the relationship between father and son completely broken by the end of the prologue we are introduced to the 2 other relationships. The first is between Bruce, now going under his adopted name believing his parents to be dead, and the daughter of General Ross, Betty. It seems that before the events of the film these 2 characters were in a relationship, but that the relationship was always doomed to failure. Bruce was so traumatized by whatever his father did that he became an emotional recluse, and thanks to a flaw in her personality it was this emotional distance that initially attracted her. Yet it's also that same thing that broke them apart because a relationship without a real emotional connection is impossible. The other relationship was Between Betty and her father. It seems that after Dr. Banner did these experiments on himself it caused General Ross to become obsessed with this field of science, the same field his daughter chose to enter. He sees it through the eyes of a military man, and so cannot understand the potential good of this research. This has driven a barrier between the 2 of them so that even though he loves his daughter greatly, she has started to lose all respect for him.

As you'd expect for an Ang Lee film the cast chosen for these main roles is, almost, perfect. Eric Bana who plays the hero in his human form gives a very subtle performance. The characters repressed emotions prevent him from being able to use emotions freely and he does initially seem to be playing the role in a lazily bland way. Yet this is not the case, the character may not ever change his tone of voice, facial expressions or mannerisms but you can still tell that the emotions are there. Maybe it's because I've had some experience myself with being emotionally withdrawn but I was able to pick up on the characters emotions even when there were no outward signs. Examples such as when he's talking to Betty after being dumped. He does give the impression that he doesn't care but I picked up a distinct sense of misery, of fear and also unease whenever he was around her. The lovely Jennifer Connelly plays opposite him as Dr. Betty Ross and she gives a very layered performance. She succeeds at portraying a character who loves Bruce Banner but is trying to make it appear they are just friends. One of the more memorable performances came from Nick Nolte as David Banner in his senior years. He initially makes the character one of the films more tragic parts with a performance that is both emotionally moving and disturbingly cold. As it moves on though the character begins to lose that human edge and Nolte responds by chewing up the scenery, literally at one point. Sadly this great cast felt spoiled by the work of Sam Elliott as General Ross. His performance felt every bit as emotionally distant as Bana's only without reason, and he ended up reminding me of JK Simmons in Spiderman but without the humor.

He doesn't spoil the film though he's just a minor annoyance in an otherwise very solid cast. Sadly the same can't be said for the moments that people were really there for. When the Hulk does show up, about an hour into the film, the movie begins to suffer from an identity crises. The trailer expresses this better than I ever could with the words "I don't know who I am. I don't know what I've become, but I know 1 thing. You wont like me when I'm angry." It's true, I didn't like the scenes where Bana became angry and turned into the title character. It smells to me like the money men managed to strong arm Lee into pleasing the masses and the film suffers for it. The Hulk itself looks amazing, don't let your fears for bad CGI prevent you from seeing the movie, because the way the atmosphere and water drops react to The Hulk work better than ever before and represents the next step in CGI evolution. Unfortunately the character holds no real feelings of threat because of the cartoonish nature that these scenes take on. He still works better as a tragic hero at the end of these scenes, usually when he see's Betty but in the first transformation, and the films really good action scene, it's when he first recognizes his father. Sadly as an example of uncontrollable rage The Hulk lacks that emotional connection of fear. He spends a long time throwing Tanks around but we never see the people inside, and as far as the audience is concerned the tanks could be empty and there would be no difference. It's designed to wow audiences and not develop the dilemma. In fact the worst human damage that you see is in a character wearing a neck brace, and since this character is wholly unsympathetic anyway it detracts from the tragic nature of the events.

As it stands The Hulk is a great Greek tragedy that is sadly polluted by studio interference.
4/5

[dixiewrecked]

Originally posted by chernabog_ca
Okay so I went with a couple of friends to see The Hulk last night. I went into the movie with low expectations considering everything I’ve heard and considering how poorly it’s doing at the box office. The theatre was busier for a Monday night than I thought it would be, maybe due to the holiday on Tuesday.

What can I say about the movie? It’s not your typical comic book adaptation movie. It is very much character driven. There seems to be two halves or acts to this movie. Now some people might find the first half boring, slow and unnecessary. I am not one of these people. I welcomed the fact that Ang Lee wanted to try and develop these characters and the fact that he spent so much time laying the foundation and showing us how Bruce became the big green machine. The second half of the movie is probably more of what people were expecting when going to see this movie. This is when we get to see the Hulk do his thing. The action sequences are a lot of fun. The only thing I did not like about the movie was the final confrontation. It was way too dark and just something about it bugs me.

The performances are all good in this movie. The two standouts for me however aren’t Bana and Connelly but Elliott and Notle. I don’t normally like Nick Nolte at all but I really enjoyed his performance as the older Banner.

Finally, the CGI Hulk. When I first saw the Hulk in all his CGI glory in the trailers, I was disappointed and thought it looked horrible. Well now that I’ve seen the final product, I must say I was impressed. ILM has done a great job. I found that even though he was computer generated, he still had a human quality about him.

Now why is the Hulk a box office disappointment? Well people are going in expecting a typical comic book movie and that’s not what they are getting. My two friends let the world know what they though of the movie as they stormed out of the theatre going on about how much it sucked and how it was the worse movie of 2003 loud enough for everyone to hear. I wanted to slap them up side the head but I figured I’d let these Ebert and Roper wannabes continue. They even went so far as to say that not only was Godzilla a good movie, but that it was better than the Hulk. I couldn’t help myself but turn around and laugh my head off. They went on to say how they didn’t care for or wanted a plot, just action. That right there says it all.

Film, like all forms of art, is subjective and everyone sees and enjoys different things. It’s too bad that a movie isn’t always judged by how good it is, but by how much money it makes.

IMHO I think that people who were fans of the comic book didn't expect a long drawn out explaination of why The Hulk is The Hulk. In their minds they have been a fan of the comic for years and already know these things...opposed to a person who hasn't read a single comic in their lives.

[editman]

@ dixiewrecked: Rule of thumb, newbie - Do not quote anyone's posts that is longer than your own post, or more precisely, don't quote anyone's posts over 5 sentences long .

[Vader75]

Note to editman......does it really matter?

Note to newbie........do whatever you darn well please.


Note to everyone.....the Hulk is an excellent film. It brings back the old Creature Feature feel!!! This is a film for film lovers, not comic book lovers, not big budget action film lovers, and not once in while movie goers. This is a film that will stand the test of time with a devout cult fan base.

By the way, I see people saying it's not doing well at the box office. Since when is $130 million domestically plus $90 million overseas SO FAR not a success????? By the time the film's run is over and its released on DVD and video Universal will have made TWICE their investment back. So, the only way you could deem this a box office failure is if you somehow expected the movie to make $250-$300 million domesticly. I had no high expectations for the box office because the boobs that hang around on the internet that write reviews were ANXIOUS to see this movie suck because they didn't like the FX in the trailers. Those boobs were shocked when this actually turned out to be a FILM and not a MOVIE. So they knitpicked away and bashed it anyway. Most of the print media recognized the Hulk as an outstanding film, BUT.....the visual and audio media BASHED it for no other good reason than to see one of the mighty comic book movies fall. I heard a parody radio commerical the Moday after release called "The Incredible Hulk of $#!T". After this uninformed, unfunny parody, the three morning talk show hosts gabbed about how much the movie sucked even NONE of them saw the movie. Then they proceeded talk about how they can't wait for Legally Blonde II and Tomb Raider. That's just one example of the mindless, uninformed, and most of all UNWARRANTED bashing of the Hulk in the TV and Radio medium.

All in all, I don't care what ANYONE says. The Hulk is a FIVE STAR movie. Anyone who doesn't see it that way is just missing out on some big-time enjoyment, in my opinion. And I think that time will prove me right.

[IceGambit]

I'll agree that people don't know good movies when they see them.

The Hulk is not my favorite Marvel comic movie, but ti did have some good points. ng Lee's style was interesting, and the performances are good all around. But I didn't understand the last 15 mintues of the movie.

[carl]

Originally posted by Vader75
Note to editman......does it really matter?

Note to newbie........do whatever you darn well please.

Note to Vader75...Of course it matters. If someone quotes a really long post just to say I agree, then we have to scroll passed said post just to hear I agree. It doesn't matter if he agree's because that just means the discussion has stayed where it was, and to quote the entire message is just to draw undue attention to the post.
Newbie, feel free to post I agree, or whatever else you like, but please only quote the part you agree on. If you agree with it all then quote the first word with a ... after and we'll understand, but continue making such unnesisarily large quotes and you could find yourself on peoples ignore list.
Which noone wants.

[trailergod]

Originally posted by Vader75

By the way, I see people saying it's not doing well at the box office. Since when is $130 million domestically plus $90 million overseas SO FAR not a success????? By the time the film's run is over and its released on DVD and video Universal will have made TWICE their investment back. So, the only way you could deem this a box office failure is if you somehow expected the movie to make $250-$300 million domesticly.

u have to factor in how much the movie costs.... and the movie company usually only gets 1/3 from the total... so if a movie cost $100M to make, in order for it to have been profitable it should have earned more than $200M world wide !!!

HULK

http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=hulk.htm

<IMG SRC="http://www.movie-list.com/forum/attachment.php?s=&postid=54786">

it did not do well coz it was expected to do more and considering its budget.. !!!

another movie not doin to good is T3 ..

Total as of Jul. 30, 2003: $139,290,648
Overseas Gross: $54 million
Distributor: Warner Bros. Release Date: July 2, 2003
Production Budget: $200 million
MPAA Rating: R Est. Marketing Costs: $40 million

T3 cost $200M plus $40M .. and so far it only made $130M in USA ... thats not good business IMO ..

[editman]

Originally posted by Vader75
Note to newbie........do whatever you darn well please.

... But be prepared for second opinions.

To put it bluntly be prepared to be criticised, flamed, bashed by other Forum members, or even banned by the moderators.

And don't say editman didn't warn you - I've been there done that meself...


And thanks to carl