Mafus Reviews Hulk

Elsewhere on this site, I've professed my undying love for the Internet. That still stands. That affection doesn't, however, extend to the legions of naysayers and pessimists who lurk behind the safety of their modems and monitor screens, waiting for the next big comicbook movie adaption to be announced so they can immediately begin chanting their assinine mantra of "this is gonna suck" on the seemingly unlimited number of genre-related messageboards. It used to be funny. Now, with the release of Universal Pictures' HULK, it's become downright troublesome.

Six months ago, when the first glimpses of the titular character's CGI self showed up during a teaser trailer broadcast during the Superbowl, the gloom-and-doomers came out in force. Cries of "Hulk looks fake!" and "Where's his purple pants?" echoed throughout the Internet. Taken on their own, these protests were just business as usual. But last week, this article appeared on the USA Today Web site. Apparently the protests of online "fans" were taken to heart by the producers who promptly gave the Hulk his purple pants back. Avi Arad (the man who apparently won't stop until we have a Millie the Model film franchise) claims that when the fans speak, Marvel listens. And responds. (Which is at odds with Marvels beleaguered EIC, Joe Quesada's frustrated claims to the contrary. He seems to feel that skeptical Internet-based fans are in the minority, but that's beside the point.)

There are two things that bother me about this situation. (And it isn't that Avi Arad is catering to the diehard Hulk fans out there who don't want their green goliath sans trousers. Because I'm one of them.)

First, Arad is encouraging a bunch of gripers who were making their complaints based on 30 seconds of tv footage and an incomplete cut of the film, pirated on Kazaa and full of rough, unfinished FX sequences. Second, this is taking filmmaking by focus group to the next, worst level. I defy you to show me a film that has been improved by suggestions from a test audience at the expense of the writer's and director's vision. And this new test audience is one that is predisposed to dislike any film you show them and have probably seen it illegally in the first place. (I work at an ad agency that is often forced by clients to run campaigns by focus groups before producing anything. It seems to me that the only reason to show any creative work to a focus group is to have a convenient reason for sucking any life, creativity or originality out of it.)

Unjustified or not, the Internet buzz has had an effect. The producers have claimed to have tweaked the content of the film and the film has started to be thought of as "risky" despite the last three Marvel film adaptions' record-breaking opening weekends. Aside from the purple pants controversy, the consensus was that the ILM effects "jumped the shark." Everyone who saw the pirated version agreed that the Hulk just wasn't convincing and looked fake. But I ask you: just how convincing can a 15-foot green guy with a head the size of a walk-in closet be? Nobody seemed to be complaining about the story though.

Now, the film has finally been released and I can at last judge it for myself. I went in with no expectations whatsoever. I hoped for the best but was prepared for the worst. I had faith that director Ang Lee wouldn't leave me disappointed. I was a little surprised in that regard, actually.

First, let me say I liked the film. For the most part. The action sequences were thoroughly satisfying. How could a true comic fan not get off on seeing the Hulk trash a trillion dollars worth of military hardware in the desert. This was Sal Buscema's pages come to life. And to answer the question that has been on everyone's mind since the film was announced:

YES! They pulled it off! Dennis Muren's Hulk lives and breathes in this film. ILM's digital creation manages to show more range of emotion than The Incredible Hulk's Lou Ferrigno did in 5 years of small screen flexing. I had no problem believing this creature existed in three-dimensional space and was interacting with it's environment. The animators even went the extra mile and gave the Hulk a brutish version of Bruce (Eric Bana) Banner's face. That said, some scenes did look a little fake (the "foam" scene and the battle with the Absorbing Man at the end) and I thought the Hulk moved a little too quickly (shouldn't he...lumber...a little?) And I thought that, at 15 feet tall, he was a little too big. The hook of the character is that he's an ordinary guy with a raging beast inside him, struggling to get out. For the story to work, you have to relate to Banner's situation. (That's why the TV show worked so well.) It's hard to relate to a character that's two stories tall. Ang Lee's Hulk is more King Kong than Mr. Hyde. I actually grimaced during the scene where Hulk picks up Betty Ross (Jennifer Connelly) in one hand and stares at her longingly. These are minor complaints, though. In the scenes where the Hulk is tearing shit up, I was flashing back to the glory days of Buscema, Trimpe and Kirby. Good stuff.

Unfortunately, despite having pulled off the Hulk, Ang Lee fails in nearly every other respect. His characters are uninteresting (except maybe Glenn Talbot), the story is a meandering mess and his sudden fascination with split-screen comic panel effects was a real pain in the ass. The story was so bogged down with flashbacks and inter-character relationships that the added distraction of wipes and multi-angle compositions just added to the confusion. And he wasn't helped by the mostly lackluster performances of the majority of his cast.

I've only seen Eric Bana in one other film (Black Hawk Down) and I liked him in it. But somehow, I was never convinced by his portrayal of Bruce Banner. He just seems to wander through the film looking like someone ate his last Oreo cookie. It's not like he wasn't given anything to work with. The film version is given gobs of backstory that the comic version never had. Banner has repressed his childhood memories of his troubled fathers' work in genetics and what that work drove him to do to Bruce and his mother. He's been dumped by the gorgeous Betty Ross. And his work is being noticed by a corporation bent on a hostile takeover. Yet Bana's Banner doesn't seem to be affected by any of it. He's just...there. I understand that Banner is supposed to be repressed and "mild-mannered", but you would think a good actor could have a field day with a character like that. (For instance, Billy Bob Thornton in The Man Who Wasn't There.) Bana doesn't look like a guy with 30 years of torment and rage seething below the surface. He just looks constipated. (For my money, Bill Bixby's David Banner in the TV show was much more convincing. He played the character as driven, tormented and, well, human.)

Jennifer Connelly, while incredibly beautiful, seemed to be using HULK as a working vacation after her award-winning performance in A Beautiful Mind. In fact, she seemed to be playing the same character. Her hair style didn't even change. I like Connelly a lot, but I never bought that she was madly in love with Bruce Banner.

Josh (Glenn Talbot) Lucas and Sam (Gen. "Thunderbolt" Ross) Elliott were good in their roles and the film picked up when they were on-screen, but they weren't really given much to do but look menacing. Elliott and Connelly have a scene together in a restaurant which is one of the better character moments in the film and the actors seem to pick up on it, giving performances lacking in the rest of the film.

Nick Nolte's performance as David (ha!) Banner, Bruce's father, is fun. He's suitably nutso but not silly. And his appearance in the film explains how his crazed, homeless look in those infamous mug shots. However, when his character takes a left turn towards the end of the film, things get stupid.

SPOILER ALERT. When Banner, Sr. gains his Absorbing Man abilities, the plot (which had been pretty action-packed until now) becomes a sort of acid-trippy philisophical mess. The climax in the lake is confusing and ambiguous. I felt like I was watching an adaption of Alan Moore's Promethea instead of Lee and Kirby's Hulk. And, I just don't see why Banner's father had to become the Absorbing Man to begin with. If they were going to use the character, then they should have used him from the beginning. This way, it just felt like they were grasping for a "big finish" ending and came up empty. Granted, the effects were cool, but the amalgamation of Banner's father and the Crusher Creel character from the comics was just a pointless excuse for a flashy setpiece. And speaking of that lake scene, am I the only one who was reminded of the rock creature from Galaxy Quest? I almost laughed out loud.

Other than the inclusion of The Absorbing Man and other recurring characters from the comic (though, notRick Jones, it should be noted) the entire film seems to be inspired more by the TV show than the comic. Hulk doesn't speak, he just roars a lot. The change is triggered by a lab accident, not a gamma bomb. The film even ends up with Banner doing his Fugitive thing.

Now, I know it sounds like I didn't like the film. But I did. Sort of. It did a great job of bringing The Incredible Hulk to life. For the forty minutes or so of screentime the creature has, the movie is absolutely riveting. I couldn't take my eyes off it. But the rest of the film (the part that should have been easy) is just blah. I didn't really care about any of the characters and found myself biding my time between Hulk-outs. I'll definitely be buying the DVD when it comes out, but I hate to admit that I'll probably be using the chapter selection feature to skip the Hulkless parts.

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