A movie full of sound and fury; signifying nothing. I’m gonna be one of the unpopular people who likes Ang Lee’s Hulk much more than this paint-by-numbers superhero action movie. This film gets a sideways thumb.

Writing: Perhaps this movie can be saved by the rumored longer cut that’s headed to disc later this year, with possibly as much as 70 minutes that was removed from this film. From what’s rumored, much of that is the character writing that Edward Norton added into the script. I know that the highly publicized disagreements between Norton and Marvel were blown way out of proportion, but I will certainly be interested to see what a cut of the movie with some character depth is like. I rather liked Ang Lee’s film, despite how disliked it was. I don’t care that it “wasn’t the comic book.” Couldn’t care less, actually. If this movie is what the comic book is, then it’s not a comic I would find particularly interesting. Pretty much every character is one dimensional, even Bruce Banner - who’s main signature as a character is having a split personality. Despite that, Banner/The Hulk still comes across as one, flat, single-dimensioned character. The other main characters are total cookie cutter characters as well. Then there are ones like Betty’s current boyfriend, which feel as though they got left completely on the cutting room floor (heck, that character has almost as much cut footage in the trailer as he does in the finished film). It all feels like a movie that could have been quite good, but got too bogged down in “not being Ang Lee’s Hulk.” Most reviewers can’t help but compare this to Marvel’s other big movie this year, Iron Man. This film PALES in comparison. The wit, humor and intelligence of Iron Man is almost 100% absent from this monstrosity.

Production: This is a VERY hit-or-miss production. First and foremost, as one would expect, is the CGI character animation and effects. About half of it works, and about half of it doesn’t. And once it becomes CGI beast-on-beast fight, which we know is coming, even without having seen the sequence billions of times in the advertising, it becomes a complete and total yawn. Action scenes exist simply to be action scenes, and the effects feed right into that line of thinking. Very little of this film’s production doesn’t feel stolen from other far more inventive films, such as the big foot chase action sequence through the dense Brazilian city which is completely ripping off the Bourne franchise (right down to composer Criag Armstrong ripping off composer John Powell’s Bourne scores).

Cast: This is the one true saving grace of this film. The cast tries their darnedest to make things work. And quite frankly, with a lesser cast, I would totally give this movie a thumb down. Edward Norton manages to keep the Bruce Banner character at least marginally engaging. William Hurt, as one dimensional as his character may be, still lends some intelligence to the performance. Tim Roth somehow, against all the odds, makes his zero dimension role slightly work. Tim Blake Nelson tries a bit TOO hard to make his small role near the end of the movie entertaining, and succeeds more than not. Poor Ty Burrell, who plays Betty’s current boyfriend, is barely on screen, and I’m betting he had more material that would make his performance work. In the finished film, he doesn’t even get the chance, one way or the other. The one cast member that does manage to completely pull things out of the fire is Liv Tyler. She actually manages to get her role to leap off the screen and totally make it work. Despite having a few scenes that feel totally stolen from Ann Darrow’s role in the King Kong films, her sense of empathy with The Hulk, and with Bruce Banner, all feel right on. And hey, it’s cool to see them give a small cameo role to Lou Ferrigno.

Music: I expected so much more from the talented Craig Armstrong for this score. He was an unusual choice for the genre, but I was sure he could bring something new to it. Sadly, he doesn’t. His score is a miss-mash of action film scoring. The stuff that isn’t directly stolen from other films (such as the Bourne films) feels rather bland and been-there-done-that. It lacks emotionality and a good thematic base. It is cool to have at least a tiny bit of an appearance from Joe Harnell’s excellent “Lonely Man” theme from the TV series.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 15th, 2008 at 8:00 pm and is filed under Movie Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.