The Incredible Hulk

The Hulk has had a bit of a bumpy ride during his big screen career. From the award winning Ang Lee, director of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, to Louis Leterrier, director of The Transporter 2 and production assistant on Alien Resurrection? In this summer of high profile independent directors taking on comic franchises, it’s odd that this reinvention also worked, though not as spectacularly as the rest of the crop, which was all cream. Ang Lee’s Hulk got a partly unfair rap for being far too stylized, long-winded and well, too Ang Lee. So the solution of hiring a fresh action director and casting a boatload of bankable acting talent pretty much does the trick. Thankfully, The Incredible Hulk is a proper sequel, picking up directly where the last film left off, in Brazil, with Dr. Banner searching for a cure and a comfortable supply of stretchy pants. Good old General Ross, given the William Hurt treatment this time around, is still after Banner’s Hulk genes and assembles a special task force to hunt him down in South America. Needless to say, Leterrier doesn’t mess around for an hour before dishing out some spectacular Hulk smashing action. It’s pretty menacing to see the big green machine stalking and clobbering some soldiers in a factory and the Hulk’s CGI textures look a lot more integrated into the overall environment this time around. Edward Norton makes an excellent Bruce Banner, playing the search for Zen and a cure, or the hints of pleasure in destruction, with ease. A text messaging relationship with an American scientist leads the search to New York, which is obviously Toronto if you’ve ever been on Yonge Street. General Ross’s super-solider gone awry Emil Blonsky, played with a wicked junky lust for power by Tim Roth, loses his shit and forces an abominable experiment on himself in order to take on the Hulk, which leads to awesome climactic destruction. The poor Hulk’s hindrances continue though: Edward Norton distanced himself from the project after its completion, leaving fans with lacklustre special features and little hope of a proper follow-up. A commentary track with Leterrier and Tim Roth, and a handful of deleted scenes that expound on a little back-story are all Hulk fans can expect until, hopefully, The Avengers.