WHAT IS The Hulk: If you've been living under a rock with your fingers in your ears for most of your life, then here's a summary on what The Hulk is. The Hulk is a manifestation of the internalised rage within the rather distant and quiet mind of Doctor Bruce Banner, a scientist working in gamma radiation. After being caught by a wave of gamma radiation from an atomic explosion, he changes a bit. Though managing to survive the blast, the radiation mutates his cells- changing his adrenaline into something different, causing him to become more prone to anger, and when he becomes angry...well, "you wouldn't like him when he's angry" as the general adage goes. He grows larger to about 15ft, his muscles get bigger and he turns an odd shade of pea-green, changing into an Un-Jolly Green Giant- a large hunk of anger destroying anything and anyone who gets in his way.

The rest of the movie follows closely with the genuine Hulk storyline- Banner turns into big green Hulk when angered, Betty Ross is his love interest, General Ross is determined to stop Hulk and David Banner is a scruffy drifter- as in the original Hulk TV movies from the late 70's that were pretty much a roaring success. But, there's more to it than that. A rival science experimentation company, Aethion, headed by Talbot, a major douchebag, who wants Betty to work at his corporation- and also wanted Banner, but then things got complicated. Banner said so, then later, after the accident, Talbot comes in and starts bashing Banner about...you can expect what happens- he gets thrashed to bits by the Hulk.

But we're getting too far ahead there. In the early part of the movie, the life of David Banner is covered first. He works on experiments to improve the human genomes in a lab at an airbase with his family. A young General Ross refuses to give Banner human guinea pigs, so he uses himself. But then, after his wife gave birth to his son, he saw the baby cry and gain green marks on his legs. He takes a blood sample from the young boy and his worst fears are reckoned- he passed on his 'results'. After dithering about for years, he is finally fired from the labs by General Ross- and in turn Banner goes mad. He sets off the alarms on the base and heads back home. He grabs his wife and takes her into the next room, leaving their 4-year old boy in the dining room of the house. The boy hears screaming from the room and angered shouts, until...

The scene cuts to a grown-up adolescent Bruce 'Krenzler' ready to leave home. 'WTH?!' I hear you cry- well, what truly went on in that room is a secret that is unveiled later in the movie. Then it cuts to a laboratory, with a grown-up Bruce Krenzler walking in to perform his experiments with gamma radiation and nanomeds with Betty Ross, the girl he's jonesing for. Betty is sad because Bruce never opens up to her, and touched a nerve by mentioning his parents. Bruce is a sad, introverted man with a painful trauma. Though with a girl like this:

...in love with him, it's hard to sympathise too much for him- he's got a hot girl on him! But then, it's a challenge for any girl to take on a Hulk-sized....anyway, Betty Ross has her own trauma- a supressed memory of her father leaving her alone in a diner for hours on end when she was 2...yes, 2 years old- very good memory there, so she pretty much has a rift with her father, General Thunderbolt Ross, because it always seemed to her that he calls her only for something he needs rather than just for the sake of it- like a loving connection, etc. So she pretty much confides in Bruce, but wishes Bruce would confide more in her.

But of course, if he was more emotive, the Hulk would've been a bit wimpier-less anger to get at him. But now, lets get onto the figure of David Banner. The father of Bruce, he was locked away from 30 years in an institute before being released into the world again. Why was he locked up? that relates back to Bruce's supressed memory of the screaming and shouting in the room. He was taken away and Bruce was sent off to be raised by the Krenzlers. He reappears as the new janitor of the lab where Bruce and Betty are working at, living as a bum with only a squalid, dilapidated house and 3 odd dogs to show for it. He reveals himself as David Banner when Bruce is recovering from his blast of gamma rays. He kind of makes Bruce a bit angry, but not towards Hulk-ified. After Bruce hulks out for the first time and destroys the lab. The Hulk meets David and they have a rather spiritual moment...and then that repressed memory pops back up and Banner scoots before the Hulk smashes his face in.

David Banner takes the wreckage of the lab and makes his own makeshift lab where he conjures up all sorts of things. In this movie, David Banner is pretty much a good guy gone bad. He antagonises Bruce whenever they're together, and even tries to bump off Betty by schicking his now-mutated killer mutts on her, but the Hulk managed to get on the scene first- he appears standing in the dark, revealed only to Betty when she hears a noise and goes out of her house with a flashlight and notices a pair of eyes behind a tree. Another spiritual moment and then come in the dogs. The Hulk has a fight scene with them, crushing their skulls against tree trunks and the car bonnet and pretty much anything and everything in sight until they're dead. After the battle, a tired, weary Hulk goes back into a tired, weary Bruce Banner-who falls unconscious at Betty's feet. This scene happens straight after Talbot's bashing about, so you can expect some vengeance from him- as we now focus on the Hulk in the beefiest part of the movie- the middle near the end.

HULK POWER!
After Hulk's battle with the dogs, Bruce awakens in Betty's house and tells her the 4-1-1, and then he's struck by a tranq dart and is carted off to a secret laboratory under the ground at an airbase close to the old, ruined one of Bruce and Betty's childhood. Thunderbolt Ross holds him there, but then a bandaged and crippled Talbot returns to see the incarcerated Bruce Banner and starts to poke him with a taser with plans of either making him Hulk-out and getting a bunch of guards to kill the Hulk (some hope!) and get a sample or kill Bruce out of vengeance. In the end, he just knocks Banner out and takes his body out for some tests, taking the 'matter' out from General Ross's hands. While the experiment, to get a tissue sample of the Hulk with his trapped inside a water-filled tank and strapped up with electrodes all over him, on Banner is going on, the scene cuts to David Banner and Betty Ross talking. David reveals what the supressed memory of Bruce's is, and why he got carted off...I'm not gonna tell you all though, you'll have to see the movie. But as the electrodes spark into Bruce, he remembers the whole scene of the supressed memory and starts the Hulk-out of all Hulk-outs! He breaks out from the tank and causes all kinds of destruction, until he's trapped in some foam- Talbot leaps up to try and get his precious tissue sample, but the Hulk gets mroe angrier and gets bigger, breaking out from the foam and starts to bash, smash and trash his way out from the underground complex out into the desert where all that fighting action you see in the trailers happens.

I won't spoil the rest of the movie, but though it isn't as bad as people say it is, there are parts of the movie that are slow and boring as heck (namely any part with Betty and Bruce talking) and it doesn't contain the pizzazz of other superhero movies like Spiderman and the X-Men movies. Also, a personal disappointment to me, David Banner changes into something else rather than a Hulk of his own (should anyone remember the late 70's Hulk TV movies with Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno). It's worth watching, honestly! But Mr Lee, compared with Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, this movie fails to outshine that gem.

Leaving Note.
Lou Ferrigno, the original Hulk in the TV movies, and Hulk/Spiderman/X Men/All Marvel things creator Stan Lee cameo roles are as security guards. You'll see them near the start of the movie, coming out from the doors of the laboratory doors where Stan is talking with Lou about strengthening security. He also has a cameo role in the Spiderman movie- think this was part of his deal for Hollywood to make movies on his characters?