Hulk Review
Yeah, it was all fine and dandy with all that adolescent angst and struggling with the father and repressed memories and stuff, but we wanted to see more green! It’s sort of hypocritical in a way to put the green guy on the poster and show him battling armies and crap in all the adds and then spend two thirds of the movie whining about how Bruce Banner was an abused child. Nobody gives a shit! If we wanted a movie about some oppressed child struggling with their inner demons we’d save seven dollars and just sit around at home and watch Oprah.
Every director these days thinks they’re above the material and wants to shove a bunch of high-brow bullshit down your throat. Why can’t they just be true to the character? If they want to take the job, they should respect the material. I hope someday Michael Bay decides to direct a version of Hamlet and he uses the “to be or not to be” soliloquy in the previews and has some faggoty English actor on the poster in tights, but when you’ve finally been lured into the theatre it is nothing but a two hour special effects laden blood bath.
Which is not to say that there isn’t plenty of room for making some pretty damn profound statements with the Hulk, just not this Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde crap. Plus, why do comic book movies always waste so much time on the origin story? Does anybody care about the damn origin? I know I don’t, and if you are going to the movie you probably have a good idea what the origin is anyway. I remember on the TV show they summed up the Hulk’s origin in like two seconds....”In an experiment to augment his physical strength, Bruce Banner suffered an overdose of Gamma radiation causing him to turn into the Incredible Hulk.” Yeah, that’s enough, and you know what, you need to brush over the origin story anyway because it is always TOTALLY RIDICULOUS!!!! I don’t care if you’ve got some hundred million dollar budget and you think you need to respect your audience by giving them a complex origin. They’re in the theatre because they want to see the green guy! I hate going to these new superhero movies because you know that the first one is sort of a throw away because they’re going to spend so much time on the origin that, even if you’re not a comic book aficionado, you already know like the back of your hand.
Hulk should have started with Bruce Banner sitting in a Cafe. Boom, that’s it, no explanation or anything, he’s just there. And the waitress should be all bitchy and snooty towards him even though he’s trying to be polite.
“Could I have a glass of ice water please?”
“Why don’t you shut up and get it yourself you lazy piece of garbage. Just because I’m dressed up as a waitress and getting paid to be here doesn’t mean that I’m going to discredit my gender by serving on some oppressive male like women have been forced to do since the beginning of time! Prick.”
But even that isn’t enough to get him going. You see that’s the key. That’s the fun part of the Incredible Hulk, you have to predict when something is going to happen that will get him pissed off and then you get the cool close-up shot of the eye turning green and you know that Bill Bixby...er...Bruce Banner can’t hold it back anymore.
So the waitress comes back like seven times and she’s rude every time and the audience keeps thinking that he’s finally going to blow his stack at her and he never does, and just when we think it’s not going to happen something totally trivial finally sets him off.
“I ordered my toast with butter on the left and jelly on the right. This toast has butter on the right and jelly on the left! ARRRRRGGGHHHHHH!!!!”
And the Hulk promptly reduces the whole cafe to smoldering ash. We don’t even have to see it, we just need the close up of the eye, and then Bruce Banner lying there in his stretched out purple pants.
Speaking of that, why is it that the Hulk loses all of his clothes but he always keeps his pants? If Ang Lee was so fired up on realism, shouldn’t he have insisted that the Hulk run around naked? I mean if he’s willing to irritate the audience by spending the vast majority of the movie on stupid talkie stories, why does he draw the line on making a change for realism that would actually be pretty darn funny. Hulk could be running around with his massive green genetalia swinging in the breeze, totally indifferent to his naked state except for when he sees Jennifer Connelly. Ha! Then you could have this magnificent Mr. Hyde love scene with the Hulk that truly shakes the world. It was meant to be Mr. Lee you coward!!
Maybe all of that is going to be on the DVD extras.
But the sad thing is that even if it is there, it won’t make up for all the opportunities that the movie missed out on. The Hulk lets you fantasize over all those little moments of irritation that get you every day, like when some prick has his cell phone on during the movie, or when you spend forty thousand dollars on a college degree only to find out it was a waste of money and time, or when a falsely elected President leads an illegal war against a sovereign nation. Those little trivial issues that aren’t enough to really prompt you to do anything but which set you steaming mad on the inside. I’d pay seven dollars to see the Hulk lay waste in any of those situations. I’d even pay that much to see the Hulk go after some pretentious director who doesn’t understand the possibilities of the material that has fallen right in his lap.
I guess we’ll just have to wait for the sequel. As for right now I’m going to go home and watch “Falling Down” again. Another movie that is good right up until the end when it gets high on itself and starts to think it has a point. When are director’s going to realize that it is their job to please me? Not to expand my mind, not to give me some grand social lesson, but to just provide me some instant gratification? You aren’t novelists! You’re only movie directors!
The End