So This is What a Giant, Green Turd Looks Like...

Score: 5.5

Oh boy. One of my least favorite movie-going experiences of all times was my trek to see the first Hulk movie released back in 2003. I never forgave Ang Lee for what he did to me that night, and I've yet to change my mind on him.

When I originally heard that Ed Norton was cast in the lead role as Bruce Banner, I nearly gagged with excitement. With the exception of Italian Job and 25th Hour, I think everything Ed Norton touches turns to gold. That's right, he's a walking film alchemist. What's sick is that he knows it. There's never a doubt when he enters a project that he will make it work. He's just that good. However, the original trailer for the movie made me immediately lose whatever excitement I had for the news. Maybe it was the fact that the marketing campaign for Iron Man, which released just weeks prior, was just so damn good. Or maybe it really was that the new Hulk looked like utter crap.

Plot: I won't bore you with the details here. Guess what; Banner is the Hulk. Guess what; the government wants to contain him. Is there a why? Sorta, but it's really just a simple plot point to give the Hulk something/someone to fight. It's really my biggest problem with the movie, which I'll come back to, but simply put: there is no real plot. Banner's gone into hiding in Mexico and focuses all his time/energy into trying to never become the Hulk again. He's afraid of it, what it can do, how it can hurt others. The government finds him (big surprise) and the rest of the film is spent with the two sides pitted against one another. Oh, and Liv Tyler gets caught in the middle. There's also a waste of Tim Roth in there somewhere, but again, it's not worth detailing. One minute he's a super soldier on his own account, the next he's pumped full of super serum to become superhuman. And then he's a giant monster attacking New York. Honestly.

Critique: This movie fails in just about every way imaginable. Honestly, only the early scenes with Norton do anything to provide some form of honest work to the film. It comes off as a giant, over-sized kid fantasy. But I have to be honest, what kid really cares? Like the Godzilla movies, like the last Hulk movie, and like every other giant-attacks movie, screenwriters feel the need to give the main element (the Hulk in this case) an equal antagonist. I don't get it. The Hulk comics are filled with all kinds of random stories and even more random "monsters", but yet look at the television show which aired ohsolongago. There weren't any giant monsters that the Hulk had to defend. It was a show about people. About a guy who you don't want to see get angry. Because when he does, you better be somewhere else. This is just another movie about another monster that doesn't want to be a monster. There is absolutely nothing new here, nothing worth seeing, and nothing of hope.

I keep hearing people compare this to Iron Man, which makes some sense, as they are the first releases from the new Marvel Studios, but it is ridiculous to compare the two. Jon Favreau's work is light years beyond anything that will ever come close to Louis Leterrier. Where Favreau uses Iron Man to paint a wonderful picture of an above-average guy turned superhero, Leterrier uses the Hulk as an excuse to create CGI carnage. I'm not a big fan of CGI in the first place and it's movies like the Hulk which remind me why. It's amazing how much more story, character, plot, and heart were put into the simple, 42min long television show twenty years ago and how much of that is missing from this movie. Again, Ed Norton's early scenes are without a doubt the only saving grace of this film.

And don't get me started on Liv Tyler. I swear there's an actress in there somewhere. But she seemed stuck on the playing Ann Darow. And believe me, Leterrier is no Merian C. Cooper.

Give me a Hulk movie where he's SAVING humanity instead of hiding within it. Give me a Hulk movie where the main villian isn't even on par with Hulk, in terms of strength, but is still a real threat. I just don't understand why, as a writer, when the main hero of the film is a giant monster, you feel the need to pit him against another giant monster in a giant city. Do something fresh. Do something real. Give me something more than old, rehashed ideas to spend my hard-earned money on. Not this crap.