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TSM Movie Review: The Hulk
Posted by Dr. Tom on Jun 22, 2003, 19:51
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THE HULK
Starring Eric Bana, Jennifer Connelly, Nick Nolte, and Sam Elliot
Written by John Turman, Michael France, and James Schamus, based on characters created by Stan Lee and Marvel Comics
Directed by Ang Lee
Rated PG-13; 137 minutes
One of the better comic-book movies to come along, The Hulk is a good film partially undone by a few head-scratching moments and a poor performance from its lead actor.
Dr. David Banner (Nick Nolte) is a government scientist working on secretive genetics projects. When his work is scrapped because he needs human subjects, Banner experiments on the most willing subject of all; himself. His wife soon becomes pregnant, and Banner�s fears are realized: his son Bruce�s DNA has been tainted by the experiments he performed on himself.
Thirty years later, Dr. Bruce Banner (a sleepwalking Eric Bana) works under the surname Krenzler because he believes his parents died when he was a boy. His former love interest, Betty Ross (the always gorgeous Jennifer Connelly) is also his lab partner for a new generation of genetic research: �nanomeds,� which have had disastrous results thus far. Bruce Banner is established as a bottled-up character with some anger issues, but this is done by fiat: people say it about him, rather than letting the audience discover it for themselves. Whatever happened to �show, don�t tell?�
When some of the lab equipment malfunctions, Banner and a technician investigate. Inevitably, Something Bad happens, and the malfunction turns into a catastrophe. Nanomeds are released into the air, and the gamma concentration goes thru the roof. Banner shoves the lab technician out of the way in time, but absorbs the full brunt of the nanomeds and gamma flood himself. He wakes up in a hospital, wondering why he�s alive and feeling somehow ... different inside.
Later in the lab, several flashbacks and repressed memories trigger Banner�s rage. We know he�s angry because he looks severely constipated and shakes a lot. Finally, the rage triggers the Startling Metamorphosis the TV show used to mention, and Banner is replaced by the green-skinned giant Hulk. A brief destructive rampage ensues, with Betty Ross� father, General Ross (Sam Elliot) fingering Banner as being involved. General Ross is also the same man who kicked Dr. Banner off his project thirty years ago.
After another Hulk sighting, Bruce Banner is abducted by the government and taken to the same base his father worked on thirty years ago. Meanwhile, David Banner manages to replicate the mishap that befell his son, somehow gaining the power to absorb the form of things around him. He is also seized by the Army, and figures prominently in the film�s silly climax, which is a spectacle that seems out of place in a movie that had been a good mix of action and psychological drama.
The Hulk himself was done in all CGI, of course, and the CGI was surprisingly impressive. Since he�s about twelve feet tall and a thousand pounds, the Hulk doesn�t really need to look human, and the CGI Hulk was an appropriate mix of monstrous features, grotesque musculature, and undeniable humanity. His angry faces expressed a rage that could twist steel, but in his calmer moments, those digitized eyes actually conveyed a human soul.
Conveying a human soul is more than can be said for Eric Bana, however. He was on full autopilot in this movie, playing Bruce Banner on the most superficial of levels, and not plumbing the depths that the source material and even the script opened up for him. For someone with repressed memories and temper problems, he seems remarkably capable of controlling his rage, even when faced with cattle prods and given to fits of trembling and constipated faces. While The Hulk, as a movie, has more of a soul than Daredevil did, it still falls well short of Spider-Man. Tobey Maguire gave Peter Parker an indelibly human dimension, which carried over into his masked counterpart. Bana brought none of that to the table with Bruce Banner, and seemed like a zombie even in comparison to his CGI alter ego.
Despite its somnambulant star and ridiculous climax, The Hulk is an enjoyable movie that offers good action sequences and a compelling psychodrama. The theme of rage, not forgiveness, as a path to redemption is an interesting one, and it�s handled well by director Ang Lee. His frequent use of paneled scenes, an homage to the comic book, was carried off very well at times, but seemed overused by the middle-end of the movie. I don�t know if the Hulk has enough mass-market appeal to make this movie a Summer Blockbuster, but it�s better crafted than a lot of what you�ll see playing at the cineplex these next few months. 7/10
Dr. Tom
You wouldn't like me when I'm angry.
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View my TSM Archives and my needing-an-update Amazon wishlist.
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