Exploring: The Incredible Hulk
Review of: The Incredible Hulk
Overall Rating: 9.0
Finally not another origin story! The Incredible Hulk was a good movie and fun to watch but not as good as Iron Man. I'm really pleased to see Marvel's positive influence on these projects. The movie is an exciting ride with a nice balance between action, drama, and suspense that carried me through the emotions of the story. There are some problems with the story line and maintaining the immaculate reality of the experience but overall they kept true to the spirit of the Hulk and I really appreciate that.
The Incredible Hulk is a tale about Bruce Banner the Geneticist and his quest for a cure for a condition that turns him into a raging monster known as the Hulk. All the while the military is hunting down Bruce Banner so that they can learn how to control the Hulk and use Bruce’s research to create super soldiers. In the end they only create an even more deadly monster known as The Abomination.
Likes
The opening credits is brilliant: they cover the origin story in a few minutes and put in a lot of fun references.
The way they ease us into the hulk: His first appearance is mostly from the shadows with only glimpses to help acclimate the audience with his look.
the way they show the bullets and darts just bending and bouncing off of his skin. The really neat thing is that they do show on occasion lacerations in the hulks skin when the attack is sever enough to merit it. The 50 caliber rounds looked awesome when they dented his skin.
The emotion that they were able to animate into the Hulk was amazing. Like Gollum before him the Hulk was really able to connect on an emotional level with the audience.
The Cameos: Stan Lee, Lou Ferrigno
I liked the references subtly placed throughout the movie to Stark Industries, Nick Fury, and S.H.I.E.L.D.
They used most of the Hulk's famous lines / attacks in a tasteful and story appropriate manner.
The very end / the last page: not going to give a spoiler but after seeing it you will get it.
Dislikes / Concerns
The skin of the hulk was too gelatinous and too textured: probably due to rendering or compositing issues because the animation was so well done.
The love scene: it was funny but distracted me from the movie and shattered the immaculate reality. Personally I had a Mallrats moment and Brodie wouldn't get out of my head.
The story had some issues: I didn't like the mcguffin of the cure and found the Emil Blonsky story line far more interesting and would have like it more if that became the dominate storyline.
The end helicopter scene shown in the trailer still bothered me and seeing it in context didn't save it. I realize they needed a tension relief and I did chuckle because it was a funny moment but it completely took me out of the story and reminded me I was watching a film not experiencing it.
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