If there were ever a time that opinions clashed, it would be my personal review of The Incredible Hulk against seemingly everyone else. This movie had an all-star cast, the late great William Hurt, Liv Tyler, Edward Norton and Tim Roth from one of the greatest movies, Pulp Fiction. The Incredible Hulk was coming off the tail-end of the horrific realm of Hulk, an Ang Lee film starring Eric Bana and Nick Nolte. The film was a slog to get through, and it was wonderful to see that this film was not going to waste its time with an origin story that most of the public already knows. So, we get a Reader's Digest version in the opening credits and then find our hero hiding in Brazil. This was easy to match as a spiritual sequel to the Ang Lee film, and seeing the handling of the story, it was easy to see that this was going to be a much better experience.
We get to see Bruce live among other people who do not understand very good English, so he has to learn Portuguese in one of the most dangerous parts of the world. The story gives us enough to see his new life and how he's adapting, also how he is going out of his way to hide his whereabouts. This goes awry, obviously, as General Ross locks onto his location and sends an entire special ops team to extract him.
Within the first thirty minutes of the movie, we get a very nice tease of the Hulk as he succumbs to bullying from co-workers. This scene is chilling, and shows his power in stark detail as he throws giant machinery around. The Hulk scenes in this movie are awesome, I do not care what any detractor says. Seeing Bruce's eyes turn green is a rush, especially when he starts ripping apart military vehicles as they unload high caliber weapons at him. Then, of course, there was the final battle of The Hulk vs Abomination.
Tim Roth plays a special ops soldier who survived his first encounter with the Hulk himself. Obviously, not all of them did. He becomes obsessed with finding the power that Bruce Banner possesses and Ross decides to give it to him. He starts becoming amazing as a fighter, but you also see his whithering form because of the toxic chemicals they put into him. He finds the other man who has the formula for becoming the Hulk, Dr. Samuel Sterns. Throughout the movie, we see him communicate with Banner in order to find a cure for turning into the Hulk. It goes about as well as any other time they try to find a way out of transforming into a giant beast.
The actor they got for Sterns, Tim Blake Nelson, was an amazing choice for him. He was charmingly ignorant, optimistic and aspired to greater futures. This was a precursor to what would become The Leader, as Sterns gets some of the irradiated blood in a wound on his head. We immediately see his head expand, foreshadowing to his transformation down the line. Spoiler Alert: It didn't end up well, I'm sad to report.
Liv Tyler plays Betty Ross, General Thadeus Ross's daughter, and she does a very good job. She is a real character who tries so hard to help Banner throughout the entire movie. Their relationship is well handled, even if it's never followed up on after this movie in any meaningful way. Edward Norton and Liv Tyler have very good chemistry together in this film. They play off of one another very well and their scenes are very good to watch, even if they're passing exposition.
The final fight is awesome, even better than the one in Iron Man. Hulk and Abomination bash the lights out of one another and it escalates into real strength-inducing rage! Whoever handled the CGI for the Hulk design and Abomination design had some serious talent behind them. Every time we see Norton turn into the Hulk, they blend the actor into the big green man very well without being overbearing.
This film gets a bad reputation for various reasons, but it does what it set out to do. It brought the Hulk to cinemas with a good, coherent story. They even add the bit with Tony Stark and Ross at the end to give us a silently brilliant scene, hooking the Hulk in for the Avengers. That was all we had linking this to the MCU. They did not over crowd this movie with a bunch of Marvel tie-ins, they let it be its own movie with its own stakes. There's a lot to love about this film and it's actually a shame we didn't keep Edward Norton as Bruce Banner. Mark Ruffalo was alright at first but his awkward Banner acting became a little old and stale. The Professor Hulk persona didn't help but that's another review for another time. There's a lot to go through so let's wait and Virtua SMASH!!!!
