The Hulk
Yikes.
So I just got back from seeing a midnite showing of The Hulk. I planned on seeing it sometime over the weekend but I was sitting here around 11PM on Thursday nite and saw that it was playing 'early' down the street in an hour. So I figured it was time for Hulk. Hulk! Smash! Right? I got my wasabi peas (green) and a bottle of water and headed on in. It was surprisingly crowded. It looked almost sold out.
(btw I just got home (2:45AM) And on the walk home it was pouring rain and I'm pretty soaked but I figure I gotta write this review before this whole movie floats right out of my head. I'm thinking it will be pretty much gone by the morning. Maybe long forgotten.)
In the previews Hulk sent up alot of red flags. Yes he looked fake but I didn't really care about that so much. He looked ok enough. And I was kind of curious to see how it played. But the flick just didn't look all that exciting. And it wasn't. For the first hour solid I almost melted in my seat and slid down onto the floor. A puddle of boredom. It started off clunky and just clunked along at such a slow pace that you almost didn't hear the awkward turning of the gears. After the boredom set in I was just like... just bring me Hulkamania already! Make him do some smashy smashy for me so I can get the hell out of here! It couldn't come soon enough. When the Hulk did appear I did sit up in my chair and take notice. There were some really jarring impacts and an awkwardness to his movements which was cool. And great speed to him. He did smashy smashy good for sure. Crash! Smash! Strain! Lift! Throw! Roar! Jump! But somehow it seemed like insincere smashy at times. Also he looked like he smelled fake. Like latex or something.
The smashy just wasn't enough to carry this flick. Not nearly for the suffering of this plot that barely held together for me. I didn't really 'get it'. And I didn't feel the Hulk torment. Eric Bana (whoever the hell he is but he looks like Corey Feldman big time I think) played Bruce. I pretty much whatevered him. And Jennifer Connelly played the love interest. Whatever it is that she's selling. I ain't buying. She doesn't click in for me. Especially in this flick. There seemed to be overattention to making sure she looked beautiful in every shot. Hair all half in her face. Makeup all perfect. The beautiful scientist with the Army General dad. And Nick Nolte who plays daddy banner. He was good. You got the feeling they trucked him onto this set straight from his arrest and didn't even give him time to sober up or come down or whatever the hell he was up to when he looked all crazy.
I guess ya gotta give some props to Ang Lee cause he's so ballsy to go all mental and decide to make a movie like The Hulk. The thing that was surprising is you'd think he'd be able to steer the ship a little better. To inject a flow. It just seemed phoned in or something. There were some nice touches between transitions and some pretty colors but it just didn't cover up the so much bad dialogue and boring stretches and confusion and poorly done teasing to its anti-climatic meshuggahmess.
Anyway, this movie was alot of shoulda coulda. It shoulda been better. It coulda looked better. It shoulda been shorter. It coulda been more violent. It shoulda not been so stupid. It coulda used two less screenwriters. It shoulda moved and been moving. It shoulda lightened up or darkened up. It coulda been less serious. It shoulda thought about where it was going before it went.
Three Good Things About This Movie
- The sound. The sound was the true star of the movie. The sound was tight. SMASH!
- Nick Nolte had some outbursts that were good spectacles even though I didn't
know what the hell he was really talking about.
- It was generous with its destruction.
Three Bad Things About This Movie
- By the time I realized I didn't know what was really going on I realized I
didn't really care.
- Ang stretched a little to make a stylistic impression.
- No sexy Hulk girl character for wild Hulk-on-Hulk action.
All in all this is a video rental to be watched in two parts or just fast forward through it. It definitely has some high impact smashy smashy Roarrrr!!! SMASH!!!! but the rest of the movie is so low impact that any impact from the high impact is cancelled out- and you're left staring at a movie that's only real feat is dodging left and right just enough to avoid becoming an embarrassment.