The Incredibly Redundant Hulk
Posted by halcyon on Mar 15, 2008 at 6:11 pm in MoviesThe Hollywood brain trust is planning to release another Incredible Hulk Movie.
There is only one rational response to this: why, for the love of all that is green, go there?
Maybe because the previous incarnation, directed by Ang Lee, was roundly despised. Much of the criticism centered around the cartoonish CGI. I asked my good friend Captain Obvious of the good ship O’rlly what he thought.
H: Do you think the hulk was too cartoonish?
CO: The hulk was a cartoon.
The hulk originally appeared in Marvel Comics (1962), in a story penned by Stan Lee and drawn/plotted by Jack Kirby. Here’s the gist of the plot, for you Rigelians and trans-dimensional entities with your soundlessly gibbering mouths: a meek and mild-mannered scientist is exposed to deadly gamma radiation, barely survives, and thereafter is prone to fits of “hulking out”: turning gray, getting big and muscle-y, gaining an unquenchable desire to smash things, and losing any interest in sustained silent reading.
It’s a modern retelling of Dr Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde. A scientist made to suffer for the excess of science. Id vs. Super-ego, made visible. The essential conflict is man vs. self.
Ang Lee’s hulk (2003) strayed from the essential conflict by introducing a “bad-guy” secondary character (played well by Nick Nolte). However! The theme (the price of scientific excess) remained, since Nolte’s character was the epitome of a morally bankrupt scientist.
Nolte rounded out a stellar ensemble cast (notably featuring Sam Elliot and Jennifer Connelly) and a remarkably nuanced performance from a mis-cast Eric Bana as the hulk. Character motivations are believable and subtly played. The military man (Elliot) rightly recognizes the Hulk as a threat and moves to subdue and destroy it. Bana enjoys and fears the Hulk persona. Connelly is caught between. The movie is well-edited and uses some split-screen cuts to enjoyable campy effect.
Not this time! The new Hulk will stow that thinky crap by introducing a troglodytic arch-nemesis (Abomination), made using the Hulk’s blood. No complex moral quandaries will vex this Dr. Banner (Edward Norton): he wants to destroy the Hulk, but is bound by a sense of duty to kick the bad guy’s assssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss.
He wishes it didn’t have to be this way, but hey, Support our Hulk.
The new movie will not admit to being campy. It is grim as death. So it trades cartoonish CGI for ghoulishly overdrawn bodybuilder CGI (all the better for the extended musclebound-monsters-punching-on-each-other sequences). Because this is serious business, people. The fate of the world hangs in the balance or something.
That level of seriousness, about a movie, about a giant green monster-man movie, reveals a dangerous pathology on the part of the film-makers.
Listen up, filmy people: the Hulk isn’t a monster, out there, in the world. It’s a monster inside you. You need to learn to laugh at the Hulk. You need to hug the Hulk and teach the Hulk to love itself. Only when the smashing stops can the healing begin.
Always here to help,
Halcyon
Psych Officer
GalacticMu
How on God’s *green* earth did you just do that? You’ve convinced me to re-watch a movie that I soundly did not like. Because you’ve convinced me that maybe I just didn’t get it, or at least pay enough attention to its better features.
I’ve always like the concept of the Hulk character/plot but have rarely liked the execution. And yes, the CGI was a drawback for the Bana version. Captain Obvious’ observations aside, the CGI broke the willing suspension of disbelief within the context of the film itself. I mean, compare the execution with something like “Who Framed Roger Rabbit.” You accept that the toons are supposed to BE toons and therefore there is no cognitive dissonance. But when you have me in a story that sets up a specific feel/reality to it and then your special effects hit a sour note… Come on, we’ve all suffered from those issues.
I definitely feel your suspension-of-disbelief-pain. I will not argue that the CGI was good at all. The lighting and textures on Ang Lee’s hulk were quite marshmallow-ey.
I think you hit on the exact reason that people reacted so strongly to it: the movie was quite good up until then.
That won’t be a problem with the new film- Louis Leterrier (that’s french for Lou the small yappy dog) is directing.
Ever hear of a little franchise called the Transporter? That’s the emotional depth and storytelling you can expect. I predict lots of stuff blowing up and somehow, however implausibly, the hulk and the abomination wind up in a huge car chase (possibly with huge cars).
p.s. Let me know how your rewatch goes. Try taking off your glasses during the CGI bits… I think that might help.
p.p.s. And if you don’t wear glasses, try wearing someone else’s glasses.
I wear glasses and can only see about a foot without them, so that will work splendidly. Meanwhile, I found a cartoon I thought was topical for this thread: http://www.sheldoncomics.com/archive/060918.html
It, in fact, might explain the direction they’ve taken…