It's difficult to put into words quite how bad this movie is.
I have to confess that I never really liked the Hulk comics, he was always one of the more
boring Marvel characters. However my hopes for the film were raised when I heard that it
was to be directed by the wonderful Ang Lee. I also heard it reported that the film would
examine the psychological aspects of the Hulk's transformation. What we potentially had to
look forward to was a multi-level film with both fun action scenes and deeper intellectual
content.
What we actually got was over two hours of unbelievable tedium.
As you probably know, the story of The Hulk revolves around a scientist (Bruce Banner,
played by Eric Bana) who turns into a big green brute with enormous strength but
lacking in the IQ department.
Most of the film is an "origin" story showing how the creature
came to be. If the producers were hoping to spawn a franchise then they shot themselves in the foot.
In the original comics Banner was turned into the Hulk by exposure to gamma radiation.
That doesn't wash with today's more scientifically educated audiences, so instead the film
comes up with a convoluted idea involving radiation, nanotechnology and genetics. In the end it's all
far less convincing than a good old-fashioned dose of gamma rays. The resultant back
story also relies heavily on coincidences and repressed memories. Plus, of course, the
compulsory romantic angle.
I could forgive the lack of believability if the film took a fun, action based approach.
Instead most of it is taken up with this back story and by the time the action actually
started I had almost fallen asleep. Some of Lee's trade mark style shows in the use of
split screens to give the feel of comic book. Unfortunately most of this happens during
extremely boring sections of the narrative. The multiple screens serve only to highlight how
little there is worth watching, let alone duplicating.
The investigation of the "psychological" aspects of Hulkdom appears limited to Banner's
agonising about his past and his vaguely Oedipal relationship with his father. There was potential for The
Hulk to have been used as a powerful metaphor for the nature of good and evil, a modern
Jekyll and Hyde for the 21st century. The writers appear to have been uninterested in
this - or perhaps they simply made a bad job of it.
As for the acting, Bana makes the best of a bad role whilst his girlfriend (Jennifer Connelly)
is wooden. There is no evident spark between them and this snuffs out even a feeble
attempt at a romantic subplot. Nick Nolte is excellent as Banner's evil Nietzchean
father, hamming things up the way a traditional comic-book villain should. Unfortunately
his performance is totally out of place in this particular movie.
Some people have said "at least the effects were good". They weren't. At times the CGI
Hulk looked as if he had been created by Ray Harryhausen as an opponent for Sinbad.
There were two good stories potentially lurking in The Hulk. One was a fun action adventure,
the other was a psychological metaphor. Schamus, Turman and France could have written
either or both stories - in the end they wrote neither.
