Hulk: Movie & DVD Review (2003)

(Originally published 2003)

If ever there was a movie that needed a strong finish, it’s Ang Lee’s "Hulk," a film whose interminable first hour is such a hackneyed, uneventful bore, audiences might need their own nanomeds gamma-rayed--if that’s even possible--to get through it.

The film, from a script John Turman, Michael France and James Schamus based on Stan Lee’s long-running 1962 Marvel comic book series and, in turn, the 1978-1982 television show with Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno, is a long-winded disappointment that only finds its footing at the end. But by that time, it might as well be wearing clogs.

The film comes on the heels of Ang Lee’s last film, "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," an outstanding movie whose rich story was wedded so perfectly to its characters and its unforgettable action, it transcended the genre to become a work of art.

Stumbling from the start without ever fully recovering, "Hulk" never comes close to reaching such heights.

It’s a movie whose few gripping moments and technically superb set pieces are quashed by a motherlode of bad choices, not the least of which is that Lee and company don’t give us a character we ever really come to know, or, for that matter, give a damn about.

In the movie, Australian actor Eric Bana is Bruce Banner, an emotionally detached research geneticist who, as a child, was his father’s favorite lab rat. Indeed, in an extended series of flashbacks, we see how the mad scientist, David Banner (Paul Kersey/Nick Nolte), stuck needles into just about everything, from frogs to lizards and eventually to his own son, all in an effort to achieve cellular regeneration.

Now, as an adult, Bruce’s blood is so temperamental, it reacts disastrously when he’s accidentally zapped with a lethal dose of gamma radiation. Instead of dropping dead, as his former girlfriend and fellow scientist, Betty Ross (Jennifer Connelly) knows he should have, Bruce becomes a ticking time bomb waiting to erupt into the Hulk the moment he gets ticked off.

Fueling his rage are all sorts of demons—his horrific childhood memories; his crazed father; a competing scientist (Josh Lucas); and Betty’s military father, "Thunderbolt" Ross (Sam Elliott), a five-star general whose ferocious growl could jumpstart the Earth’s core.

With much of the film framed to look like the pages of a comic book, "Hulk" isn’t lacking style; Lee has the sense to keep the action interesting, at least when there’s action to be had, and he has the sensibility to make his slightly cartoonish-looking Hulk appear graceful, particularly when he leaps across vast terrain and becomes airborn.

But until the energetic final 30 minutes, the film is too restrained for its own good, which runs counter to its intent, and there’s rarely a sense of joy, in spite of Bruce’s admission that he likes to morph into the Hulk and go on a rampage. Instead of exploring this potentially interesting and telling side of Bruce’s psyche, Lee glosses over it--and thus leaves audiences with a Hulk who may appear sturdy on the surface, but who is never as complex as the computer code that generated him.

Grade: C-