Directed by Ang Lee
With
- Eric "Chopper" Bana as The Hulk/Bruce Banner
- Nick Nolte as Dr. David Banner
- Jennifer Connelly as a Scientist (Tee-hee)
- Sam Elliot as General Ross
Jonny wants to smash shit Surprise, surprise. The Hulk sucked not for the reasons you might think, but rather for a whole slew of others. While "suck" might seem like a strong verb, this movie was spastic and quite thin in the plot department. Counter to what every motherfucker with an opinion told me before they saw the movie, the CG/special effects were amazing. Best I've seen. [Ed Note: Even compared to Golum?] The story, though, was dumb, dumb, dumb, stupid, dumb. One of the worst I've seen, and I've seen a bunch. I was hoping that like Spider-Man last year, the combination of a great director with very talented principle actors (well, OK, Jennifer Connelly is only half-talented) would be enough to overcome the studio leeches/cabal of writers and make The Hulk passable. Wrong.
First of all, I think I am just getting too old to care much about comic book-based movies. Their fundamental flaw being that they are dumb and written for children. As the years roll past me and my body, I just crave a little more depth and mental alacrity in my entertainment. Comic books are simply inherently limited in this regard. The Hulk being no exception (unlike Spider-Man). Second, a big, giant Ruthless Fuck You goes out to Ang Lee. Not for making a poor movie, which he did, but for that shitty fucking cameo he gave to Lou Ferrigno. Hey Ang, you know that eight hundred gazillion dollars you just deposited into your bank account? Well, Lou earned at least half the loot for you by slugging it out for years in a frankly more coherent and entertaining Hulk vehicle. [Ed Note: TV show.] Ferrigno is why the audience even knows what the hell the Hulk is. And you let him walk across the screen once? Jesus Christ, fuck you Ang! Show a little gratitude. Make him an evil henchman or something, sheesh...
OK, so Bruce Banner, genetic scientist, yaddy yaddy yah, nanotechnology, accident, gamma rays, rage, repressed memories, becomes the Hulk and smashes a bunch of shit (doesn't manage to kill anybody, oddly enough). Just a grab bag of cutting edge scientific and psychological crap that seems innocuous enough to at least let the viewer have a good time, right? Well, the plot is so insipid that I spent most of my time either laughing out loud (like when Bruce and homegirl are playing on a swing set) or getting really upset. Like when Nick Nolte turns into Lawnmower Man. I would also say also that fifteen percent of the movie consists of extreme close-ups of Bana's face shaking with rage. Kind of like in The Mummy how all the characters were constantly roaring at each other. Site gags replace plot, story, etc.
Oh yeah, Eric Bana. Watch the first couple of scenes of him talking to Connelly. You'll hear a nice Australian accent. I think part of the reason he turned in such a wooden, stilted and boring performance was because he was worried about his accent. Must have been, because I saw Bana in Chopper, and let me tell you, the boy can act. He just chooses for some reason not to do so here. Instead, he imitates Al Gore. Maybe it was bad directing? The writers are a mixed bag, one dude (James Schamus) having written Lee's earlier masterpiece, The Ice Storm, and one of them (Michael France) having written Cliffhanger. Somehow or another, Bana got it into his head that the best way to portray Bruce Banner is to have a single expression. Even the fucking CG Hulk emotes more than Bana. Because of this, I found Mr. Bana very difficult to watch and/or take seriously. Which is too bad, because my expectations were high.
Much was made in the pre-movie hoopla about how Lee was going to make a "deeply emotional exploration" type of film. I'm paraphrasing, but if you read of any of the hype/press, this was the party line. And of course the emotion being explored is rage. But when Banner's girly sells his ass out by narcing on him to her pops (Sam Elliot) what does Bruce do? Incredibly, nothing. He doesn't even get mad at her! That is how stupid the plot is. Again, you have a movie about a guy/creature who cannot control his mega-violent rage who doesn't even seem annoyed, let alone furious, at the one person he trusts stabbing his ass in the back. He spends over half the movie running back to her. I would have kicked that bitch to the curb/smashed the living shit out of her. Do I even have to mention the fact that the four principle characters all lived next to each other at one point, even though they don't know each other in the present? Need I speak of the fact that the mean General Ross (again, Elliot, coincidently and conveniently Connelly's dad) lets his daughter go and play patty-cake with Banner after the military has this serious threat to national security sequestered on a military base? What about at the end when Bruce's daddy (Nolte), a well known mad scientist/murderer, is allowed by his arch-enemy General Ross to go and have a téte-à-téte with his son/life's work 100 yards away from the nearest solider with a gun? The whole story reads like... well, like a comic book. And therein lies the problem.
I do want to stress the fact that the action sequences kicked ass. Far exceeding my (and everyone else's) expectations. Especially the part where the Hulk beats the fuck out of four tanks. Also, the part where he piggybacks on the F-16 was particularly satisfying. Even the (stupid, plot-wise) part where the Hulk kills the three super-dogs that Nolte sent after Connelly was refreshingly violent and fun to watch. Trouble is, the Hulk is only in a third (maybe) of the movie. The rest of the time gets occupied by silliness that was supposed to pass for a substantial plot. Including lots and lots of close-ups on lizards, snakes and starfish, the genetic material from which the Hulk was birthed. The movie fails so badly at being compelling that I'm not even going to recommend getting the DVD and skipping to the good parts. Just see it once in the theater (cause you know you're going to no matter what I say) and forget about it.
I need, need to make fun of the stupid, tacked-on ending. The Hulk and Nolte get hit by a nuclear bomb. OK, fine. The world can't handle "different." We've all read Frankenstein, got it. But like so many fucking movies, (Iron Giant and Whale Rider spring to mind, though there are many others) Lee and/or studio dickheads and/or test audiences couldn't leave well enough alone (not that The Hulk is "well enough"). Bruce/Hulk inexplicably survives the atomic blast and is now working in Costa Rica/some poor-ass Central American country handing out free medicine to the impoverished. Fine, there is your standard liberal guilt-infused message from a bunch of Hollywood millionaires who would sooner buy a new car than get on a public bus. I could almost live with that, except for the fact that what if Banner gets stung by a bot fly or something and then smashes the fuck out of the village and the poor denizens who dwell there? Uh... Nice message assholes. Fucking stupid. >
Special Ruthless Ratings:
- Number of times you heard people say that they thought the CG looked "stupid" before they saw the movie: 23 (by the way, CG stands for "Computer Graphics")
- Number of times you heard people say that after they saw the movie: 0
- Number of times you laughed out loud during a supposedly dramatic part: 3
- Did you like how the screen was sliced up so as to look like an actual comic book: For about 3 minutes. It would have been much better if Lee had just done that little gimmick for the opening credits. I know some of the nerds out there (I'm talking to you, Charles) are going to write in and tell me that it was cool that Lee was able to mix mediums like that. I say "no," 'cause why not then mix in TV and have commercials during the movie? Oh wait...
- Number of times you turned around to glare at the little-shit rugrat who was kicking the back of your seat: 4
- Did that help: No
- Did his mother or father, who were sitting right there, try to discipline him in anyway: No
- Did the ending of the film make any sense to you at all: No
- Would you have liked the movie better if it was just the Hulk in the desert fighting tanks and attack helicopters for two hours: You know it
- Number of times the oppressive sound track made you reach for your knife: Danny Elfman... It was OK, although my girlfriend caught me bobbing my head at one point.
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