Cinema Hype

To understand the newest rendition of The Incredible Hulk, you’d have to go back a few years. Not to 1962, when Stan Lee first premiered the character, but to 2003, when Ang Lee tried to bring him to the big screen and ended up with one of the biggest superhero-movie bombs in cinematic history. The Lee Hulk is long. It’s a thinker. It’s the worst thing a superhero movie can be: it’s boring. The Marvel Entertainment Hulk reboot, which opens today nationwide, is a clear reaction to the previous film—almost a point-by-point rebuttal—and it seems to accomplish the goal of amping up the Hulk franchise once again. However, if the further target is to create another thoughtful superhero film within the Marvel universe, something’s gone seriously off-course.

The Incredible Hulk’s success as an action flick is a relief, but it’s not surprising. Director Louis Leterrier keeps things speedy and simple, with a standard three action sequences—big, bigger, biggest—and a running time of less than two hours. It’s not very original, and it feels basic, but it works anyway; if anything, the Hulk-vs.-everybody-else scenes feel like a blend of modern CGI with a classic, pre-Michael-Bay eye for crafting complete stories within the action, without the nausea- and confusion-inducing close cuts we see in other action movies. Leterrier functions on a scale that’s appropriate for the Hulk, including plenty of story in his biggest, most elaborate sequences. Audiences looking for a good summer action movie should be pleased.

So the problem with The Incredible Hulk isn’t with the Hulk. The Hulk’s fine. Great, even. He does his crashing-around rage thing. But his poor alter ego, physicist Bruce Banner, gets short shrift, and the movie suffers because of it. Bruce’s backstory comes out in a vague kind of way during the opening credits—there’s a montage—and after that, nothing. We know how he feels about his girlfriend, Betty Ross, but then we know how most men would feel if they were dating a brilliant biologist in Liv Tyler’s body. Whether it’s a reaction to the overwrought backstory in Lee’s Hulk, this Bruce Banner never makes it into the third dimension. And what is a superhero without his or her alter ego? A superhero who’s only a superhero misses the point, doesn’t tell us anything about ourselves, and becomes vaguely resentable. Maybe nobody’s actively disliking Bruce Banner, but it’s difficult to connect with a character who won’t show his cards. It’s a shame, really. Why go to the trouble of hiring Edward Norton—arguably one of the best actors working onscreen today—and then give him so little to do? Norton’s a great choice for Bruce Banner; his regular-Joe looks and slight build make him a natural counterpoint to the alter ego he hates so much, and he’s the kind of actor who could easily lend added depth to a shallowly-written role. All he needs is a good line or two. Maybe a pensive look. We want to know this guy, and the movie never gets us there.

In the end, this reboot will probably be marked down as a success. Fans can heal from their disappointment over the Lee adaptation; it’ll do well at the box office; Marvel will keep up its winning streak, and maybe stretch it into a Hulk sequel. There’s plenty to enjoy here, in a spectacular, smash-and-grab kind of way. But if a contribution to the canon of complex, well-rounded superhero movies was Marvel’s intent, they seem to have overshot.

The Incredible Hulk, Edward Norton, Liv Tyler, Louis Leterrier, Marvel Entertainment, Ang Lee, Hulk