Being a big fan of the old Lou Ferrigno TV series and having seen the trailers, as well as being a long-time fan of Ang Lee, my hopes were sky high for this one to be my film of the summer, maybe the year. Well, it wasn't, but that doesn't mean it was a wash-out. It just wasn't the film that we had been promised by the trailers. That's probably because this is a hard-sell from the film that Lee delivered.
If you want mad, rampaging Hulk action, its there - in spades - for the best part of an hour. Its beautifully shot, well-designed and exciting, not to mention highly amusing. Watching "Hulk Smash" those tanks is pure geek nirvana, displaying a helluva lot of character at the same time. However, either side is a lot of exposition, with a good 45 mins or so of setup before the Hulk is unleashed. Suffice to say, when he is, it's glorious.
But there is alot more going on here. Ang Lee's films are about repression. Here it is about a child so scared of letting his rage get the better of him that he has grown into a man unable to express almost any emotions because he's hidden from them for so long. As such, he doesn't know his dad and is unable to tell Betty (the never-more-luminescent or effective Jennifer Connelly) how he feels for her.
When his father (the always great Nick Nolte) turns up after years in the wilderness, his rage begins to re-emerge. That's when the action kicks in. There are surreal asides throughout - the Hulk dog fight is a joy, but weird. Nolte's developing strengths are touched upon before being explored more towards the end and, because it comes as such a surprise, can seem like an afterthought and a bizarre one at that.
The final twenty minutes or so, while in many ways the perfect wrapping up of all the issues Lee raises, are both surprising and confusing. Perhaps an extra five or ten minutes in the climactic scenes might have given a bit more weight to a slightly soggy ending to what is largely a thrilling film.
On the plus side, the editing - while slightly over the top - is at times very subtle in its handling of several subjects at once and this is the closest to comic book framing that there has been. It really does feel and move like a comic book. The cinematography, though a little dark in some scenes at night, is gorgeous, particularly when we are in the military base or out on the mesas. The scoring is fine, the acting excellent from the four leads - Bana is well-cast as Banner, Connelly continues to extend her range and grow in beauty, Nolte is gruff (of course) and believable as a bit of a nutjob and Sam Elliot does what he does best, while sharing a few more personal scenes with Connelly. The only false step is Josh Lucas who doesn't have much to work with, but he gets his in due course...
Finally, the much-debated effects. In the early Hulk scenes, he is difficult to see and it feels as though they may be hiding what they couldn't muster. But once he lets rip in the daylight, i stopped looking for the joins and just went with it. He looks a bit goofy at points, but then he's a several ton green giant in purple shorts, so what did you expect? I loved him and he looked like the Hulk to me. His roll down the dunes is flawless fx work in my book, as is his transformation into Banner in San Francisco.
Its not the best film Lee has made (a toss-up between Crouching Tiger and The Ice Storm), nor the best comic book movie (X2?), but it is something different in a summer of sequels and knock-offs. Well worth a watch, but go in with an open mind and you will find it all the more rewarding.
Sackley
If you want mad, rampaging Hulk action, its there - in spades - for the best part of an hour. Its beautifully shot, well-designed and exciting, not to mention highly amusing. Watching "Hulk Smash" those tanks is pure geek nirvana, displaying a helluva lot of character at the same time. However, either side is a lot of exposition, with a good 45 mins or so of setup before the Hulk is unleashed. Suffice to say, when he is, it's glorious.
But there is alot more going on here. Ang Lee's films are about repression. Here it is about a child so scared of letting his rage get the better of him that he has grown into a man unable to express almost any emotions because he's hidden from them for so long. As such, he doesn't know his dad and is unable to tell Betty (the never-more-luminescent or effective Jennifer Connelly) how he feels for her.
When his father (the always great Nick Nolte) turns up after years in the wilderness, his rage begins to re-emerge. That's when the action kicks in. There are surreal asides throughout - the Hulk dog fight is a joy, but weird. Nolte's developing strengths are touched upon before being explored more towards the end and, because it comes as such a surprise, can seem like an afterthought and a bizarre one at that.
The final twenty minutes or so, while in many ways the perfect wrapping up of all the issues Lee raises, are both surprising and confusing. Perhaps an extra five or ten minutes in the climactic scenes might have given a bit more weight to a slightly soggy ending to what is largely a thrilling film.
On the plus side, the editing - while slightly over the top - is at times very subtle in its handling of several subjects at once and this is the closest to comic book framing that there has been. It really does feel and move like a comic book. The cinematography, though a little dark in some scenes at night, is gorgeous, particularly when we are in the military base or out on the mesas. The scoring is fine, the acting excellent from the four leads - Bana is well-cast as Banner, Connelly continues to extend her range and grow in beauty, Nolte is gruff (of course) and believable as a bit of a nutjob and Sam Elliot does what he does best, while sharing a few more personal scenes with Connelly. The only false step is Josh Lucas who doesn't have much to work with, but he gets his in due course...
Finally, the much-debated effects. In the early Hulk scenes, he is difficult to see and it feels as though they may be hiding what they couldn't muster. But once he lets rip in the daylight, i stopped looking for the joins and just went with it. He looks a bit goofy at points, but then he's a several ton green giant in purple shorts, so what did you expect? I loved him and he looked like the Hulk to me. His roll down the dunes is flawless fx work in my book, as is his transformation into Banner in San Francisco.
Its not the best film Lee has made (a toss-up between Crouching Tiger and The Ice Storm), nor the best comic book movie (X2?), but it is something different in a summer of sequels and knock-offs. Well worth a watch, but go in with an open mind and you will find it all the more rewarding.
Sackley
