"The Incredible Hulk" (2008) - Movie Review

Bruce Banner and his inner beast Hulk has not found a place in my comic hero years. The nostalgic fan of the TV series might get it is what I was thinking but “Iron Man” fell in the unaware radar and yet I enjoyed it. Ang Lee’s “Hulk” dealt most of this green guy as a human trapped inside and “The Incredible Hulk” does not have the time to let Bruce Banner here portrayed by a favourite actor of mine, Edward Norton to let out some more words. May be he would said the right word I am saying out here. Disaster.

The title roles up with chronicles of events to what made Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) diminish in to the lands of Brazil and practice his controlling skills of repressing excitement. He has a communication through chat with an unknown identity declaring as Mr. Blue. Supposedly Banner has come to trust this mysterious man/woman for a cure to his green nightmares in daylight. He has managed to keep things under control so far with a menial labour in a soft drink manufacturing plant. These initial scenes had an unspoken charm and desperation of this lost scientist. With a music guiding the current life of him, I was hooked and when he undergoes a breathing control from his martial arts instructor (Jiu Jujitsu I presume), I grinned. It is going to be a character study and an analogy of monstrous behaviour as such in us. It fizzled within couple of minutes.

It is bound to happen that he will be located by the military dictator General Ross (William Hurt), father of Bruce’s love interest Betty Ross (Liv Tyler). And his intelligence and sense can be questioned in each of the strategy he plans to capture Bruce. He sends a team consisting of an aging soldier Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth). I was able to digest the chase but after that it is an opposing contrast of the first fifteen minutes. The film migrated into a silent chaos of banality and insanity. Every character has a single line agenda. Bruce Banner – Cure for green monster, Betty Ross – Love Bruce, General Ross – Frame stupid plans for a grandeur fiascos and Emil Blonsky – Do not want to grow old and get high on the super serum. Throw the CGI into this mix to have big fat blockbuster disguised in the name of characterization and close sense of reality.

What is the drive for Blonsky? The age rarely seems to be his problem because without the experimental fluid inside his veins, he is one tough gun to seriously kick some butts. The connection between Ross and him is immediate. The following lines would have been more sense than what connects these two people.

Ross: I am General Ross. My motto is killing the Hulk dude. I have a fluid to kick off your veins. You want to get high and become a super freaking soldier.

Blonsky: Get me high, forget about super freaking soldier.

The people in this film are denied to talk and I mean not even sigh for help. They do not understand discussion rather keeps mum and let the mean big dude come out to make pieces of cars and what not. What were they thinking when the attack of Hulk on a university front was shot? The mistake is that the world Louis Leterrier creates is too real for Hulk and thus tweaks the sensory cells in a viewer. That would directly advice to call that a rubbish. It is rubbish.

Norton has always been an intelligent actor and a good one. His patience and choice of roles has significance effect in adding a film something more than usual. And when he signs on to a block buster, curiosity is a tickling word. It is another attempt after Ang Lee’s execution which pumps up the excitement to another stage but I had limited scope. I was ready for either an introspective Hulk or a blind entertainer sufficing the summer film parades. Combination would have been good too. I was ready for pretty much anything. It does not succeed in any of those and I was staring with disappointment.

“Hulk” had a greater inspection of a beast which still had a little sense of the human Banner. In calamity of rage sprayed on by him, there was a part which was shaded on the consciousness of the inner personality. The “Hulk” lost me when it shifted to the mode of bad CGI and again ridiculous plan of General Ross involving “attacks”. In “The Incredible Hulk” it has CGI ramped up to high technical caliber and music impressive to stand alone in boosting the race of the story but has vacuum of horrendous implausibility and stupidity.