The Incredible Hulk 2008
I saw most of the movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe at the theaters, and caught a few more on video later on, but there were still a few holdouts. I may never see Thor and Thor: The Dark World just because I’m not that crazy about Thor, at least until Ragnarok came along. I also never saw the original Hulk movie directed by Ang Lee in 2003 or The Incredible Hulk, which came out just a month after the first installment of the 23-film MCU, Iron Man. I knew it wasn’t that well reviewed, but neither were Iron Man 2 or Iron Man 3 and I liked those. I wound up buying the blu-ray of The Incredible Hulk on a good sale made better with some store credits and I have to say that this definitely is not one of the better Marvel movies. They skip over the origin story for the most part, maybe because we already know it or maybe it was covered in the earlier movie. So they show it like “last week on The Incredbile Hulk . . .” which is a little unsatisfying, but it does get you right into the action. However, for the first half of the movie, there isn’t much plot as Bruce Banner is hiding out in Brazil and looking for a way to cure his green man problem. Then the government intrudes and there is a fight. So he changes locations and the government intrudes and there is another fight. Then he finally seems to be getting close to a solution, but there has to be a really big fight at the end. So it is just sort of a series of fights without much else going on. Also, this was an early Marvel movie, but the CGI really looks terrible, which is really bad because the Hulk is CGI, but also some special effects that just look really fake (a helicopter). Also, the villain is played by Tim Roth, who seems kind of tiny to be as tough as he is supposed to be. William Hurt just towers over him. Roth is a good actor, but seems miscast. Also Liv Tyler as the love interest just seems kind of odd looking, which is maybe just the way she looks, so I just kept thinking how weird Liv Tyler looks instead of just watching her character (it’s not just her, I think they were trying to make her look like her character in the comic book). So the movie was disappointing on a lot of different levels, but still has a lot of action and the basis for a decent story, so it was entertaining at least. It feels a more like a Spider-Man sequel than MCU.
Written: 29 Aug 2020
Owned on: Blu-ray, Digital