Phil Mercer

Thursday, June 12, 2008

The Incredible Hulk (Cert 12a)

 

When I first read that another Incredible Hulk movie was in the offing, only a few years after the last one (Hulk, 2003) I assumed that it would be a sequel. Then Marvel comics bought back the rights to the character and it seemed that we could be in for another reinvention of the monster!

In the end it turns out the film strikes out in the middle ground. Hulk 2003 covers the story of how Bruce Banner came a cropper with the Gamma Radiation during experiments. The Incredible Hulk picks up the story a little later on, using newly shot flash backs to sprint through the back story and lead us to a Banner in hiding in Brasil.

Edward Norton has taken on the role last filled by Eric Bana, a man who is desperately lonely, but also desperate to find a cure to his affliction and return to his love Betty Ross (Liv Tyler).

While working in a bottling plant he manages to scrape together some equipment for research and contact someone who has been helping him fight the Gamma Radiation.

Meanwhile, back in the US, General Thaddeus Ross (father of Betty!) is hot on the heels of Banner. This is after a dop of his blood gets in to a bottle of pop, to which an unsuspecting Stan Lee in his obligatory cameo, takes a sip.

So begins a chase, lead by Tim Roth, (who gets to play with the Gamma Radiation himself) leaving plenty of carnage along the way.

We get some good one liners and even the original cast of the TV series pop up here and there. Very telling was the fact that hardly anyone in the cinema really knew who they were... they were all far too young!

All in all I found it a disappointing outing for Hulk. There was nothing surprising in the plot and the CGI effects still look a little too much like CGI! Even the final hint of a follow up with involvement from Robert Downey Jnr's Ironman didn't really excite me much.

3/5
http://incrediblehulk.marvel.com/

Labels: Film Movie

# posted by Phil @ 11:22 pm

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