Let me just come out and say that I enjoyed this film. I wasn't quite sure that I was going to but I did. I mean, it's hard to get yourself pumped about a film that the only good thing I'd heard about it was that one of my friends said, "it was good but Spider-Man was better." I had heard all the complaints: the science was too heavy, the Hulk comes in too late in the film, the Hulk doesn't speak, they butchered his origin, the relationship between Bruce and Betty is misused, et cetera, et cetera. I went into the film expecting it to be a waste of my time.
So why did I even go? Besides a morbid curiosity that I was born with (and which has made me sit through numerous bad and sometimes painful movies) I also knew who was making the film: Jim Schamus and Ang Lee. These are two guys whose work I respect. They always manage to make films that I enjoy and get me thinking. I had faith, although it was a little shaken by reviews, that if anyone could pull this film together, it was these guys.
I was right.
After seeing the film, I have no idea what everyone was complaining about. In close-ups the Hulk manages to emote with an amazing degree of believeability. His body moves in an incredible but still realistic way. As for the science and how long it takes for the Hulk to appear, to that I must say that I'm surprised by that reaction. It doesn't take that long (I had heard that it took an hour and a half, it was more like forty minutes). What the film is doing is called "back story." It's what makes the difference between a character that we care about and a two dimensional thug.
Schamus and Lee tapped into the psychological aspects of the Hulk and made a great film. They didn't make a pure slugfest, which is what I'm sure many people wanted, and I'm glad that he didn't. If he had, it would've been the Matrix Reloaded where fights just go on and on until they lose all meaning. Don't forget, this is the Hulk. He's so strong that in most fights it is a foregone conclusion that the Hulk will win. To make an interesting Hulk film, you can't merely focus on the physical. You have to focus on the emotional and the mental and that's what this film does.
But don't think that means that there isn't any fighting in the film. There are some good fight scenes (personally, I was surprised how much I enjoyed the "Hulk dogs" fight considering how stupid I thought it was going to be when I heard of it). Besides the dogs, there's also a long fight with the military that fills us with a type of "shock and awe" that would impress even Dubya.
The Hulk is one of the better comic book films made so far and my only regret is that I doubt that Ang Lee will be allowed to make the sequel (if, indeed, Universal feels it did enough business to have one). The odds of another comic film respecting the intelligence of the viewer this much is not very good.
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