Hulk SMASH!

yada yada yada
Okay, so as titles go, that's not the most original. Every dude and his uncle is lovin' the old Hulk-smash thing right now. Tonight is going to be my night to see the jolly green giant do his thing. I'm actually kind of nervous about seeing it. I've been waiting for a decent superhero movie for AGES, and I've hated most that have come down the pike. Xmen was okay, X2 was pretty cool, but I thought Daredevil and Spiderman were poor. DD especially. I guess what I hated most was the way people were plugging it as being a "realistic" movie, in that he feels pain, is addicted to painkillers, bleeds etc... Well whoop-de-fucking-do. As soon as I saw him leaping 50 feet without turning his ankles to gello, I was ready to walk out of the fucking cinema.

I can buy suspension of disbelief. I can watch things like Charlies Angels and enjoy it, because they generally stick to their own self-written rules. But DD (like Angel the series) seems to claim to adhere to one set of rules, and then doesn't. Rules are thrown about all over the place. I hate that. Pick a fucking reality and STICK to it, okay?

So tonight, Hulk is going to do his thing. And I hope it's great. I hope it rocks my world. And I hope it's at the least consistant. I'm not a purist, I don't care if it's not a gamma-bomb that does the deed. I don't care if the Hulk isn't grey when we first see him. Just tell a good consistant story.

Ang Lee is a terrific director. I loved the Ice Storm, and Crounching Tiger made me gasp and cry at all the right moments. I've tried to remain spoiler free about the Hulk, but I've heard that the movie had a huge opening, and then dropped off the face of the earth due to bad word of mouth. I'd like to believe that was because the vast majority of the American audience was "thick" or that the studio hadn't a clue how to promote an intelligent character piece, so they advertised a "hulk smasheroo" and that that's not what the movie is about. I'd like to believe these things, but I dunno.

I'll post my thoughts later.

Much later

It's not a great movie, but it's not bad. At least, not in the way that DD and Spidey were bad.

Ang Lee is a good director, but I felt at times that maybe he was overusing the "I've got a new wipe!" thing. The acting was quite good all around, and the directing and soundtrack were also good, though the sound of the Hulk's roar and voice failed to impress. And there was an enourmous over abundance of green in this movie. And I'm not talking about a green filter over some scenes. I'm talking green objects. Everywhere. In a film where the main character is 12' tall and green, you'd think we'd have some other colours involved to give the rods and cones in the eye a break. But no. There was more green in this movie than in the 3 Matrix films combined. Ang did everything except have the movie take place on a Saint Patricks Day weekend. Maybe he'd never heard of that particular holiday.

Where this film failed was in other areas. Lighting for one. The night scenes were WAY too dark, and I was itching for a remote control so that I could up the brightness and contrast. Maybe it was necessary to disguise shoddy CGI work, or maybe it was just the theatre I was in. But it stunk. And it made working out what was going on in the end virtually impossible.

I liked the cameos, though Stan Lee is so obvious he might distract people from noticing the original hulk himself, Lou Ferrigno. And the CGI on the Hulk himself, was passable. Not as good as Gollum, but miles better than anything George Lucas has come up with. It still wasn't "real" but it was totally acceptable for the movie itself. By far, in my opinion, the best CGI effect was in the final transformation to Bruce in San Francisco, as he walks towards Betty.

Watching the CGI hulk rampage in San Francisco, a couple of shots made it obvious how they were "Action Man"ing the jolly green giant. Every muscle on this dude is like 50 times bigger than normal, but you can't tell where is dick is in trousers that must be unfeasibly tight? (I'm sure there's going to be a hentai version where Betty Ross tries to ride the green pony.) Anyway, it made me paraphrase Peter Venkmans line.... "The guy's a geek, and in San Fran. We get him laid, we won't have any problems."

The movie really falls apart in terms of the story. For one thing, the plot was two-dimensional, as is possibly fitting for a comic book translation. For another, it often didn't make sense in what it was doing. I never understood why Bruce turns into the Hulk the first time. Nothing apparently sets him off. No explanation is ever given for how he can tell where Betty is over hundreds of miles away. And as for the whole Absorbing Man finish, well that was just preposterous.

Where the movie suceeded was in most of the early parts, and the first half. It works as a character piece. Considering the word Hulk was used only once that I noticed, and considering how little the Hulk is actually in the movie, it might almost have been better to try and give the movie a different name. Okay, that would have been impossible for so many reasons, but basically, the Hulk is not the focus of this movie. It is misleading, I think, to have "Hulk" as the title.

It's not a movie I would watch a second time. At least, not unless I had a remote in my hand. So I'll wait for the TV version, probably.



posted by Manchild at 4:58 PM