Cinefantastique Online

Given the dreadful critical reception that greeted Universal’s 2003 attempt at bringing the HULK to the screen, one has to admire the studio’s willingness to pretty much forget about maintaining continuity with their misguided first effort and simply start over. As a result, this new version of THE INCREDIBLE HULK is sure to be far better received by critics, and will undoubtedly exceed the previous HULK’s box-office take of $132 million. Screenwriter Zak Penn (X2) has wisely relegated the origin story to an inventive visual recap quickly told behind the opening credits, freeing director Louis Leterrier (TRANSPORTER) to begin telling his story without getting bogged down with unneeded exposition. As the film opens, we first discover Bruce Banner toiling by day as an anonymous worker in a Rio de Janeiro bottling factory. By night, he studies Portuguese, attempts to discover a herbal cure for his gamma infected cells, or simply watches re-runs of THE COURTSHIP OF EDDIE’S FATHER.

Leterrier shoots most of this opening section like a silent movie, with a minimum use of dialogue, relying on computer screens and English subtitles (to translate the Portuguese) instead.  Leterrier also beautifully establishes the Brazilian location with soaring aerial photography of the shantytown favelas that cling to the hills behind Rio, and proves that from afar, even slums can be beautiful. (As a side note, director Orson Welles also used beautiful aerial photography for his Brazilian documentary IT’S ALL TRUE, also set in Rio,  way back in 1942). Leterrier’s use of helicopter shots is a motif that reoccurs throughout the movie, and subtly suggests a Hulk’s-eye point of view, as Banner proceeds in a north by northwesterly direction back to America, making stops in Guatemala and Mexico, before turning eastward for the climatic battles that await The Hulk on a college campus in Virginia and the crowded streets of Harlem.

Edward Norton is well cast as Bruce Banner, giving us a more internal performance, as well as providing us with a greater contrast when he transforms into The Hulk, than the more muscular Eric Bana provided in director Ang Lee’s version. Norton also conveys Banner’s anguished feelings of betrayal and lost love, without relying as heavily on the spoken word, although the actor reportedly wrote several of his own scenes for the movie.

In explaining his initial attraction to the role, Norton says, “Bruce Banner is the guy who monkeys with secret forces and gets burned by them in a way that ends up isolating him and exiling him to this lonely existence. There’s something in the story of a lonely, moral guy in this self-imposed exile, trying to protect the world from this terrible thing inside him that I think people can relate to. They like the story of the oppressed, chased, hunted man who has this righteous bite-back when you push him too hard. When you’re a teenager, there’s a terrific fantasy in that. It’s that feeling of being lonely, of being outside, and the fantasy that if people push you too hard, you’ve got this thing that’s going to rise up out of you and defend you. That taps straight into the way you feel as a teenager.”

Zak Penn’s script also manages to concisely convey the yearning Banner feels for his lost scientist love, Betty Ross. After five years apart, Banner discovers to his great distress, Betty has moved on and is now involved with another man. Liv Tyler plays Betty in quite an appealing way and her scenes with Norton have a real chemistry about them. You readily believe she would willingly sacrifice everything, after she becomes aware Banner is back in town and is being mercilessly pursued by General “Thunderbolt” Ross.

Scripter Penn also introduces a poignant “Beauty and the Beast” theme into the story, as Betty Ross proves to be the only person who can break through and reach Banner’s finer instincts after he’s transformed into The Hulk. Rather surprisingly, we also get a fairly suggestive foreplay scene, in which Bruce and Betty come close to consummating their relationship; however, Banner cuts it short once he realizes that all the sexual excitement might trigger an unwanted transformation. The scene amusingly suggests the horrors Betty would face if Banner actually did transform into The Hulk while they were in bed together!

Playing the unyielding General Ross, William Hurt gives a perfect picture of an obsessed super-patriot, who totally believes everything he’s doing is in the best interests of his country, whether he’s right or wrong. In other words, he’s channeling President George W. Bush, but going just a bit farther then even Mr. Bush would ever dare. But in matters involving national security, General Ross believes the ends always justify the means, even to the point of sacrificing his own daughter.

“Thunderbolt Ross is a conflicted man,” notes William Hurt. “He’s caught between his love and loyalty to his daughter and to his country. He’s obsessed with stopping Bruce Banner and his alter ego, and he starts to lose an understanding of what he’s doing, and why. He ends up ignoring his primary instinct as a parent and, ultimately, he’s humiliated by the fact that the thing he hates most in the world saves his daughter’s life. That’s a heavy emotional toll.”

To give The Hulk a suitable adversary, Tim Roth plays Blonsky, a gung-ho soldier whose first encounter with The Hulk in Brazil makes him wish he had his younger body of ten years ago. General Ross kindly obliges him and offers to give him steroid-like injections of “Super Soldier Serum.” Naturally, once Blonsky feels the increased power the injections bring to his aging body, he wants to go even further and demands a transfusion of Banner’s gamma-tainted blood that transforms him into “The Abomination.”

This effectively deals with one of the perennial problems that faced The Hulk in his comic book incarnations: namely, finding an adversary who is bigger and even stronger than The Hulk. Director Leterrier wanted to stage his final clash of the titans outside of the historic Apollo theater on 125th street in Manhattan, which has been impressively duplicated by production designer Kirk Petruccelli (LAURA CROFT: TOMB RAIDER). Petruccelli notes, “When Louis told me he wanted the climax of the film to take place in Harlem in front of the Apollo Theater, I said ‘Sure, but we’ll have to build it,’ because there is no way anyone was going to let us throw cars around, blow things up and basically trash and terrorize a historically designated area for a couple of weeks in New York City.”

As with IRON MAN, the climatic battle actually seems to go on just a bit longer than is necessary. As a result it becomes slightly overdone and repetitious, but it’s still a very excitingly staged sequence, made all the more impressive by the mobile camerawork of cinematographer Peter Menzies, Jr. As director Leterrier explains, “Part of the whole Hulk experience is that you put the audience in Bruce Banner’s shoes by literally following him when he runs down the favelas. But you also are next to him on that motorcycle through the cable cams. When he’s Hulk you want to be behind him… so the Russian arm (a key camera crane) helped us to run as fast as The Hulk, be as high as The Hulk and get into ‘Hulk Vision.’ To do that, we used the Russian arm and techno crane to make you feel like you are The Hulk, so you move like him. You are fast, and you push in and you grab and throw stuff out—that is the total Hulk experience.”

The film ends quite satisfactorily, with a nice double coda, that suggests The Hulk may soon be teaming up with, or at least make a guest appearance in, Marvel’s upcoming big screen adaptation of THE AVENGERS.

THE INCREDIBLE HULK (2008). Directed by Louis Leterrier. Screenplay by Zak Penn and Edward Norton, based on the comic book by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Cast: Edward Norton, Liv Tyler, Tim Roth, Tim Blake Nelson, Ty Burrell, William Hurt, Christina Cabot, Peter Mensah, Lou Ferrigno, Paul Soles.