The Ang Lee Hulk was something less than a howling success. It did decently enough at the box office, but the word of mouth was pretty terrible, and the movie was deeply flawed. (It also led to a ridiculous number of comics fans with little knowledge of movies deciding that Lee, one of the finest directors alive, was a terrible director.)
One of Marvel Studios’s first orders of business was to get the rights back to the Hulk, though Universal retained the distribution rights. The same summer that saw the release of Iron Man also gave us another new interpretation of the Hulk.
Producer Gale Anne Hurd referred to The Incredible Hulk as a “requel”—part reboot, part sequel. If you ignore some of the details in the montage over the opening credits (this being the rare MCU movie that has its opening credits at the actual beginning of the movie where they’re damn well supposed to be), you could view this as a sequel to the 2003 film, even with everybody re-cast, though it has more aggressive ties to the larger Marvel oeuvre, with references to Stark Enterprises, S.H.I.E.L.D., and the super-soldier serum that created Captain America.
However, this movie also was very much meant to be part of the nascent Marvel Cinematic Universe, complete with a cameo by Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark having a conversation with General Ross.
Director Louis Leterrier, of The Transporter fame, had wanted to direct Iron Man, but Jon Favreau already had the gig, so Marvel offered him the Jade Giant instead. Leterrier found most of his inspiration from the Jeph Loeb/Tim Sale Hulk: Gray miniseries, while screenwriter Zak Penn (whose writing work has already been seen in this rewatch in X2, X-Men: The Last Stand, and Elektra) was inspired by Bruce Jones’s then-current run on the Incredible Hulk monthly comic.
Buy the Book
Vengeful
Edward Norton was brought in to play Bruce Banner, and his contract included being involved in the writing, so Penn’s script received significant rewrites from Norton as filming went on, though Norton received no credit for it.
The script was designed with sequels in mind. Ross was already an antagonist, and this movie added Emil Blonsky, a.k.a. the Abomination, and also introduced the character of Samuel Sterns, with the character’s final scene in the movie setting him up to become the Leader. Those three have always been the major foes of the Hulk, the latter two in particular being other normal humans mutated by gamma radiation. Both were altered from their four-color roots, however. Blonsky was changed from a Soviet spy to a Russian-born British soldier, while Sterns was a simple janitor in the comics, but a cellular biologist in the film (which kind of defeats the purpose, as the whole idea of the Leader is that someone who was a not-too-bright manual laborer got turned into the smartest person in the world). The design of the Abomination is also less reptilian than the comics version.
The cast also includes William Hurt as Ross, Liv Tyler as his daughter Betty, Tim Roth as Blonsky, Tim Blake Nelson as Sterns, and Ty Burrell as Dr. Leonard Samson (another comics character). Lou Ferrigno also provides the Hulk’s voice, most of which is incoherent shouting, but also includes three lines of dialogue (one of which is, of course, “Hulk smash!”). Hurt is the only actor to reappear in any subsequent MCU films, as Ross is seen in both Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War, having been appointed U.S. Secretary of State (though composites of Ferrigno’s shouting was used for the Hulk in the first two Avengers movies). In addition, there are cameos by two other people who have played Banner on screen: Paul Soles, who voiced Banner in the 1966 Saturday morning cartoon, plays the friendly owner of a pizza parlor near Culver University, and the late great Bill Bixby is seen when Banner is watching The Courtship of Eddie’s Father early in the movie.
Norton himself would only appear in this film, replaced by Mark Ruffalo, who will go on to play the part in Avengers, Iron Man 3, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Thor: Ragnarok, and Avengers: Infinity War and its forthcoming sequel. Though Norton’s film did perfectly well at the box office, like the 2003 film, it didn’t quite hit all the notes with viewers (certainly not on the same level as Iron Man, which took the world by storm that same summer). In addition, Universal still has distribution rights to the character. In 2008, this was less of an issue, as Marvel Studios’s other films were distributed by Paramount, but everything was still controlled by the small studio. Once Marvel was purchased by Disney, that dynamic changed, and that link to Universal (which hasn’t been severed due to Universal controlling theme park rights) has combined with the lukewarm reception both Hulk films have received to keep the big guy a supporting character rather than a headliner.
“He protected her; you almost killed her”
The Incredible Hulk
Written by Zak Penn
Directed by Louis Leterrier
Produced by Avi Arad and Gale Anne Hurd and Kevin Feige
Original release date: June 13, 2008
Over the opening credits we get a montage of images showing the Hulk’s origin. Dr. Bruce Banner subjects himself to an experiment (while sitting in a chair that looks remarkably similar to the one Bill Bixby sat in in 1977), in collaboration with Dr. Betty Ross. Something goes wrong, and Banner transforms into a huge green monster who trashes the lab, puts Betty in a coma, and badly injures Betty’s father, General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross.
Banner goes on the run and eventually winds up in Brazil, working as a bottler in a soda factory, occasionally fixing things for the boss, but refusing a promotion to something more in keeping with his scientific skills. At one point he’s cut, and he bleeds on the bottles. Banner panics and stops the production line long enough to clean it up, but he misses one bottle that’s stained with his blood.
For some time, Banner has been having secure online chats with a “Mr. Blue,” a scientist at a university in New York City, who refers to Banner as “Mr. Green.” They’ve been working on a cure, but nothing has worked. Banner eventually agrees to send Blue a sample of his blood.
Ross has been searching for Banner for five years now. S.H.I.E.L.D. reports an instance of gamma poisoning from a soda bottle (suffered by a drinker of said soda who looks just like Stan Lee). Ross has his people trace where the soda was bottled and when he learns it’s Brazil, he orders a search to see which factory has any white employees.
A colleague assembles a commando team for Ross, led by Emil Blonsky, a Russian-born Royal Marine on loan from the UK. They travel to Brazil to capture Banner, chasing him through the streets, shooting at him in the open, and generally violating all kinds of international law. Banner manages to stay ahead of them for a while, but eventually his heart rate goes up high enough that he finds himself transforming into the Hulk. He makes very short work of the commandos—at one point, he throws a forklift at Blonsky—and then he leaps away.
By the time he calms down enough to revert to Banner, he’s in Guatemala. He needs to get Blue all the data on the experiment anyhow, so, since his life in Brazil is pretty well burned, he spends the next two-and-a-half weeks working his way slowly back to Culver University in Virginia.
Banner is friends with the local pizza parlor owner, who gives him a place to stay and a couple of pizzas so he can bribe the security guard (who looks just like Lou Ferrigno) to get upstairs to the lab and copy the data on the experiment. Except, to his frustration, the data is all gone from the server.
He returns to the pizza place only to encounter Betty, along with Dr. Leonard Samson, the psychiatrist she’s dating. They have a tearful reunion, and she brings him home (it isn’t clear how Samson feels about that) to reveal that she put the data from the experiment on a flash drive before it was erased.
Blonsky wants to know about this big green dude who threw a forklift at him, and Ross explains that Banner and Betty were working on a project for the U.S. Army involving gamma radiation trying to re-create a super-soldier serum from World War II. (The words “Captain America” are never spoken.) Blonsky—who is pushing forty—talks with Ross about how frustrating it is that he has all this experience in a body that isn’t in as good a shape as it was two decades previous. Ross offers him a way to achieve that…
Ross tracks Banner to Culver’s campus and they attack him. Blonsky, with a version of the super-soldier serum coursing through his veins, does a much better job of holding his own against the Hulk, but he still gets his ass kicked, as do the rest of them. The fight ends with Blonsky getting kicked into a tree, breaking every bone in his body.
Betty runs into the middle of the field of battle just as missiles are fired at the Hulk, to Ross’s horror. The Hulk protects her and leaps off with her unconscious form and takes her to a cave to protect her from the rain.
Ross questions Samson as to where they might go, but Samson isn’t inclined to help the person who almost got Betty killed capture the guy who saved Betty’s life. Meanwhile, Betty and Banner head north to New York to meet up with Mr. Blue. En route, Banner borrows a PC in a gas station office and e-mails the data to Mr. Blue. Unfortunately, S.H.I.E.L.D.’s scrubbing program finds the e-mail and alerts Ross’s people.
They arrive to meet Mr. Blue, really Dr. Samuel Sterns, a microbiologist. They experiment on Banner, trying to figure out a way to negate the change. It works—he transforms, he’s injected with the serum, and he reverts back to Banner. But Sterns isn’t sure if this just reversed that current change or cured him permanently. As they discuss the experiment, Banner is appalled to learn that Sterns synthesized more of Banner’s blood and has been testing it on lab animals. Banner wants it all destroyed to prevent any possibility of Ross weaponizing it, but before they can argue further on the subject, Ross’s people attack—led by Blonsky, who has completely healed from his injuries.
Banner and Betty are captured. Blonsky bullies Sterns into giving him an injection that will turn him into the same kind of creature, but Sterns warns him that it might mix weirdly with the super-soldier serum. Blonsky doesn’t care—and neither does Sterns, he just wanted Blonsky to give informed consent.
Blonsky turns into a giant yellow creature with a jutting spine, and he leaves after smashing Sterns’s lab. In the destruction, a vial of Banner’s blood is shattered, and his blood spills onto an open wound of Sterns’s, causing his cranium to shift and undulate, almost as if it’s preparing for a sequel…
Within moments, Blonsky is trashing everything in sight. Ross, realizing he’s created a monster (ahem), reluctantly agrees to let Banner deal with it. There’s a moment of fear after he jumps out of the helicopter that Sterns really did cure him. But no, he changes into the Hulk and the two of them tear the shit out of Harlem for, um, a while before the Hulk manages to wrap an industrial chain around Blonsky’s neck and choke him out.
Banner buggers off to British Columbia, Betty makes it clear that she never wants to speak to Ross as his daughter again, and Ross goes to get drunk. He’s met at an Army bar by Tony Stark, who says he’s putting a team together…
“Is that all you got?”
They’ve been telling Hulk stories in comic book form since 1962. On screen, they got five years’ worth of TV shows, as well as five movies, out of the character as played by Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno.
So I’m really unclear as to why they felt the need to tell the same movie all over again.
For all the talk that this was a reboot and they were going to move past the origin, and all the rest, Incredible Hulk winds up hitting pretty much the same beats as Hulk: Banner becomes Hulk, Banner is chased by Army, Banner is captured by Army, Banner has city-damanging climactic fight against another CGI monster, Banner gets away in the end, Betty is super-pissed at her Dad.
The main change, of course, is the removal of Banner’s father, which is very much a change for the better. The biggest problem with Hulk was mistaking it for a movie about Banner père rather than Banner fils, as Nick Nolte sucks all the life out of the movie. But without that psychological hit, we don’t have anything that actually makes Banner interesting. Norton just plays Banner as a random dude who happens to turn into a big green rage-monster, but there’s no sense of personality here. Technically, replacing the charisma-free Eric Bana with Norton is trading up, but it’s not trading up enough, as Norton’s best mode is as the calm, normal-seeming guy.
Worse, there’s no sense of torment. Norton’s Banner is just bland and uninteresting and unconvincing. There’s no there there. He should be frightened and haunted, and instead he’s just a guy on the run who happens to have very good ways of winning fights.
Liv Tyler deserves better than what the film gives her. Both her Betty and Jennifer Connelly’s Betty from five years previous were rewritten as scientists (in the original comics, Betty has no role other than that of Ross’s daughter, a prize to be fought over by Banner and Major Talbot in a tiresome love triangle; yay, the 1960s), but while Connelly convinced me she was a scientist, Tyler never did. (Honestly, Norton never did, either—aside from fixing a widget in the factory, there was zero evidence anywhere in this movie that Norton was playing one of the finest minds of the Marvel Universe.) Then again, Tyler never got the chance to, as she spends the entire movie staring wide-eyed at Banner and shouting his name a lot and doing damn little else.
At the very least, the CGI has improved, though I wish they hadn’t used Dale Keown’s vein-popping, hypermuscled-even-by-the-Hulk’s-standards version of the Hulk as the template, as I always found Keown’s interpretation to be a bit OTT. (Yes, I know he’s a big green rage monster, so the top is already pretty high, but work with me here.) At the very least, I was convinced that the Hulk had mass and weight. The sequence when he lurks menacingly in the factory the first time we see him is a very effective action sequence from Leterrier (though one expects that from the director of the Transporter movies).
This may be the only MCU movie in which the villains are significantly more interesting than the heroes. William Hurt—for all that he’s nowhere near as perfect for the role as Sam Elliott was—does an excellent job showing Ross’s obsession and single-mindedness. Tim Roth shows Blonsky’s eagerness to be the powerful soldier he was in his youth, though he stops being interesting the moment he turns into the Abomination. And Tim Blake Nelson’s goofball mien beautifully obscures Sterns’s sociopathy, and my one regret in our never getting a sequel is I would love to see Nelson do the Leader.
This movie was kind of lost in the shuffle of Iron Man and its sequel, and by the time we saw the Hulk again, he was being played by yet another actor and most elements of the movie were ignored, the jolly green giant himself reduced to a supporting character. It’s really too bad they didn’t try to do a different Hulk movie.
Next week, we get our third movie in a row that has Robert Downey Jr. in it, plus Scarlett Johansson debuting the Black Widow, in Iron Man 2.
Keith R.A. DeCandido urges all and sundry to support his Kickstarter for “The Fall of Iaron,” a story in the same universe as his “Precinct” series of fantasy police procedurals, though this story in particular does not feature the Cliff’s End Castle Guard. It’s about history, about politics, about storytelling, about what makes a hero, what makes a villain, what makes a tyrant. Please consider supporting it.
Norton is a much better actor than Ruffalo is, but Ruffalo is by far the better Bruce Banner.
H.P.: I agree on the second part wholeheartedly. I don’t agree on the first, though I don’t disagree, either. They’re both excellent, truly.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I read somewhere that Norton’s films usually have problems because he has a tendency of wanting to control everything (at least in American History X). I didn’t know writing was part of his contract.
Something of an improvement over Ang Lee’s Hulk but that doesn’t say much imo…I found too much cheese factor in some of the CGI battles, and found payoff with Dr Blue unsatisfactory. Also at times seemed too caught up with its Easter Eggs of homages, and too convenient that Banner, presumably with little resources managed to sneak over border after border between South America and the US so seemingly easy and quick. You mentioned it being lost in the shuffle of Iron Man, I also think it got lost in the shuffle over antifipation regarding another comic movie Dark Knight…Always wondered if TIH would’ve fared better if not sandwiched so tightly between releases of IM and TDK. Btw, so long since I’ve seen this, forgot that Phil Dunfy was Doc Sampson…
You also forgot to mention that aside from voicing the Hulk, Lou Ferringno appeared on screen as the Culver Security Desk Clerk/Guard…
capt_paul77: Yeah, the ability of Banner to cross borders in a post-9/11 world without any kind of useful ID strained credulity well beyond the breaking point.
And I did too mention that Ferrigno was onscreen. Read the plot summary again.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I liked Norton’s Banner and Hulk, it is a shame his back of camera demands ruled him out of returning. This might not have been a smart movie, but it was a fun one. It had some big fights, a boo-able villain, and “HULK SMASH”, and that is what I wanted to see in a Hulk movie. I felt the best fight was at the school, at the mid point of the movie, mainly because it eschewed the almost obligatory darkness and rain of the usual movie fight fests and had everything in daylight. And not in some sort of desaturated or tinted day light either, but good honest full colour daylight too. I could do with seeing more of that in movies.
Worth noting that “Culver University” is another nod to the Bixby series, since Dr. David Banner was a physician/scientist at the Culver Institute in Sacramento when an accidental overdose of gamma radiation altered his body chemistry. Also, one of the students at Culver University, the one who captured the video of the Hulk that would reappear in Iron Man 2, was named Jack McGee, after David Banner’s investigative reporter nemesis (the original recipient of the “Don’t make me angry” line that’s also quoted in the film).
Not a great film, not as ambitious as Ang Lee’s version, but not as annoying either. It’s watchable and adequate. One of its best points is that it could teach other superhero movies a thing or two about how to do an origin story — just a nice quick main-title montage efficiently filling in the backstory in a couple of minutes so they can get on with the proper story. I also agree that it’s a shame we never got to see Nelson play the Leader. Liv Tyler is nowhere near as appealing as Jennifer Connelly was, though.
I did like the sequence in Brazil. The favela was quite a striking setting, not something I’d ever seen the likes of at that point.
KRAD @6, yeah I see it now, must’ve accidentally scanned over that note upon the first read…I stand corrected
Christopher: Actually, both those students were tributes. The other one with McGee was Jim Wilson, a longtime Hulk supporting character from the comics.
random22: Generally CGI-heavy action sequences (especially in the early days of the technology between 1995 and 2009 or so) are shot in darkness and/or rain in order to make the CGI look better. That’s why it’s always raining on Kamino in the Star Wars prequels and why the 1998 Godzilla took place during a storm……
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@@@@@#8 CLB Yeah I picked up on the Jack McGee connection…Also the naming of the Fort Johnson Military Bass was supposedly a nod to the show’s producer Kenneth Johnson…
Martin Starr was in both this movie (credited as “computer nerd”) and in Spider-Man Homecoming. The Incredible Hulk’s novelization identifies that character as Amadeus Cho, and in Homecoming he plays Mr. Harrington. I prefer to believe that he plays the same character in both movies.
Culver University later showed up in both Agents of SHIELD and The Runaways.
Krad, I don’t know if you’ve seen this but it’s worth noting that one of the Marvel One-Shot short films (I think it was on the Thor blu-ray) called “The Consultant” clears up the odd way The Incredible Hulk ends.
It doesn’t really make sense for Tony to ask Ross about Hulk joining the team. They just wanted a reason for Tony to show up and hint at the Avengers Initiative.
“The Consultant” rewrites history to reveal that Tony was actually there to see if the Abomination could join the Avengers and because Agent Coulson and Agent “Hail Hydra” Sitwell think that this is a terrible idea they send Tony to talk to Ross because they know Ross will be so annoyed by Tony that he will say no.
Since I doubt you’ll actually be covering the Marvel One Shots that were released with the first few MCU Blu-Ray movies, I feel like this would be a good time to bring up the Marvel One Shot known as “The Consultant” (Which was the first one, I think.)
I love how it is an ultra-low-budget thing, yet ties in so wonderfully into the MCU.
For those that haven’t seen it – Agents Coulson and Sitwell sit in a diner and have a conversation. Their conversation is the only new footage shot – the rest uses clips from the Incredible Hulk movie.
Coulson has a problem. The World Security Council wants Director Fury to get the Abomination, as opposed to the Hulk, for the Avenger Initiative. Fury knows that’s a bad idea, but has been ordered to send someone to General Ross to ask for Blonsky’s release. Sitwell suggests sending a “patsy” – someone to screw up the request so badly that Ross will refuse. Coulson reluctantly contacts “the Consultant” (Tony Stark). We then see the post-credits scene of Ross/Stark speaking. Then we cut back to Coulson and Sitwell the next day, discussing the success of sending in Stark. He made Ross so angry that the request was denied, leaving Blonsky under lock-and-key.
The byplay between Clark Gregg and Maximiliano Hernández (Sitwell) is great. The gist of the story works well, especially knowing the disastrous decisions the World Security Council will make in the future (sending a nuke at Manhattan, not to mention the events of the Winter Soldier). Sitwell being revealed as a Hydra agent later makes watching this One Shot again interesting, too.
As to the movie itself, it’s the only MCU movie I don’t own, and it will probably stay that way. I’ve just never enjoyed it enough. I’d put that down as apathy about the Hulk character in general, but I never really cared about Iron Man or Captain America very much either until the MCU rolled around (I was always a Spider-man and X-men guy). But now I like both of those characters a great deal. Hulk? Meh. He’s a good supporting character, but I’m ok with no more Hulk movies.
” Ross has his people trace where the soda was bottled and when he learns it’s Brazil, he orders a search to see which factory has any white employees.”
Very annoying line, that. Brazil is a multiracial society. It has millions of White people. Some of them are even rather famous (cf Gisele Bündchen).
This one gets a solid “meh” from me. Better than the Ang Lee version, but not by much (and William Hurt is a great actor, but Sam Elliot WAS the Thunderbolt Ross as I always imagined). It does fit better into the MCU, or what at that point was the proto-MCU.
Hah, I wanted to comment and ask whether anyone has seen “The Consultant”, which puts Tony’s preposition in a whole new light, but I see that ScavengerMonk @13 and KalvinKingsley @14 have beat me to it.
But as much as I respect Edward Norton as an actor (although I have heard from somewhere that he was a difficult person to work with, don’t know whether it’s true) and quite like Eric Bana, they fall SO short of Mark as Bruce.
@3/palindrome310 & @7/random22, Norton was also pissed that more of his rewrites were excluded, so there was no love lost between the various parties.
In theory, the Hulk would make a good subject for a standalone movie; it’s basically the same model as a werewolf movie — a troubled guy on the run, looking for a cure before the beast is unleashed. But in practice, it just doesn’t seem to fully gel in this or in the previous attempt. (By the by, there are also very few good werewolf movies, so make of that what you will.)
My thoughts, for what they’re worth:
Much like STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN was to STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE, THE INCREDIBLE HULK was a vast improvement over its predecessor. It got right what the Ang Lee movie got wrong. It had its head
and its heart in the right place. Most of all, it felt like a Hulk movie should. Now, I’m not saying that THE INCREDIBLE HULK is as great as STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN, but it was a giant step in the right direction. THIS is the movie we should have gotten the first time around.
It’s more or less the TV show on steroids. And when I say “the TV show,” I mean the GOOD episodes—like the original pilot TV movie and the episodes that focused primarily on Banner trying to find a cure. Fans of the TV series no doubt remember the classic episode in which the Hulk confronts another, far more dangerous Hulk-like creature. Or the one in which he gets captured by the military. Or the one in which Banner experiments on himself and ends up accidentally corrupting the “Banner” side of his personality. Well, those are the kinds of episodes I’m talking about—not the ones in which Banner is driving a cab or working in New York’s garment center and getting mixed up with loan sharks, or getting involved in midget wrestling.
I enjoyed all the in-jokes and Easter eggs. Stan and Lou were great. There wasn’t a lot of humor in the film, but the bits that are in there work very well—and they never demeaned the characters or the situations.
Perhaps most impressively, this movie took one key element from the Bruce Jones run of the comic series—my absolute least favorite run of all time—and utilized it quite well. (Certainly better than Jones did.)
And I loved the inclusion of the theme music from the TV series—I wish it had been used even more extensively, but I’m happy with what I got.
I thought Edward Norton was perfect as Bruce Banner. At times, he seemed to channel the spirit of Bill Bixby, who was also perfectly cast in the role. I still wish he could have remained in the role, but the moment he was cast, I knew Marvel was playing with fire, based on Norton’s reputation, and that there was a very good chance that this relationship would not end well.
As far as I’m concerned, Liv Tyler delivered the goods as Betty Ross and was a VAST improvement over Jennifer Connelly, who practically sleepwalked her way through the previous movie.
I liked Sam Elliott well enough as General Ross in the previous movie, but I have to say, William Hurt was better. Because William Hurt was playing the REAL General Ross—massive, imposing, arrogant, and willing to cross the line to achieve his goals. Elliott’s Ross was too nice of a guy, too likable, too much of a straight arrow. There’s a real look of menace and ambition in Hurt’s eyes as he plays Ross, and he’s one of the most interesting characters in the movie. I was glad to see him again in CIVIL WAR.
Tim Roth was thoroughly enjoyable and believable as Emil Blonsky, and I really wish we could see him again.
If there was a weak link, it was Tim Blake Nelson as Samuel Sterns—a little too over the top and goofy.
As for the Hulk himself, he looks much better in the AVENGERS movies, but this was a major step in the right direction. And while he had only three lines of dialogue, each line was well chosen, delivered at exactly the right moment—with proper dramatic buildup—and well performed by Mr. Ferrigno. He sounded exactly the way you’d want the Hulk to sound.
The CGI got better in later MCU movies, I won’t argue against that. At the time, this was fine, and is still effective. When the Hulk shows his face for the first time, it’s still a GREAT moment!
All in all, I really liked THE INCREDIBLE HULK, a whole lot. It’s certainly not the best of the MCU movies—I’d say THE WINTER SOLDIER and CIVIL WAR are still slugging it out for the top spot—but it’s way underrated and I think in years to come, it will become more appreciated.
@20/glenngreenberg: Norton never reminded me of Bill Bixby. There have been moments when Mark Ruffalo has, though.
By the way, I only remember the Hulk saying “Hulk smash!” at the climax. What were his other two lines?
@21/CLB:
1) As disappointed as I was that Norton never reprised the role, Mark Ruffalo eventually won me over—but he has never reminded me of Bill Bixby. Norton did, in spades.
2) “Leave me alone,” in the factory, before we see him in full.
“Betty,” near the end of the movie.
Christopher: he also said, “Betty…” and “Leave me alone.” Pretty much three quintessential bits of Hulk dialogue.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Glenn: hilariously, I actually agree with a lot of what you said. But I still think this was a mediocre movie that could’ve been better.
I also agree with Christopher: I get no kind of Bixby vibe from Norton, but I do get it from Ruffalo. And I find Connelly far superior to Tyler — though in general, both actors are much better than they seem to be in either Hulk movie……
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
If nothing else, Ruffalo is a similar physical type to Bixby, with the same kind of curly hair and broadly similar features and voice.
Although I don’t think any of the Hulk actors bear that much resemblance to the comics’ Bruce Banner. I’m trying to think of an actor who might fit — medium brown hair, smallish build, bookish type — and to my amusement, the first person who comes to mind is Iain de Caestecker, Fitz from Agents of SHIELD.
Kind of the green-headed stepchild of the MCU; but I just finished rewatching it and it was … adequate?
There’s one thing I’m not too clear on. Is the abomination stuck in abomination form or can he turn back to blonsky?
Nick S.: good question. Of all the gamma-enhanced beings in the comics, the Hulk was the only one who transformed, likely a byproduct of his dissociative identity disorder. But there’s no indication of DID in the movie version. So who knows?
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Keith, Jennifer Walters / She Hulk transforms as well.
Blonsky was mentioned as being kept in a cryogenic cell in Barrow Alaska in the first season episode of Agents of Shield.
Another one that I enjoyed but have very little memory of and very little to say about. It doesn’t really have any connection to the 2003 movie beyond “Banner turned into the Hulk and General Ross knows” but saying that meant we could avoid telling another origin story and just get on with the fun of Banner on the run from the military and the Hulk smashing things up. It’s a great moment when Samson realises Ross is the bad guy and doesn’t give a damn about Betty’s safety. I agree it’s a shame we haven’t got a Hulk sequel with the Leader (or at all, I guess).
The Leader would have made a far better antagonist than Blonsky.
One of the best running Marvel plots circa 1965 was the sudden disappearance of Banner and the Hulk, who were gassed, captured, and (over several mini-crossovers in multiple non-Hulk titles) transported around the globe to the ‘Lair of the Leader.’
I’ve always wished that Agents of SHIELD would bring in Tim Blake Nelson to play the Leader in a recurring storyline. Sure, they couldn’t pit him against the Hulk, but that didn’t stop them from giving Glenn Talbot a major recurring role.
I still think the biggest tragedy of this movie is that Marvel Studios released it when they did. Iron Man hit it out of the park, but this one feels rushed. And it was in theaters so close to Iron Man that the two films actually overlap toward the end of Iron Man’s run. Had Marvel Studios just held off another six months – another six months to work on the film would have utterly transformed it, I think – they could have released it later in the year and I think we’d be having a very different discussion today.
Also, I completely didn’t realize that TBN would have been The Leader (not being a big reader of solo Hulk comics back in the day), and while I did notice Doc Samson’s name at one point, I missed that he was Betty Ross’ boyfriend.
Yeah, I think using the Leader for the villain would’ve been more interesting — one problem I find with a lot of the MCU films (especially taken as a whole) is that the villains, too often, are just dark reflections of the heroes. At least two of Iron Man’s solo films had him fighting another guy in a suit, the Hulk fights the Abomination, Strange fights an evil sorcerer, etc., etc.
The element that I found missing from this movie, and from the MCU in general, is Rick Jones. I get that there’s a brief reference to him in this film, and I understand that the whole “gamma bomb testing site” plot doesn’t make sense in the 21st century, but I wish there’d be some way to work him in. In the Hulk’s comics, he provides a hook for the reader to latch onto, so the main focus of the book isn’t just a smashing monster. Yes, both the comics and the films fill that role with Banner himself, but that doesn’t mean there’s no place for Rick. He’s so integral to the stories of so many MCU characters that it seems strange not to have him around at all.
@15 You’re absolutely right. In fact, Brazil has more white people than every country except for the US and Russia.
I choose to think that Ross’ look for a white guy thing is just another way of showing that he is an ignorant prejudiced douchebag.
@33 I agree it was released too close to Iron Man, not to mention that by the time Incredible Hulk was released, there was increased anticipation about another soon to be released comic movie agaptation (albeit not MCU), namely Dark Knight….
Both Iron Man and The Dark Knight stand out pretty strongly in a field of superhero movies that had been something of a wasteland for several years. After seeing some good stuff for the first few years of the 21st century, you then had the creative wasteland of 2005-2007: Constantine, The Crow: Wicked Prayer, Elektra, Ghost Rider, Man-Thing, Son of the Mask, Spider-Man 3, Superman Returns, X-Men: The Last Stand, plus two mediocre Fantastic Four movies, leavened only by Batman Begins and V for Vendetta. Plus the other 2008 releases were this movie, as well as Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Punisher: War Zone, and (shudder) The Spirit.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@39/krad: But you said you liked Constantine.
“Although I don’t think any of the Hulk actors bear that much resemblance to the comics’ Bruce Banner. I’m trying to think of an actor who might fit — medium brown hair, smallish build, bookish type”
The Ultimate version of Banner is very clearly modelled on Matt Damon. And there’s a conversation at one point among the Ultimates over who should play them in the movie (“Samuel L. Jackson!” says Fury) and Bammer gets very offended when someone suggests Steve Buscemi!
Neal McDonough, who voiced Bruce in the ’90s animated Hulk series (with Lou Ferrigno voicing the Hulk), might’ve made a good Banner in live action too.
@8/Christopher: They actually shot the film in two different favelas, each located in distinct areas of Rio, over a dozen miles apart. They can look intimidating, even striking. You get used to it. Having lived in Rio since I was born, you learn to deal with the appaling social and economic inequality. It’s a very blended mixture of poverty and upscale which you don’t get on that many cities.
The movie is okay. Better than Ang Lee’s entry, but definitely toohtless and uninspired. I could tell back then that Norton was miscast. He’s way too self-assured to be playing Bruce Banner. Unsurprisingly, Ruffalo embraced a far more nerdy and insecure take on the character, Liv Tyler is wasted (at least until Leftovers came about).
Leterrier does a competent job, but you do get a feeling of been there/done that. Points for at least skimming over the origin story. In a way, I can still see this as a sequel to Bana’s Hulk, as long as I conveniently forget the woeful father plot.
@43/Eduardo: It is kind of clever how they did this movie — it is a continuity reboot, but it’s done in such a way that the discrepancies with the previous film are easy to overlook if you don’t pay attention to detail, so it feels enough like a sequel that it wouldn’t confuse casual moviegoers.
I’m trying to think of other examples of stealth reboots that superficially feel like sequels. One that comes to mind is the short-lived Spider-Man Unlimited animated series, which replaced the excellent John Semper-produced Spider-Man animated series and initially felt like a sequel to it, aside from some unexplained storyline jumps (it even misleadingly used a clip of the previous show’s theme music in its first episode); but it eventually became clear that it was in its own separate reality. Oh, and there’s the Wolverine and the X-Men animated series, which has been claimed by some to be a sequel to the Hulk vs. Wolverine DVD movie, and feels that way because it has much of the same voice cast and creative team, but actually isn’t compatible with its continuity.
Oh, and there’s the 1974 Planet of the Apes TV series, which featured Dr. Zaius in a recurring role and referred to astronauts having visited in the past, creating the impression that it’s a sequel to the movies, but the details and chronology are different enough that it has to be a separate reality. Sure, there are a lot of TV-series adaptations of movies that change details from the movie continuity (e.g. Starman pushed the time frame of the film back about a dozen years and Men in Black: The Series ignored Agent K’s retirement), but they still presume the broad-strokes events of the film happened. PotA is different because it uses the general concept and one of the characters from the films (and their lead actor Roddy McDowall playing a different character) without referencing any of the specific events, and with many details of the world being massively different.
I’m unsure whether to count the Toho Frankenstein duology, whose films are known in the West as Frankenstein Conquers the World and War of the Gargantuas. They’re sort of an implicit sequel to the Universal Frankenstein series, with the Frankenstein Monster’s immortal heart (the reason he keeps coming back from the dead in movie after movie) being delivered by the Nazis to Japanese scientists in Hiroshima just in time to get hit by the atomic bomb and irradiated so that his next reincarnation grows to giant size (and mutates/splits into a pair of Sasquatch-like giants in the sequel). But I’m not actually sure they aren’t compatible with the Universal series, at least inasmuch as that series is consistent within itself. Although it gets even weirder, because the second film is clearly written to be a direct sequel to the first, yet it changes the lead characters’ names and the city they’re based in (also recasting both male leads) and retcons the monster’s appearance so that it was always apelike. So that’s kind of the opposite case — not a reboot pretending to be a sequel so much as a sequel pretending to be a reboot. (And then the English dub removed any reference to Frankenstein altogether, thus obscuring its sequelhood even further — perhaps because US audiences would be confused to see “Frankenstein” looking like Bigfoot.)
@44/Christopher: Continuity reboot is a good way of putting it. For me, it’s the same situation with the Star Wars: Clone Wars animated series. The original Cartoon Network limited series directed by Genndy Tartakovsky was essentially replaced by the Lucasfilm version, the one made by Dave Filoni. But for all intents and purposes, that original version still applies for me, since it’s the one that officially introduces the characters of Asajj Ventress and General Grievous. They just there in the CG show. No introductions.
@45/Eduardo: Good example. For a long time, I wasn’t sure if the two Clone Wars series fit together or not. When I finally saw the Tartakovsky show again, I saw that there were a number of contradictions, though many broad-strokes elements seem to fit. I’ve heard a theory that the 2D Clone Wars series is a set of in-universe propaganda films, or maybe the equivalent of war movies that embellish the details of the true stories they retell.
@46/Christopher: If that theory has any merit, it’s ironic that it’s the 3D series that inherits those elements. Every single episode begins with a voiceover narration that sounds very much like a piece of war propaganda while it sets the viewer into the story. Probably intentional.
@47/Eduardo: Yes, Tom Kane’s bombastic TCW opening narrations were modeled on WWII newsreels, while also being a parallel to the opening text scrolls of the movies, setting up the backstory so the story could begin in medias res. (Everyone seems to call them “crawls” these days, but a crawl is side to side along the bottom of the screen. Bottom to top is a scroll.)
Isn’t this the one that has Banner saying what in Spanish is translated to “Don’t make me hungry! You wouldn’t like me when I’m hungry”?
Mark: he says it in Portugese, not Spanish, but yes.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@49 He probably gets hangry. Those transformations have to burn calories like crazy.
I saw this one well after I’d seen the other MCU movies (I actually missed out on pretty much all of the ‘intro movies’ until Avengers, except for Iron Man) and…it’s not one I’d rewatch, probably. I actually love Edward Norton in general, but agree there’s not much memorable about his character here. But Hulk has never really interested me much – at least not until Ragnarok.
I saw it after the others, too. I had to keep checking to make sure I wasn’t watching “the boring one” (Ang Lee’s) that I had been warned against. There was a lot of time spent on Banner staying calm and none spent on making anyone care about him staying calm.
The Avengers Ruffalo Banner, in contrast, I actually like. It helps that he usually has something to do and someone to talk to as Banner, so he matters as a character not just as a possible monster.
Decent film. Missed opportunity. Liv Tyler is quite good at comedy (Night at McCools is proof) so seems a natural for the tone of the MCU. Its disappointing she has only been in the one film, and doesn’t really get to do comedy in it either.
I feel Norton was definitely miscast as the Hulk. Norton is a superb actor, he is usually convincing in any role but as the author points out – he is convincing as someone not that interesting in this film. I suspect he would have made a much better Marvel Villain as normal guys with creepy depths make compelling villains – and Norton has proved he can do this (that scene with Richard Gere).
Not a waste of 2 hours, but a waste of 2 talents.
Anyone knows if there are sequels planned?
michaelleachim: Kevin Feige seems content with having the Hulk be a supporting character in other people’s movies rather than a headliner. No currently planned sequels, no.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I’d always heard that they changed Blonsky into a Brit in this because Tim Roth’s Russian accent was horrible.
I never really got into the Hulk Comics, but there was a time (Early 2000s or so) when Marvel was introducing its online reader that they had a bunch of comics available for free, one of which was Hulk. I don’t remember much about it, but I do remember the Mr. Green/Mr. Blue aliases used in an online chat. I never stuck it out long enough to find out who Mr. Blue was in the comics, and I can’t seem to find any reference to it.
Though if I remember correctly, we now have Thunderbolt Ross as Red Hulk, and Betty Ross as Red She-Hulk, as well as Rick Jones as A-Bomb (instead of Abomination, cute).
@42 CLB: You mean Neal “Dum Dum Damien Darhk Dugan” McDonough was also once the voice of Banner?
@57/LazerWulf: That’s right. McDonough also played Green Arrow in an animated short, making him the first actor I know of to go from playing a superhero to playing an archenemy of that superhero (the second being Josh Keaton, who was Spider-Man in The Spectacular Spider-Man and is Norman Osborn in the current animated series).
@57/LazerWulf: Since you asked, the comics version of Mr. Blue was Betty Ross Banner, believed dead at the time, but secretly resurrected and covertly helping Bruce. That whole storyline got retconned out of existence as a hallucination / nightmare. (Comics, they’re wacky.)
None of the “new Hulks” you cited are currently powered in comics. A few years back, the Hulk manifested a new super-strong / super-smart persona that called himself “Doc Green.” Green decided that anyone with gamma powers was a threat to the world, so he went around curing them all, including Thunderbolt Ross, A-Bomb, Betty, and Skaar. The latest Red Hulk was General Robert Maverick of the U.S.Avengers, but his Hulk state only lasts for an hour at a time.
Is “curing” someone of their powers without their consent, even if for the greater good, a form of assault? I would think it is.
@60/random22: I think it would be battery instead. Assault is an intentional act that creates the apprehension of an imminent harmful or offensive contact in another person, so it generally requires the person to be aware of the act — which wouldn’t be the case if you, say, cured someone’s powers by slipping something into their food or exposing them to a ray while they were unconscious. But it would be battery, an intentional unpermitted act causing harmful or offensive contact to someone’s person.
However, I think an exception would be made if it were performed by a law enforcement, military, or government actor in the pursuance of their duties. Though the individual thus depowered might be able to sue the government for battery and/or assault.
As long as we are clear that it is a violation of some sort then we are good, governments get too much of a pass on that. We’ve got a situation in the UK at the moment where people are arguing that cops should be allowed to set attack dogs on suspects of even minor non violent crimes if they are running, with total impunity and that someone who has had an attack dog set on them should be charged with assaulting a police officer if they try to fight the dog off. That is screwed up.
Whether it’s assault or battery is an utterly irrelevant distinction to be made in this sort of conversation, IMO. The point is, as random22 said, whether or not it’s a violation, and it absolutely is. Whether or not it’s a crime, and what the specifics of the crime are, is a question for if and when it is decided by a court of law, but for storytelling purposes, yeah, it’s an assault, even if it isn’t legally the punishable crime referred to in the law books as assault.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
From what I remember of that storyline, Doc Green talked Rick Jones (A-Bomb) around to his way of thinking, but I don’t recall if that was before or after depowering him. For the others, it was definitely “without consent.” At no time was this seen as a hero doing a good thing. It was Bruce acting out his own psychological issues, as Hulk storylines have been for decades. In this case, he was worried that he’d eventually become the “Maestro” persona from the “Future Imperfect” storyline, so of course he takes that out on everybody else. Except for Jen Walters, because he thinks she’s the only person whose life was improved by gamma powers.
The part about finding where Banner is by asking if there are any white employees in the bottle factory could be fixed so easily. As others said, Brazil has white people too, and they’re not uncommon. What’s kind of rare is an American (or English speaking) foreigner working in a blue collar job, as Banner was doing. Normally when they come here it’s either as tourist, english teacher or highly qualified professional (expat). So just by replacing “white” with “English-speaking” you could fix that sentence and woulnd’t make it unrealistic.
By the way, this also applies to other races. An English-speaking African American, for example, would stand out as much as an English-speaking European American. It’s not a matter of race or color (Brazil is almost as diverse as the US) it’s a matter of culture and language that makes Brazilians single out foreigners.
@62 – you do not have the right to run from the cops so not sure how that is screwed up. Otherwise Christopher is correct it would be considered battery. Some definitions of assault read a fear of an imminent battery. @63 I disagree that the use of correct legal rules is irrelevant. People need to know and understand the laws and using differing definitions leads to too many confusing cases. This is one of them.
@66 In the UK, in both English and Scottish legal systems, you are not in custody of the police until they physically lay hands upon you. Until they do, you are legally allowed to run; you cannot be charged with anything for running away when they shout at you. Of course the police are allowed also to chase you and use minimum necessary force (emphasis mine) in order to place you in custody. Setting an attack dog on someone far exceeds minimum necessary force, and frankly given how terrifying it is to have a dog set on you and how unpredictable even the best trained attack dog can be, the victim ought to be able to use the same minimum level of force (and it goes without saying the minimum level of force to get an attack dog off you is more than the minimum level of force needed to subdue a suspect) to defend themselves against a vicious and wounding animal.
The cops actually have a legal duty of care to ensure that injury does not come to a suspect, and if they cannot safely subdue someone on their own they are supposed to, by their own guidelines, withdraw while keeping the suspect under surveillance until back up arrives unless the suspect is actively in the process of putting another member of the public in danger (note that it is “another” member of the public, because in both Scottish and English law a suspect is considered an ordinary member of the public at all times even if detained, and that it only allows for higher levels of force when a person is in danger not property), so setting an attack dog on them even violates that guideline.
Unfortunately our police have also been infected with the American machoism that says to ignore all rights and be the man who has gotta do what he has to do, in some sort of twisted Power Fantasy made real (see also my comments on the In Defence of Power Fantasies thread). The complicating factor is that a certain well known animal rights extremist group has piled in, because they think that if they can get the law changed to not allow defending against police dogs and them redefined in law as “canine” officers, then it is a stepping stone to getting all animals declared “Persons” under law (which will never happen) and free all the animals everywhere from human imprisonment. However all they’ll achieve is help authoritarians strip even more rights from suspects.
@49/50: The attempted Portuguese “hungry” pun in this movie has always annoyed me, because “hungry” has no direct translation in Portuguese.
As with languages like French or German, “hunger” is only a noun that you can have or not have, never an adjective–so someone would literally say “I have hunger” (eu tenho fome) and not “I am hungry,” meaning that even Banner’s mistake makes no sense for him to make.
I like to imagine that Bruce Banner & Tony Stark handled The Leader ‘Science Bros’ style between the last scene of THE AVENGERS and AGE OF ULTRON – what time could possibly be better?
@44. Christopher L. Bennett: You could possibly add HALLOWEEN 4: THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS to the list, since that film rather dances along the line between reboot & straightforward sequel to HALLOWEEN (1978) & HALLOWEEN 2 – given that Doctor Loomis is still around to take an interest, despite having been incinerated along with Michael Myers, the climax of HALLOWEEN 2 clearly did not happen as filmed, but something very like it DID occur.
@69/ED: Halloween IV isn’t an example of what I’m talking about, since it’s not a full reboot, just an alternative sequel to the first film that disregards elements of earlier sequels (something that happens a lot in horror franchises, and also Highlander and Terminator). It’s clearly meant to be in continuity with the original film, bringing back Donald Pleasance. Apparently the Halloween franchise is kind of like the Godzilla franchise, in that there are several different continuities that all branch out from the original film along with a couple that stand apart from it.
What I was talking about here are things that superficially — and often intentionally — appear to be a direct sequel to a previous version but are actually a separate continuity altogether.
It’s interesting, when I first saw this movie I really loved it. I thought it was highly underrated. But with the passage of time, my opinion has cooled quite a bit. I still think the concept of Banner’s character journey, that of realizing that the Hulk is a part of himself to be embraced rather than a monster to be feared, is a great direction to take the character. It allows you to explore the psychology of the character in an interesting way while leaving ground to continue telling more stories. If nothing else, it’s better than having Banner constantly trying to ‘cure’ the Hulk, which we know can only ever end in failure. Unfortunately, the movie doesn’t capture this idea the way it wants to. If anything, the best the MCU did handling this idea was in Avengers, and even there it was played fairly subtly. But this film doesn’t quite hit its target, and its a shame. At least the final fight between Hulk and Abomination was pretty cool.