I'm pretty sure I'm one of maybe two dozen people on the face of the Earth who actually liked Ang Lee's Hulk released in 2003. While the movie was a dud at the box office (costing about $137 million and making about $132 million domestically -- which by Hollywood math means it was a HUGE flop since the rule of thumb is to double the budget of making the film to get the marketing and distribution costs and then you can factor in foreign sales and video sales to probably get about the same ratio of lost expenses), the character is the the second biggest merchandise seller after Spider-Man (can't remember where I read that). So an attempt at a second big screen version was inevitable if only to keep the merchandise machine in motion.
What we've just gotten is what fans are terming a "requel"...not so much a sequel and not so much a remake. This is definitely an interesting beast with its own issues, but on the whole it ups the action from the previous entry and streamlines the "drama" without losing too much.
After an opening credits sequence which sets up the Hulk's origin (without really contradicting the previous film too much...its conceivable that this "origin" sequence actually takes place sometime after the first film ends and isn't so much an origin as it is a recap of what may have happened in the five years since the accident...its possible that Banner returned from South America to get help from Betty & General Ross only to fail and run back to Brazil where we find him at the start of this film), the film hits the ground running as Banner (now played by Edward Norton) is working at a bottling plant in Brazil while learning how to surpress his rage and trying to find a cure. When he cuts himself at work and some of his blood taints a drink opened by an old man in America (played by Stan Lee -- but we never find out what his reaction to ingesting Banner's blood is -- so I think the next film should have Lee as another mutated villain of massive proportions), General Ross (now played by William Hurt) tracks him down. Banner spends the rest of the film on the run trying to get his original data to the mysterious Mr. Blue with whome he has been communicating via e-mail. Of course, he gets back in touch with Betty (now played by Liv Tyler) who gladly helps him.
Ross has upped his game in catching Banner by adding Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth), a soldier who's willing to do anything to get a mission done -- even if that means being subjected to similar experiments that made Banner into the Hulk. By the end of the film, Blonsky has gone through one too many injections and becomes an "abomination" as big and as strong as the Hulk. And now Ross has two out of control behemoths on his hands.
Coming in at under 2 hours, The Incredible Hulk barely stops moving. The cast changes work relatively well (although I prefer Sam Elliot as Ross over William Hurt this may be more the script's fault as Ross is mostly just in Ahab mode). The special effects are great until you stop and realize that the final battle between Blonsky and the Hulk is just one long CGI cartoon battle.
The film also sets up further films by giving us a mutating Samuel Sterns (Tim Blake Nelson -- Sterns is the comic book villain known as The Leader), a Blonsky who is still alive (which is something I didn't understand -- Blonsky is awake at the end of his battle with the Hulk...so how are Ross and his men supposed to contain something now if they couldn't contain him before -- we could have seen this), a Leonard Samson (who becomes the gamma irradiated good guy Doc Samson in the comics) and a conversation between Ross & Tony Stark that continues planting the seeds for The Avengers at a later date (a film that's gonna cost a bazillion dollars to make if they've got to cast Downey, Norton, Samuel L. Jackson and William Hurt along with whatever A-List stars get cast in the Thor and Captain America movies, not to mention whatever other Avenger characters get mixed into that film).
Many people have been comparing Hulk and The Incredible Hulk to Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. The comparison is apt, but not quite correct since Hulk was a stronger starter than Star Trek: The Motion Picture and the sequel is on par with the original (in my book). If you liked Ang Lee's take on the Hulk, there's no reason to not like this film. If you didn't like Ang Lee's film, you'll probably LOVE this one.
Tomorrow: Get Smart.
Be seeing you.
