The Incredible Hulk: A Review

The Incredible Hulk is one of the odder “reboots” in recent films. Five years after The Hulk, the comic book cash cow shows no sign of slowing down for the summer blockbuster machine, and Marvel has drawn from that well better than anyone. It makes sense to have the Hulk, one of the most recognizable of the Marvel universe characters, in play during this boon season. And the impression of the 2003 film depends greatly on who you talk to. At the time, Ang Lee had convinced the US of his action chops as a director with the remarkable Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (the more controversial Brokeback Mountain was still to come). His approach to the film was fascinating, seeking to convey visually the look and feel of a comic book through the use of panels. While the visual experience was to my mind largely successful, the story left many tepid. In lieu of a broad summer action film, Lee sought to layer the film with a deeper theme of father relationships as a way of exploring Hulk’s origin.

Along comes The Incredible Hulk. Lee is replaced with Louis Leterrier, unknown to any except fans of The Transporter 2 (both of them). Eric Bana is replaced by Ed Norton (a worthy upgrade), and Jennifer Connelly is replaced with Liv Tyler (a small downgrade). The film joins Bruce Banner in South America, where the last film left him, so while they don’t deny that the last film took place, they disconnect you from it enough that they don’t invite tight comparisons.

The Hulk is a tough character to pull off, especially within the rules of the summer movies. It’s hard to describe him as a hero, the beast full of rage with an uncontrollable bent on destruction. The first film captured that, dealing more with Banner’s creation of the monster and his failed attempts to control it. This film picks up on that last theme, as we find Banner fighting to live an anonymous life, thus below the radar of the US military that is hunting him down, fighting to control the rage that unleashed the monster, and searching as much as he can for some kind of cure. These are complicated goals, and despite his acumen at managing his life, it’s clear from the beginning that it’s doomed to fail.

And it does. The military finds out about him through a little mistake, and General Ross, now with William Hurt for Sam Elliott, unleashes his military machine to find him. The ensuing panic convinces Banner that it is time to head back to the US, and to pursue in earnest a cure that he has been chasing with the help of a New York scientist.

To get there, he winds up bringing Betty back into the picture. The love of his life, she seems to have moved on, but quickly abandons that life when she gets to spend time with him. As they spend time together, it quickly becomes fully apparent to her just how much of a beast he’s trying to deal with.

It’s at this point that the film starts to turn, and I think for the first time in these two films starts to position this character for a longer life in film. The way they have spun his origin, the Hulk is a product of Banner’s arrogance in his scientific pursuit, and his pent-up anger. It is a monster, and Banner’s passion is to cure himself. Through Betty, he starts to realize that the monster is in fact a part of him, and that while a cure may be preferred, the challenge that may be more realistically before him is to harness this beast and use him for good.


I’m not enough of a Hulk historian to speak to these dimensions in the comic book, but it strikes me that this concept, constructing Hulk as a kind of tragic anti-hero, makes for some interesting storytelling. To the extent that he emerges in coming films as a hero, it offers an interesting dimension to these stories, as his heroics must always be tempered by a viable ability to be consumed by the rage that creates his heroism.

The Marvel characters explore many similar themes. Many of these heroes emerge from accidents that came from arrogant science or through the overreaching of power. While Spiderman reminded us that “With great power comes great responsibility,” for characters like Hulk, that power emerges from their own failings as people. It strikes me as an odd thing that the multi-billion dollar comic book movie industry keeps coming back to the theme of humility, but it does in its own way. These films see passions become obsessions, government desire for order turn to government desire for control, and unresolved anger become a kind of madness. In all, there is a positing that heroism emerges in the midst of flaws, and as much through harnessing of those flaws than in defeating them.

The Incredible Hulk is a good, if not great movie, that is a victim of bad timing by being released around the far superior Iron Man (and hopefully, far superior Dark Knight). Still, despite Ed Norton’s apparent objections to the final cut (I'd love to see his version), they have positioned the character to find its way into the larger Marvel film universe, including an apparently forthcoming Avengers movie. I’m glad their keeping him around, if for not other reason than to see how honestly they maintain these tensions in the midst of this character’s emerging heroism.