Reviewed By
Vaughan

Analysis
At the moment we are experiencing what could be typically explained away as a cinematic phase, a phase that perhaps the maturing of computer animation or the growing army of loyal and vocal fans is responsible for. Either way, (thanks in no small part by the monstrous success of Spiderman) we are all riding high on the comic book wave as every mainstream Superhero gets a long hard look from the studio executives. In fact this phenomenon is being taken so seriously by those with the cheque books that some of the hottest tickets in town are those for comic book conventions such as the one in San Diego California, where the suits are gnashing their dentures over anything with a cape or cowl. It is from this explosion that we now have one of the biggest (literally) hero's of all time. The Hulk.

This movie has apparently been waiting patiently for years, stalled in production hell until computer technology could catch up with the idea's that the studio had for it. A man in a large green rubber suit just failed to convince on lookers and the thought of another Lou Ferrigno just made them shudder so the decision to have the mighty green giant constructed entirely on computer was, for them, an easy one. The utilisation of technology has become common place in order to 'enhance' the visual appearance of some scenes and as we have all seen far too many times, this process can make a good film look contrived and ridiculous. The early Hulk trailers would seemingly confirm my terror that Ang Lee and his merry men of back room artists had taken a classic hero and made him into nothing more than a very expensive Playstation game. It is this reason that a lot of my die hard cinema going buddies decided to give this a miss. Now these guys know their movies and for them to pass on an occasion such as this would lead me to believe that the internet hype surrounding the trailers had also left a bitter taste in their mouths. Even a poll on this humble web site produced a 58% confirmation that the animation in the trailers made the Hulk look bad.

So I guess this would be a suitable time to let all you disbelievers into a little secret and it's something that I thought I would never be saying. The animation in the Hulk is not half bad. There, I've said it and it didn't hurt a bit. An all mighty effort has been made to integrate the Hulk into it's scenery and the result is pretty well done. The main character is larger than life on screen standing there in full daylight for all to see and scrutinise and he looks great. Now that has to be respected even for a computer. The Hulks movement is slow and clumsy yet still some how extremely agile especially when he builds momentum for one of his super jumps that see's him literally souring six miles across the sky like a frog on steroids.

The visual style of the movie is also worth mentioning as scene transitions and other visual story telling tools are executed with a comic book approach. When a phone call is made, the screen will be split down the middle just like in a comic, boxes with the next scene in them will slide in from right to left pushing the last scene away and several shots of the same situation will be collaged on the screen at one time all adding to the comic book feel. Although this was an interesting choice of style I think that this comic book approach should have remained in the pages of Marvel as, on screen it just made the production look deliberately fake and detracted from the plot flow.

Eric Bana was a piece of casting genius as the tormented Bruce Banner and had some top notch supporting players including Nick Nolte, Sam Elliott and the stunning Jennifer Connelly who has come along way since her trip through the Labyrinth.

Key Area	Rating (out of 5)	Comment
Action		The Hulk and action go together like a tight butt and thong. Every where he goes it follows and very little is seen without some of the screen being green. The 'tank-hammer' throw scene that everyone's probably seen by now is great as are both the hulk dog fight and the Apache helicopter chase.
Tension		Never scary but instead gripping whilst the Hulk is being chased down.
Violence/ Gore		Sure these's plenty of Hulk smashing but Ang and his team have been very carefully to avoid the Hulk visually harming anyone thus keeping the blood quota down and keeping the parents happy.
Bare Flesh		Loads of green flesh and a shot or two of Eric Bana's bare arse. Defiantly one for the ladies!
Plot		Nothing that hasn't already been seen or read before but the whole experience is overshadowed by the completely obscure finale that is like a pin being pushed into a balloon. Very deflating. The start of the film is also a little slow as the build up to the inevitable 'gamma radiation' accident seem's to take an age. As most viewers already know that has too happen before we see the Hulk, we really just want to get it out of the way so we can all see the mighty green one.

Verdict Pleasantly surprised at the enjoyment I got from this one. Although it builds slowly and avoids the X2 opening impact that other action movies go for, it is still a very good film with some great emotional moments and excellent Hulk smashing. Don't let the trailers put you off too much as this has a little more brains than the usual crowd and makes Spiderman look like the joker he is.

Movie Pictures (Click picture to enlarge)