I loved the film when it came out in 2003...and I felt like the only one who did. My friend who I saw it with hated it. His dad, who took us, also hated it. I saw again with my older sister and her boyfriend. She thought it was stupid and laughed the whole time. I was also just beginning to explore the film community online, and I recall the movie being mostly lambasted. Because of this backlash and my young age (I was 12) I took my love for the film and kept it hidden. I actually felt kind of ashamed for liking it for a little bit.
The film's reputation for having bad effects (untrue), being tonally inconsistent, unintentionally funny and too weird for what it is hasn't really ever shifted. If you dig a little, you'll find that movie DOES indeed have it's fans that think it gets a bad rap - but for the most part Ang Lee's Hulk is mostly forgotten as an early 2000s comic book movie misfire ala Daredevil, Ghost Rider, Catwoman, etc. It's BEGGING to be rediscovered.
I go through very long periods of time between rewatches of Hulk despite always thinking its one of the best comic book movies ever made. I think this is because each time I pop it in, I think: "This is the time I finally come to my sense and realize the film really has been ass all along." But that has never happened.
Batman Begins is my favorite superhero film of all time...but Nolan wasn't the first director to take a popular comic book character and reinvent them for a modern audience with mature, layered and thematically rich storytelling. Ang Lee did it two years prior.
As I got older and got into comic books, I realized something about one of the major complaints people had with this film. One of the biggest gripes you heard back in the day, and still hear from time to time, is that Hulk is too self-serious, too artsy for the source material it's adapting. People wanted and expected a 2hr smash-up and nothing more. That's not entirely unfair. But the Hulk is SO much more than just a brightly colored monster who destroys stuff and hits other monsters.
The Hulk is, imo, one of, if not THE most tragic character in the Marvel canon. Spidey has it rough. Daredevil has it even rougher. Silver Surfer is a tragic god who lost his entire home to a cosmic entity. Wolverine is a basket of mystery and violent angst. But the Hulk/Bruce...these guys (they are separate beings, of course) ARE really, truly tormented in a way that's grandly tragic. Bruce can never stop. He can never settle down. He's lost himself to the Hulk for extended periods of time....multiple times. He has no life. At least Spidey, Daredevil, the Surfer...they have periods of normalcy. Bruce has been in an almost constant state of sheer mental and physiological anguish his entire life. Well, he was Professor Hulk for a while, which was nice. But that didn't last long....the story of Bruce/Hulk is one of the most tortured stories in mainstream comics.
What I'm getting at is this: The heavy, dark, dramatic approach to Hulk Ang Lee took was entirely appropriate to the comics - abusive, twisted father figure and all.
Eric Bana is ignored when fans discuss great casting for comic book roles. His Bruce is soft spoken, a little awkward, a little aloof, dorky, but good natured and brilliant. Bana sells the meek persona and the boiling rage underneath the surface with equal conviction. What's truly underappreciated about this performance is that Bana sells that his Bruce couldn't hurt a fly...until his starts to lose control. It's not the emergence of the Hulk that's scary...it's Bruce. Bana switches from awkward scientist to a guy who snap at any moment effortlessly.
The relationship between Bruce and Betty is natural and believable. This isn't some obligatory comic book movie romance with perfunctory banter and repartee. These two share an easy chemistry and the performances along with the script really drive home the history between these two. You feel the deep love and affection they have for each other. Lets not forget this film is tragic romance as well as a tragedy about a broken family.
Hulk is choke full of amazing performances. Nick Nolte David Banner delivers a performance so compelling and enthralling I feel that fans don't deserve it because they've ignored it for so long. Nolte as David Banner/Absorbing Man is one of the best superhero movie villains of all time. End of story. He's scary as hell, maliciously evil, yet he retains a sense of tragedy and humanity. His monologue to Bruce during the final act of the film is down right Shakespearean. I say in all seriousness that Nolte deserved award recognition for this role.
Sam Elliot as General Ross is also fantastic. What could have easily been a typical one-note military evil dude (I'm looking at you, The Incredible Hulk 2008) was given room to breathe and transcend an easy cliche. The only one-note role in the entire film is Josh Lucas as Talbot...but he's strong enough in his own right so that the character doesn't just feel like a typical trope.
Ang Lee's Hulk is a deeply sad, emotionally driven affair. It dives head first into themes of trauma, repression, abuse and what toxic parental roles can do to a person. There are many moments in the film were I'm almost brought to tears. Lee nails the aspect of the Hulk where he's just a guy that wants to be left alone more than anything...but they WON'T leave him alone and he has no choice but to lash out. It's as obvious as the sun in the sky that the Hulk is representative of the id - of all the anger and resentment we cram down and never act upon - but the way the film executes this element of the character is deeply personal to Bruce...making his Hulk-Outs far more than just obligatory action scenes. Each transformation means something. It's not just the film finding ways to get Bruce made. Every time he turns it's because something triggers his deep rooted trauma and sense of safety- safety from himself as well as Betty.
Speaking of action; Hulk has some of the best action scenes of any superhero film ever - mainly the aforementioned extended freak-out that begins in an underground facility and reaches all the way to a populated city. In my opinion, a lot of action scenes in comic book films today lack any real sense of true choreography and style. Too many films just throw a lot of digital noise at the screen to the point where it all becomes a jumble of too-fast moving CGI blobs and pyrotechnics and objects flying in the frame. This isn't always the case of course...but truly attention grabbing action in superhero films is rarer these days.
Hulk does NOT suffer from this. The action scenes are carefully structured and choreographed for maximum impact. They are frantic when they need to be without ever feeling confusing and they are majestic and grand when they need to be without ever losing getting bogged down in visual noise. I get chills a few times during the desert scene. Hulk bursting out of the glass chamber, Hulk bursting through the metal wall into open land, Hulk jumping long distances...Hulk beating the everloving piss out of those tanks! This is iconic stuff, people.
The editing is also FANTASTIC. This is one element of the film I DO remember getting so praise back in the day. But for everyone who praised the editing, there were those who found it distracting. The comic book like editing in the film is so slick and well integrated into the narrative there were cuts and tricks and transitions I didn't notice until I watched the film for a 5, 6, and 7 time. This is another element of the movie I feel is genuinely award worthy. It also benefits from hindsight. With some many cbm's feeling and looking the same these days it's refreshing as hell to watch one that has some real, honest to god director driven vision and craft behind it.
I think the crap the films CGI gets is entirely unfair and uncalled for. Sure, some of it has dated a bit since it came out. But the CGI for the Hulk is still MILES better than anything in TIH. The only truly downside of the entire film are the botched designs of the Gamma Dogs. They're just...giant dogs. A little more effort into making them more monstrous and deformed would have made that scene play a little better. And choosing a poodle as one of the dogs was just...stupid.
The score by Danny Elfman is also highly underrated. He knocked two great superhero scores out of the park two years in a row with Spider-Man and Hulk. His work on this film is at times melancholic, mysterious, propulsive, and beautiful. I don't know what happened to the guy in the past decade...but Hulk is one of Elfmans last unique and memorable film scores.
As much as I've been praising this film I will take the time to acknowledge some of its shortcomings. The aforementioned Gamma Dogs are a bit of a bummer to be sure. But the biggest downside of the film is its attempts at humor. For the most part the film plays it straight...but picks odd times to try and be funny. The dog fight being the prime example. The action itself is strong enough to save the scene, but coupled with the poor designs and misplaced visual humor, the scene sticks out like a sore thumb. Did we really need the Hulk punching a giant mutant dog in the nuts? Really?
Also, the last "fight" between Hulk and his father is shockingly poor in execution. It's like all the attention to detail and planning that went into the previous action scenes flew out the window. The fight is too short, too murky and too chaotic to fully grasp what exactly is happening and for any of it to have any real impact. This is highly unfortunate because this is the action scene that needed to carry the most dramatic weight...and it falls flat.
A botched final fight and some very poor choices in humor aside, I can proudly say I find Hulk 2003 to be a remarkable film - something of a flawed superhero masterpiece. It's ambitious. It's the genuine vision of an acclaimed, A-list director who took the material seriously and gave it his all putting his mark on it. It's one of the few superhero films that has genuine arthouse flavor.
I urge people who have forgotten all about it to give a another watch with an open mind. You may be surprised.
Submitted April 07, 2019 at 07:13AM by ThePerson2525 http://bit.ly/2I55mIE
