Now I relax from an entertaining week at work. The numbness of the numb-nuts I too often get on the phone has not infected me. You'd nod recognition-ish-ly if you heard how some of my calls went, where people don't listen to you and answer questions you haven't asked and get huffy over you doing your job... But, thank everything, I had a lot of smart and happy and funny customers this week. (I was even able to joke with some. One guy wanted me to confirm if I had said something. I replied, "Yes, I did... but I could have said 'Hey! Zucchini people are attacking!'")...
I sometimes gotta think like a reviewer, and when I saw a film last night that you were curious about, I thought, "Why not? Send thoughts her way!" And it's The Hulk, a film that has gotten, I think, every response a film can get, from "This is incredible" to "This is real f'ing boring."
My response? The Hulk is a mess. But it's an enjoyable mess. And my serious side must praise the film for having a serious side of its own. I mean, it's a story about rage. Either you take it seriously, or you make it into an Adam Sandler movie. You can't have Bruce Banner becoming the Hulk because of, I dunno, a paper cut. So it's not at all a joke-y movie; very few wisecracks happen. I find that refreshing. (Plus I find Jennifer Connelly refreshing... But you probably figured that. ;-)
Ahhhhhh (he said in a refreshed way)... we still can have Mad Scientists in our stories. There's at least one in this film, who's responsible not only for the superhero but also a, shall we say, supervillain... Yes, the film has one! But the film bends over backwards to keep the creation of these creatures from being cliched. There's a "force of nature" feel to the supercreatures, which makes sense. It's like King Kong in that way. (2007 note: Actually, I later decided that the film honestly tried too hard to reconceptualize the creation of superheroes and supervillains, to the point where I was thinking "They've made it so complicated for a superhero to be created, how the hell are they going to manage the same trick in a sequel?")
The one story element that falls into the "goofy" category is, um, well, the, uh, the stuff with the dogs. I shouldn't say more, but it felt wrong, and somehow "off." It makes the film temporarily a little too strange, as it detours from a lot of surprisingly weighty stuff about how we relate to people (to risk sounding touchy-feely about it). Hulk director Ang Lee makes films about less-than-ideal relationships: remember, he directed the version of Sense and Sensibility that starred Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, and Hugh Grant. He gravitates towards those stories. And that quality -- showing people in less-than-perfect relating -- is what makes this film work at its best.
All I'll say about the special effects -- which are utterly necessary in making the Hulk look 15 feet tall and capable of leaping miles at a time -- is that I can't let less-than-perfect effects get in the way of my enjoyment of a film. Computer-generated creatures look a certain way, just as miniature models look a certain way and matte paintings look a certain way. People have whined about how the Hulk looks unreal. No duh. It's called "suspension of disbelief," y'all! And it can be perfect: the film version of Gollum is still closest to that perfection.
The ending is really rambling and overstuffed. I remember once saying that a movie had enough story in it that the film seemed "to include its own sequel," and that also happens here. I wondered if the film knew when, to, stop. It just grows more deranged, and evermore deranged, and then even more deranged... That's when it gets exhausting. You feel pummeled by the missiles and bombs and (oh! I shouldn't say more!) that get flung at the Hulk.
I think Hulk the movie worked best with people who already had a fondness for the big green guy (and at times, in the comics, a grey guy as well, but the film doesn't get into that). And I have a magnet with the cover of "Incredible Hulk #1" proudly stuck to my fridge, so, yeah, I'm fond. But as for comic book films, I still prefer (let's see) the X-Men movies and Superman II (the one with the clad-in-black Kryptonian supervillians demolishing both Metropolis and Mount Rushmore) and the first third of Spider-Man, which was, in my opinion, perfect and not to be improved upon. The Rocketeer? Cute with fun music. (2007 note: Yeah,
leonardpart6, I do like a lot of James Horner's work!) Batman? It's a big reason I'm a film music fan and a HUGE reason I'm an Elfman fan. (Speaking of, he did a pretty successfully nutszoid score for Hulk, one that made me grin derangedly.)And by the way, they did use "You wouldn't like me when I'm angry." But it's not used in a way you'd expect. Or that I expected.