The Incredible Hulk
(2008)
(SPOILERS) It’s fortunate the bookends of Marvel’s Phase One
are so sturdy, as the intervening four movies simply aren’t that special.
Mediocre might be too strong a word (although at least one qualifies for that
status), but they amountto a series of at-best-serviceable vehicles for
characters rendered on screen with varying degrees of nervousness and second
guessing. They also underline that, through the choices of directors, no one
was bigger than the franchise, and no one had more authority than supremo Kevin
Feige. Which meant there was integrity of overall vision, but sometimes a
paucity of it in cinematic terms. The
Incredible Hulk arrived off the back of what many considered a creative
failure and commercial disappointment from Ang Lee five years earlier yet managed
on just about every level to prove itself Hulk’s
inferior. A movie characterised by playing it safe, it’s now very much the
unloved orphan of the MCU, with a lead actor recast and a main character who,
due to rights issues with Universal, can currently only appear in ensemble
efforts.
There’s something approaching a solid movie in The Incredible Hulk, somewhere entangled
within the character work pruned back from Louis Letterier and Edward Norton’s
preferred version (there are 42 minutes of deleted/extended scenes on the
Blu-ray, and they favoured a 135-minute cut over the studio’s 112), but it’s
still fatally scuppered by starting strongly and then petering out into a
splutter of quite unsightly CGI. Hulk’s
final act was also awash with pixels, but there, Lee brought an artistic and
sometimes poetic sensibility to the visuals. Letterier felt there was an
undesirable weightlessness and smoothness to that version’s less-than-jolly
green giant, so going in the direction of grittier and darker (yeah, okay) and
perhaps even a little scarier; the result is entirely underwhelming, a ‘roided
version of the Hulk who never looks less than cartoonish, complete with a
rather silly floppy fringe. At best, he’s acceptable in relation to the even
dafter Abomination.
Letterier, who started out with Luc Besson and got the job on
the strength of Transporter 2, still
probably his best and certainly most deliriously demented movie, The Incredible Hulk is a prime example
of a promising director underdone by the Hollywood machine. Both The Incredible Hulk and Clash of the Titans were shorn or
mangled in the editing room and his efforts since are probably best not dwelt
upon. By his own admission, he isn’t the most refined of directors, but he
does, left to his own devices, have a good eye for action and the construction
of a kinetic scene. He can’t create excitement out of CG monsters duking out,
but very few can (the finale feels a lot longer than it actually is for that
reason).
Give him a well-structured sequence, though, and there are a
few in the front half of the picture, and he more than delivers. The opening
twenty minutes, from the montage recap/retcon of Hulk (producer Gale Anne Hurd decided to term The Incredible Hulk a “requel”:
a reboot/sequel) to the very TV series Mexican retreat of Banner, attempting to
control the beast within – there are cameos for Lou Ferringo, who also voices the
Hulk, and Bill Bixby via a TV movie he starred in, while Leterrier is
definitely referencing the show with the chiaroscuro accompanying Ed Norton’s
eyes turning green and the TV theme filtering in at one point – to the spilt
blood in the bottling factory, Stan Lee’s (once again very funny) cameo and the
rooftop pursuit of Banner, find the movie really working and can comfortably
rank with any given sequence from the MCU. However…
Degrees of controversy surround Edward Norton’s involvement
in The Incredible Hulk, not in
respect of his performance – he’s fine, lending the part a low-key dweebiness,
but that would only really play effectively if accompanied by a less muscular,
more thoughtful style than his director’s – so much as the degree to which he
exerted an influence on the production . Reportedly, Eric Bana didn’t want to
return (which I guessed sealed the deal on it not being a sequel), Letterier
wanted Ruffalo (but the studio favoured Ed) and David Duchovny was in
contention. It seems Norton had the studio’s blessing in rewriting Zak Penn’s
screenplay (Penn took offence at Norton saying he’d written the entire thing,
as it was structurally pretty much the same – Ty Burrell’s Doc Samson was added
… and then mostly removed in the studio edit – and the Writer’s Guild agreed
with him). Probably no bad thing he did, as the writer’s comic book record
isn’t the best, aside from Avengers…
which was rewritten extensively by Joss Whedon.
The Norton-Marvel relationship subsequently turned sour, in
the wrestling over the final cut, which then became public. Norton later
disowned the disagreements, characterising them as a “healthy process” but it did nothing to dispel his reputation as a
difficult fish; he put a spin on wanting more diversity in his career when the
role was recast, but it’s simpler to conclude he was unwanted for Avengers, not perceived as a team player
for an upcoming team movie, and having starred in a picture that failed to make
nearly enough to justify its expense.
Whatever Ed’s rewrites amounted to in terms of substance,
they failed to effectively amend the picture’s chief flaws, and the deleted
scenes don’t leave a sense that anything vastly improved went astray – there’s
a really good fireside chat over a glass of wine with Burrell wearing his
shrink hat (it’s better than anything between Bruce and Betty) and a reference
to “resistance against that depleted
uranium no one likes talking about” that probably disappeared for being a
little political. As such, the picture begins to lose its way at about the 40-minute
mark, when Bruce returns to the US. Pretty much when Liv Tyler’s simpering
version of Betty enters the scene (aside from that one raging outburst against
a taxi driver: “Asshole!”). There’s zero
spark between Betty and Bruce, and anything with her and Hulk seems like it’s
going through the motions, be it evocative of Tarzan and Jane or Kong and Ann
Darrow. When, in a clinch of passion, Bruce warns her off with “I can’t get too excited”, our response
is an increasingly weary “Neither can we”.
There’s too little in the way of twists and turns; Norton
felt Hulk strayed too far from
fugitive story, but the results her are just too linear. There’s a retcon of Banner’s
research as super soldier related (“He
thought he was working on radiation resistance”), ensuring a tie-in with
the forthcoming Captain America: The First
Avenger and Emil Blonsky’s reinvigoration, but the latter’s plotline simply
isn’t sufficiently interesting.
Nor is Roth, who neither looks nor sounds like a credible
soldier (“Born in Russia, raised in
England” is the kind of forgiving line they write for an Arnie accent). Oh,
and his super running is unintentionally hilarious. I like Roth, but he’s a
poor fit here. That said, there is an amusing instance of his goading Hulk (“Is that it? Is that all you’ve got?”)
that results in his being splatted against a tree (“bones like crushed gravel”).
Bruce Banner: They don’t want the antidote. They want to
make it a weapon.
Samuel Sterns: I hate the government just as much as
anyone. But you’re being a little paranoid, don’t you think?
That said, the increasingly routine nature of the stateside
portions of the picture is relieved enormously when Tim Blake Nelson arrives as
Samuel Sterns. He’s a shot in the arm and it couldn’t come soon enough.
Nelson’s every line delivery is delicious (“Look,
I’ve always been more curious than cautious, and that’s served me pretty well”),
even when they don’t sound that great on paper, and his interaction with the
menacing Blonsky is a particular treat (“Why
are you always hitting people?”; “You
look like you’ve got a little something in you already, don’t you?”) It’s a
shame he was a one and done.
Indeed, the majority of the elements introduced here have
been rather brushed under the MCU carpet. William Hurt essays a serviceable
Thunderbolt Ross, broader than Sam Elliot’s but there isn’t really much
between them, and would be promoted to Senator for Captain America: Civil War, but that aside, we’ve only since seen a
recast Bruce, no Betty, no more Abomination (he was considered as a supporting
villain for Avengers: Age of Ultron,
though, and referenced as a potential Avenger in one-shot The Consultant, laboriously retconning the final scene here) and nothing made good on the promise of Sterns transforming in to the
Leader (which is a cardinal crime, as Nelson had all the makings of that MCU
rarity: a memorable villain). Downey Jr turns up in the coda, of course (not a
post-credits scene as many recall it), observing “the smell of stale beer and defeat” percolating around Ross, but
otherwise you could easily cast The Incredible
Hulk adrift.
Samuel Sterns: The mixture could be an abomination.
At one point in the picture, Banner compares his Hulk
experience to experiments he and Betty volunteered for at Harvard – “like someone’s poured a litre of acid into
my brain” – which is a lot more colourful and suggestive than anything we
end up seeing in the movie. The CGI is never believable, neither interactive nor
emotionally underpinned, making the standard explosive finale (a monster mash in
the manner of Kong vs Godzilla, or Iron Man vs Iron Monger) a snore. It’s a good
idea dropping Bruce out of plane, but it entirely fails to pay off. We don’t
care about Bruce or Betty.
The trick with this film should have been simultaneously
to make us want Banner to hulk out and also not to want him to. At least,
that’s what I always got from the TV show. It’s something you never feel with
Ruffalo’s version, and here the plot beats are too perfunctory for any sense of
inner conflict to develop. The problem is, The
Incredible Hulk’s essentially meat and potatoes as a reaction against Hulk’s wild artistic licence. There’s no
sense it’s striving for something greater than the sum of its formula. It’ll
do, but that’s all it does.
Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.