Dir. Ang Lee
The Hulk starts off with David Banner, a military scientist, whose work has been declared too dangerous by the military. Hes trying to find a way for humans to instantly heal, to the point of re-growing limbs. To boost soldiers immune systems so they will be unstoppable in the field. * Warning: There is more animal experimentation in the first few minutes of the film than I have every seen. Its mostly sea life. * Since the military wont give him soldiers to play with, he experiments on himself. Then his wife gets pregnant with Bruce Banner, who has inherited some of the immunity crap from the injections the father was giving himself. OKAY, lets fast forward some years and we find that Bruce Banner is no longer Bruce Banner, but is Bruce Krensler because he was adopted after both his parents died when Bruce was four. David Banner did not die but is now his sons stalker. Bruce is in the same field as daddy dearest (coincidence) but hes working with gamma radiation. Theres an accident, and the gamma radiation activates the peculiarities in his DNA. He becomes everybodys favorite rage machine. It turns out hes okay as long as hes around Betty, his love. Bettys not around much because her dad wont let her. Her dad is a big military general, who doesnt listen to his daughter. I think the moral of this movie is that fathers are evil. Im not kidding. We only see two, and theyre both bad men. That doesnt stop Betty from crying to Daddy whenever theres the slight reason to. I hate waste of space females. To be fair, an effort does seem to be made to raise her above this level, but it doesnt work. Just like everything else in the movie doesnt work.
Some good things about the movie
~ There were some funny lines. I think there were five. The movie is over two hours long, but there were some funny lines.
~ Nick Nolte did a really good job as David Banner. He had the crazy scientist part down pat.
~ They made Eric Bana, who is a good looking man, look like a goofy nerd, which is what Bruce Banner is supposed to look like.
~ Some of the special effects were wonderful. Im told its the best CGI ever done. Theres one part when someone puts his hand up to Hulks face, that you think Ill be damned, thats good.
The movie is too long, too boring, and doesnt have any characters you really care about. The character I felt the most for was Bruce (as Im supposed to,) but honestly, I would have preferred for him to have been killed if it would have gotten me out of the theater a little earlier.
It breaks my heart that this is an Ang Lee film. I never thought I would rate one of his so lowly.
I rate it: Avoid
Eric Bana as Bruce Banner
Jennifer Connelly as Betty Ross
Nick Nolte as David Banner
Sam Elliot as General Ross
ILM as The Hulk
Look for a cameo of Stan Lee and Lou Ferrigno. But thats only if you see it.