Hulk Movies

I recently re-watched both Hulk movies and even considering everything, I have to say I really like the first Ang Lee version better. The ending is stupid, and there were a couple of odd shots of mold in some scenes, but everything else about that movie was just smart and made for a better story.

I get it about The Incredible Hulk (2nd movie) though - lots of us are nostalgic for the TV show version, which this tries to emulate in several ways. It just isn't the same - it is full of more fluff in my opinion. Ed Norton did a good job, don't get me wrong.

First movie suuuucked.

It's not really smarter, deeper, or more cerebral when it comes to the father/absorbing hobo storyline since there's no actual process of Banner coming to grips with what he witnessed and such.

There were some things about it that you could tell would have been in place for the kind of movie they really would have wanted, but the studio just gave a bunch of money to Ang Lee for this movie and it fell flat, pretty much like Superman Returns.

First movie was very Ang Lee. Deconstruct a genre and rebuild it from the ground up. It had super jumping (as in miles) Hulk. It had ripping tanks apart Hulk. It had supersized Hulk. And it went into the psyche of the Hulk. It also was beautifully shot with loads of pretty desert midwestern scenery.

Downside it had a Hulked out poodle. It had Nick Nolte's week Absorbing Man as a final boss. It had an too abstract final fight.

The newer movie did have more of the Banner/Hulk on the run vibe that was mirrored from the old TV series but with huge Hulk ripping cars in half to use as boxing gloves. We get a Hulk stomp, we get a Hulk hand slap to put out fires.

The first movie wasn't as action pack as some may have wanted from a comic book movie and the second movie had enough to keep everyone happy.

Now if they can only get their Hulk model to look better. There is still something about it that screams "CGI MODEL". We've all seen better looking CGI characters mixed in with live action. Want to bet all the Hulk fights will be at night or in dark areas in the rain for the Avengers.

The Hulk in the first movie had no weight to his feats. Everything he did was too floaty/lacking impact.

First Hulk sucked. If you try to go for a psychological aspect in a Hulk movie, you should focus on the Hulk/Banner dynamic before you try tackling daddy issues. In the first one, Hulk wasn't as much of a character as he was a temper tantrum, and I know Hulk is pure rage, but he is still his own character.

Oh, you are judging the movie based on how close it was to mirroring the comic. I understand. The scene where The Hulk calls Bruce a puny human and grabs him from the mirror is probably being forgotten amongst the rest of the story.

I think he did that for a reason, because in that version Bruce could remember everything even though he wasn't in control. He said he got enjoyment out of running wild as the Hulk, (what scares me the most ~ I like it) losing control. I think he stressed that quite a bit - how his mother described Bruce as being bottled up - once the change occurs he can finally let his emotions loose that he buried all the way up until he was an adult.

No they do, the whole point to that was to indicate how much emotion he kept to himself - Betty goes into detail about it - he discusses how the nanomeds fixed him physically but she asks about psychological repair. When he finally changes, he talks about how it kind of scares him when he totally loses control, because he likes it. He FINALLY gets to release all that pent up emotion which required a full back story to make any sense.

His first change is triggered mostly by current events and they only hint twice about his childhood. I think they only showed those because he was remembering his reintroduction to his father in the hospital.

Aside from the plot, I didn't like how they presented the movie either. They tried doing some weird comic panel-like shots that looked horrible and made Talbot's death look really corny and stupid. Back to the plot, sure, Bruce had a horrible family life (excluding that stupid experimentation), but that kind of drama should be reserved for a few movies later when the Banner/Hulk thing starts to run dry (kind of like the Peter/MJ drama that ran through all three Spider-Man movies, even though it should have ended by the second).

Yeah that scene was for comic relief I think, it was a little weird. I don't know if he died though, it looked like he just got thrown a little ways.