![]() ![]() ![]() In "The Incredible Hulk," you see a few flashes of that crazy-romantic Leterrier touch, particularly a sequence in which Banner, who hasn't seen Betty in ages, finally gets a glimpse of her. ![]() But they can't catch Banner - at least not right away - and on the run, he at least has a chance to reconnect with his lost love, Betty Ross (Liv Tyler, giving a sweet, straightforward performance that's nearly as translucent as her skin), a former colleague who was present, and was injured, on the day of that fateful experiment.Įverything in "The Incredible Hulk" is big, or at least writ large, although the picture isn't wholly without heart: Leterrier has a taste for sentimental melodrama and a knack for making it work visually, as he did in 2005's "Unleashed." "Unleashed" is unapologetically over the top, which is part of why it works: Jet Li gives a performance with the gravity and intensity of great silent-film acting, and Leterrier lets him run with it. He also connects from time to time with a mysterious online friend, who may be able to help him find a cure for his condition.īut Banner can't live in hiding forever, and eventually a general who has a vested interest in his secret, Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross (a stony-looking William Hurt), smokes him out, with the help of a crackerjack special-ops goon, Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth). In his spare time, Banner tries to learn Portuguese and occasionally meets with an advisor, a Zen-master type who says things like, "The best way to control your brain is to control your body" while doing weird ripply things with his stomach. When the movie opens, he's hiding out in Brazil, working in a soft-drink bottling plant - the camera gives us a sweeping view of the favela where he lives, a patchwork of flimsy-looking, multistory shacks. (Leterrier whisks much of the Hulk's back story out of the way during the opening credits, an economical way of setting up the story for the uninitiated without slowing things down too much for those who already know what they've signed on for.) Banner, knowing he can't fully control his emotions, or his body, has chosen to live in isolation. He's a CGI creation whose body is a rolling landscape of bulbous muscles and throbbing veins, attached to a face that tells us nothing: Leterrier and his team of CGI elves have worked hard to make the Hulk look "real." They just haven't bothered to make him seem human.Įdward Norton plays Bruce Banner, a scientist who, as the result of an experiment gone haywire, has suffered gamma-radiation poisoning: Now, whenever he becomes angry or overexcited, he's transformed from an essentially low-key, polite man of science into a big, green, pissed-off guy. ![]() But Leterrier's Hulk - like Lee's - isn't a real-life bodybuilder in tiny, tattered pants, à la Lou Ferrigno, who starred in the popular television show of the late '70s and early '80s. "The Incredible Hulk" is an extravagant, booming picture, and Leterrier has taken great care to deliver one particular element that Lee's picture skimped on: He gives us plenty of opportunities to watch an angry, musclebound green giant smash stuff up. But that's not the same as teasing moviegoers, or delighting them, or sending them home with the sense that they're leaving with more than they came in with. But is it too much to ask for a little believability? Louis Leterrier's "The Incredible Hulk" - conceived as a do-over after Ang Lee's cerebral 2003 "Hulk" proved to be such a disappointment to fans of the Marvel comic series - is so fattened up with special effects that it seems to be insulating itself against audience disapproval. Movies based on comic books are supposed to be the stuff of fantasy. ![]()
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