The Hulk
Directed by Ang Lee
Starring Eric Bana, Jennifer Connelly, Sam Elliot, Josh Lucas and Nick Nolte
Rated PG-13 for sci-fi action violence, some disturbing images and brief partial nudity

Before starting my review for this film, I feel its necessary for me to briefly discuss the marketing campaign for the film done by Universal Pictures. I’m not sure its possible that this film’s ads could have been any worse. This film never had a chance in its opening weekend with many potential viewers. I think its possible it lost almost $10 million because of the bizarre concept they tried to market the film with. There was no real competition in theaters this weekend, so it should have made more than $60 million. The whole have you ever wanted to release the beast or whatever within you campaign couldn’t work with anyone. There was no one sitting at home or in the movie theater thinking, "Finally! A film that deals with my desire to stop holding everything in and just go out and beat the shit out of people!" I have no idea what they were thinking. This campaign is especially a shame, because The Hulk is a good movie. Just like the ads for Changing Lanes last year, this was one of the worst marketing ideas ever which hurt a pretty good flick. New Coke was almost better. On with the review.

This just in: Comic book fans go to movies. Maybe you already knew that. But apparently it was only last year after the success of X-Men and Spiderman that Hollywood executives got this memo. And since then there has been X-Men 2, Daredevil and they are working on a Punisher movie, a Fantastic Four movie and a Spiderman sequel for next summer and in 2005 there is a plan to do a new Superman film. Its surprising that it took these executive so long to figure that out considering the amazing success of the Superman and Batman films. And it makes sense that these films would do well. Comic books are popular. Movies with established audiences do well (ex. Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings). But the ads for this film were awful (see above). Really awful. I mean monumentally bad (Again, see above). So I wondered, as did many, would this film be any good? The answer is thankfully, yes. Ang Lee is a good director. And with this film he employs a cool, interesting style that is what Tom Hanks was trying to create as a toy executive in the movie, Big; a comic book that is a movie. The story and the acting isn’t great, and the film is a little too long, but its worth seeing. Especially because this has been a bad summer and in fact a bad year for movies.

Almost everyone has seen Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It was a very good film and probably the most successful film with subtitles in the last 20 years. Many touted the film as the most artistic kung-fu film ever. And this may be true, but I haven’t seen enough Kung-Fu flicks to make a statement like that. So after Crouching Tiger, The Hulk was a very logical choice for Ang Lee. First, it gave Ang Lee a chance to move more into the mainstream. And second,
it gave Ang Lee a chance to bring an artistic style to action films, which generally isn’t there. And I think Lee managed to complete both of these tasks. His name is definitely out there now and this film has a very interesting artistic style to it. He manages to make the film look a lot like a comic book, by using lots of frames all over the screen. And he makes pretty much everything in the film green. And while sometimes this seems a little silly, it is nice to see Lee embrace the style and stick with it for the entire film. This film to me is the offspring of Tim Burton’s Batman and Sam Raimi’s Spiderman. It combines solid direction and style with a pretty good use of computer graphics and special effects. I could see a young Tim Burton making a film similar to this one, and that’s a strong compliment. Burton’s would have been better, but Lee’s Hulk is still impressive.

Eric Bana seems like a pretty good Hulk to me. I’ve never read the comic book series or watched the TV show, but I liked Bana in this role. He was subtle and yet pretty strong. Jennifer Connelly wasn’t bad either. She looked very attractive in this film and was much less annoying than in A Beautiful Mind. The supporting cast is also not bad. Nick Nolte, despite looking like he did in that mug shot from his drunk driving arrest, was pretty solid. Sam Elliot wasn’t bad and neither was Josh Lucas, but they weren’t in the film much so its hard to judge them.

What really hurts this film is the story. Its not very interesting and its incredibly predictable. You always know where its going and how its going to get there. And its much too long. I started getting a little bored near the end and looked at
my watch a few times. And the film had about three endings, which is never a good thing. But despite this flaw, The Hulk is a good film. The combination of good direction and a creative, impressive style makes the film worth seeing. And hopefully the success of this film will make The Punisher and The Fantastic Four (which is being directed by Peyton Reed who made what is probably my favorite film of the year so far, Down With Love) better films than Daredevil.

Rating 77%