The Incredible Hulk

After the disaster that was Dasavatharam, I couldn’t bring myself to watch another freakin’ huge movie. An English movie was the obvious choice and one that I wanted to see on opening day was The Incredible Hulk. The initial Hulk movie was not as good as i expected it to be…there was too much talking and very less smashing!Marvel(Owners of the franchise) started producing their movie while paramount only distributed them.They set out to make two movies,Iron Man and the Hulk.They chose to remake Hulk because the first movie did not turn out the way they want and retook the movie rights.They made good casting coupes with this movie..namely casting Edward Norton(Brilliant!!)as the Hulk.I don’t need to bring up how good an actor he is in multiple roles(Fight Club,enough said!!)Plus with the build up for the Avengers Movie set in motion through Iron Man,Hulk needed to prove itself and prove it did.

The problem with the previous hulk was considering its length the appearance of the Hulk was very minimal.For a 2 hr movie,The Hulk appeared for like 30-45mins.That is simply not excusable.Also changes in the script meant it was far less similar to that of the comic book. Instead of delving into the origin story,this movie gets straight away into Bruce Banner on the run from the US Military. Instead of a separate flashback to reveal the origin, the director does it in flashes(Also its much closer to the origin story from the comic).The Hulk appears within the first 1/2 hour from the start. Its good to see Tim Roth back(after Reservoir Dogs) and he plays his part as Soldier/Abomination. When I saw the Hulk and the Abomination clash in the trailers i thought it was going to be cheesy like the other action movies but it ended up not sucking.it was pretty good and i enjoyed it more than i though i would!Louis Leterrier(the Director) shows the pain Bruce goes through while transforming into the Hulk which also gets the viewer more involved. The pace of the movie remains fairly constant and doesn’t drag at any point. Liv Tyler plays her part as Bruce’s love interest Betty Ross and William Hurt does an ok job as the General Ross. In addition to playing the lead, Edward Norton actually re-wrote the screenplay along with Zak Penn although he goes uncredited. Edward Norton as Bruce Banner fits the role fine(Eric Bana would have also been fine, Edward was casted as Eric Bana didn’t want to reprise his role as the Hulk). The CGI comes as a breath of fresh air after Dasavatharam. This still could have been improved and hopefully they do so for the Avengers movie.
Overall, to summarize…this is what the first hulk should have been-Perfect Runtime(1 hr 54 mins) More Hulk Appearances (Nearly half the movie) Staying close to the comic book (The Abomination, origin story) Good CGI (Could have been better but take what we get).

There are lots of clues/hints in the movie for a lot of past/future movies. During the starting credits, don’t miss out on Nick Fury’s name showing up in a report, the original hulk(from the TV Series) plays a small part as the cop who gets bribed with the Pizza, Mr Green(or Mr.Blue??) is the villain in the next Hulk movie(there’s sure to be one, maybe after the avengers)The Leader. Tony Stark(Iron Man) cameo at the end of the movie(the part which i loved the most) pitching an idea of a team to the General Roth, Hulk/Bruce/Ed Norton exclaiming HULK SMASH!! during the climax action sequence.

Now i just can’t wait for rest of Marvel’s movies.The first Avenger: Captain America is already in pre-production(I think),Thor Movie also has been green flagged and the culmination of all,The Avengers is set for a  2011 release date. Can i just freeze myself until all these movies are out??