The Incredible Hulk

The not so jolly green giant is back. This latest film isn’t so much as Hulk 2 the sequel, as Hulk take 2, following Ang Lee’s rather dismal version a couple of years back. I don’t know if it is entirely Lee’s fault (Ang, not Stan), although, as director, he must take the ultimate responsibility. Comic book movies really need to be made by comic book fans that happen to be good, or even half-decent, directors. They have to understand not only the genre, but also the surrounding mythology and what the fans want to see. I’m sure the Marvel movie guys spent many a long meeting trying to figure out what went wrong with the first movie, and I am not going to bother even making any suggestions because they seem to have got it pretty much right with this latest incarnation.

We are still in origin story territory, but this time Bruce Banner isn’t all angsty. He is on the run, hiding out in the favelas in Brazil, learning techniques to control his anger and searching for a cure to the gamma radiation that is playing havoc with his moods and his wardrobe.

Where this one succeeds is it gives the fans what they really want – less talking and more action. Even the generally mild-mannered Dr Banner (Edward Norton) gets to do a bit of parkour over the Brazilian rooftops as he is pursued by the relentless Anglo-Russian special ops soldier Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth) under orders from Banner’s nemesis General Ross (William Hurt), who also happens to be the father of Bruce’s sweetheart, Betty (Liv Tyler). The story has plenty of both inner and outer conflict, as well as a quest, to carry it, so it was really just a matter of adding some big action sequences with The Hulk for the movie to work. And it does, thanks to director Louis Leterrier, the man behind the two TRANSPORTER films with Jason Statham and UNLEASHED with Jet Li.

With The Hulk you want the action to be as big and brutal as he is and this time the movie delivers it with some great set pieces, especially the final showdown with The Abomination on the streets of New York. Overall, Marvel have got it right again, and seem to be on a winning streak at the moment, with IRON MAN proving to be one of the biggest movies of the summer. This is, in my opinion, because they have picked great acting talent to play the superheroes alter egos, and for the supporting roles. Robert Downey Jr and Edward Norton are two of the finest actors of their generation, as are Jeff Bridges and William Hurt of theirs, and these actors really carry the movie between the CGI action. Unfortunately, although The Hulk is a massive improvement on his last screen appearance, it is still obviously CGI, especially in close-ups when he is supposed to be showing a bit of his humanity. Why they can’t use a man with body paint and prosthetics I don’t know. Just look at how well HELLBOY works. Everyone loved the TV series, which is nicely referenced with cameo appearances from Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno, because it was a man painted green. If they can make Robbie Coltrane look like the giant Hagrid, or make the hobbits look small, then surely the same techniques can be applied, and then use the CGI for the big fight scenes and other shots that don’t rely on close-ups. Humans, even grossly mutated ones, are extremely hard to realistically animate. No matter how good the skin textures or mocap are (as in BEOWULF) they still don’t look real. Another reason IRON MAN worked so well is metal surfaces are the easiest to create in CG.

That is my only real gripe with the movie, and maybe not everyone is as hypercritical as I am. It is still big entertainment and it will please nearly all the hardcore Marvel fans. And the end sequence will have them all excited with anticipation as it starts setting up for a possible Avengers movie.

THE INCREDIBLE HULK is out everywhere on June 12, including BFI IMAX.

And look out for news on this site of a special comic book movie season at the BFI, which we will be giving away tickets for.