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THE HULK
by Peter Sobczynski

June 20, 2003

1/2 (Out of 4 stars)

FILM CREDITS: Written by John Turman and Michael France and James Schamus. Directed by Ang Lee. Starring Eric Bana, Jennifer Connelly, Sam Elliot, Josh Lucas and Nick Nolte. Rated PG-13. 135 minutes. A Universal Pictures release.

After sitting through such recent assaults on the central nervous system as "X2", "2 Fast 2 Furious" and "Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle", it will probably comes as shock to most audiences for "The Hulk" when they discover how quiet it is. Instead of being just another all-stops-pulled action blockbuster, the film takes a softer, more contemplative approach (even the nuclear explosions are given a lyrical visual treatment) that is genuinely risky and radical for a pre-sold summer blockbuster. While callow action junkies may decry it for not being noisy enough, more thoughtful viewers will realize that it contains qualities that will last once the state-of-the-art effects have become dated and silly.

This approach is especially surprising considering the fact that we are talking, after all, about The Hulk, a comic-book character (created in the 1960’s by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby) whose M.O. was essentially to smash and crush anything that made him upset. Of course, what the character is really about (as any comic-book geek, eager to prove that he hasn’t wasted his life, will quickly point out) is the raging id inside all of us that is ready to burst forth from under layers of emotional repression at a moments notice with terrifying (yet liberating) force. Therefore, despite earlier comments to the contrary from some, it makes perfect sense that Ang Lee would choose to direct this film. After all, the vast majority of his previous films (including "Sense and Sensibility", "The Ice Storm" and "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon") have been about repressed characters attempting to deal with the fallout when their long-buried emotions begin to rise to their surfaces. "The Hulk" is merely an amplification of that recurring theme, albeit with an enormous green monster in purple shorts who can destroy a fleet of cars with one mighty stomp.

The film opens with a prologue set in 1966 as young Dr. David Banner (Paul Kersey) is conducting secret experiments for the military on the immune system and, when his theories are ignored, begins performing tests on himself. Soon, he and his wife have a child, Bruce, and it appears that Dad may have passed...something...on to his son. One terrible day, a tragedy occurs and young Bruce is adopted by another family. Decades later, Bruce (Eric Bana) is also a scientist working on the immune system, using nanotechnology and gamma-rays to discover a way to devise a serum that will instantly repair physical wounds. Of course, such a serum could have grand financial benefits for whomever owns it and nasty military guy Glen Talbot (Josh Lucas) is trying to worm his way into it. If that doesn’t make things tense enough for Bruce, he is also still working with former flame Betty Ross (Jennifer Connelly), who recently dumped him for being so emotionally distant.

As expected, things go horribly wrong in the lab one day and Bruce winds up taking a full hit from a malfunctioning gamma-ray machine. Instead of being reduced to cinders, however, Bruce gets through it with nary a physical side effect. One night, he is visited in the hospital by a mysterious stranger (Nick Nolte) who claims that he is Bruce’s real father and that his incredible survival is linked to a genetically-altered quirk passed on from father to son. At first, Bruce rejects this and tries to assure Betty that all is well, at one point saying "Hey, I’m not going to explode."

But of course, everyone in the audience knows that the opposite is true and eventually, Bruce’s emotions get the better of him and he transforms into the big green monster and trashes his lab in a liberating fit of unacceptable behavior. As it turns out, the gamma-rays themselves haven’t turned Bruce into a monster as much as they have accentuated what is already inside him thanks to dear old Dad. Instead of repairing physical trauma, the nanomites are repairing emotional damage and therefore, the more upset Bruce gets, the bigger and stronger he becomes thanks to the nanomites working overtime. (Of course, no matter how big he gets, his purple shorts still maintain a PG-13 level of modesty-apparently the nanomites are effective on cotton blends as well.).

In other words, "The Hulk" is the world’s most expensive film about the necessity for anger management, something that everyone watching can relate to in one way or another. It is this human element that is the most striking thing about the film because it gives us something to grab on to between the FX setpieces. Although some snobby viewers might dismiss the film as silly comic-book fodder, Lee has created a film that is as delicate and emotionally tricky as any of his previous works. Instead of being filler, the central relationship between Bruce and Betty (both nicely played by Bana and Connelly) is the genuine heart of the film and the scenes between Bana and Nolte are memorable in the way that they display the long-standing traumas inadvertently passed down from one generation to the next (another common theme in Lee’s work).

In fact, the least interesting scenes in the film are the ones in which the Hulk character dominates. Although early reports (mostly based off of viewings of an unfinished workprint) suggested that the entirely CGI character looked fake (duh!), the effect isn’t that awful (although a few shots are pretty dodgy). The problem is that the Hulk never really seems properly integrated with his surroundings; he bounds around and things rumble in his wake but there is never a convincing illusion of weight or gravity about him. This especially become a problem during the last third of the film, when the Hulk finally dominates the proceedings, culminating in one of the strangest finales in a big-budget blockbuster since the jaw-dropping climax of "The Black Hole".

Aside from those technical quibbles, "The Hulk" is a smart and effective film that manages to overcome a potentially ludicrous concept (which at one point involves a muted Hulk-poodle, among other things) by treating it with seriousness and respect. In fact, it might be too quiet and thoughtful for increasingly jaded multiplex audiences. It will be interesting to discover how they react when they go to see "The Hulk" and discover that instead of the expected nonsensical sound-and-light show, Ang Lee has provided them with a genuine movie.

-- PETER SOBCZYNSKI

Copyright © 2003 Peter Sobczynski
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While the views expressed by Peter Sobczynski do not necessarily reflect the views of Criticdoctor.com, the Critic Doctor will occasionally examine Mr. Sobczynski's film reviews to bring forth an honest examination of those views expressed.