This is the second part in my 21 part series reviewing the MCU films in chronological order. Reading these in chronological order is not a necessity, but will help understand the ways in which Marvel films improve or regress.
Written Review:
Certainly one of if not the worst Marvel films to date, The Incredible Hulk directed by Louis Leterrier and written by Zak Penn is a blemish on Marvel films and the artform of film itself. With no effort put into the production, the Hulk’s first outing the MCU is genuinely difficult to sit through. Clearly no one on the production knew how to write interesting dialogue, and failed to produce a plot worth my time. The Incredible Hulk retreads cliches of a darker past in superhero cinema, focusing on The Dark Knight-esque visuals instead of paving its own direction as a property.
One of the clearest problems of the entire film arise early in the opening credits, where behind the scrolling names we are revealed the backstory of the Hulk through flashbacks. Seemingly, the goal here was to skip information we already knew from previous iterations of the character in favor of telling a story more unique and interesting to audiences already familiar with the character. This is a good idea, and Spider Man Homecoming does this with competence, but The Incredible Hulk makes an impossible blunder with this direction of storytelling. Rather than forgo the whole origin story, this film decides skips the first act where Banner receives his powers and continues from there. This does remove some of the unnecessary aspects of the film, but what follows is a second act stretched to fill the time opened from removing the first.
Let’s frame an origin story. Act 1: The hero is a normal person, and suddenly becomes more than they were before. All superheroes come from somewhere, and we learn of the circumstances surrounding their birth or rebirth. Act 2: The hero comes to terms with their powers, learning how to use them while discovering that there are people in direct opposition to their goals. Act 3: The hero confronts their villain and finally realizes their true potential, opening them up to greater battles in the future.
The Incredible Hulk however skips the first act and stretches the second act to compensate. Most of the film revolves around Banner being chased for his abnormalities without proper time being devoted to the event causing such defects. We are told he is a monster, and is coming to terms with his monster-ness, but we are never shown any of this. Telling the audience what happened rather than showing them is an elementary mistake in filmmaking, and is a detriment to the plot as a whole.
Early in the film the tropes of The Dark Knight are heavily on display, with dark seedy cities and shadowy representations of the Hulk as a “monster in the corner” instead of a rambunctious brutal force. This, in my opinion, shows a blatant disregard for the character in question. I am certainly not implying that the comic book must be a bible, but defaulting to the most popular superhero film of the year’s qualities while having a character devoid of any individual identity is a far cry from cinematic integrity. The giant, green, loud mess that is The Hulk is certainly not The Batman, even though early scenes in the film treat him as such. The film tries to represent the more depressing sides of the Hulk, particularly the effect “hulking-out” has on Banner’s social life, but this thread is so underdeveloped (besides the reuse of the TV show’s sad ending track) that it goes without mentioning here.
Edward Norton is incredibly miscast in this role, which is disappointing given his interest in the character. Bruce Banner is presented as a nerdy scientist working on a federal project on the brink of changing the world, but looks and acts like a suave rich philanthropist. He’s an attractive intelligent badass who can run long strides, fix any problem, and flirt extremely well. In my eyes, Bruce Banner isn’t any of this, in fact it once again seems like Marvel was trying to capitalize on The Dark Knight’s success that year by playing their film as a gritty drama over a quirky destruction film. Mark Ruffalo’s performance of The Hulk in future movies accurately matches the character’s key traits, and the future recasting did the character well.
In general, the rest of the performances aren’t fantastic either. I don’t blame the cast, rather, I blame the terrible writing by Penn. Every line of dialogue ranges from cliche military jargon to uncharismatic exchanges between characters with no chemistry. The romance in this movie is incredibly forced, and fails to focus on the key problems with having a relationship as the Hulk. It’s heavily implied that Banner lost his partner following the accident, but he gets her back as quickly as she is introduced to the audience. I’m not really sure why anyone in the audience should care about these characters given the little development they get across the board. Thunderbolt Ross makes an appearance later in the series, and is the best character in the film, but the rest of the cast ranges from boring to downright terrible.
Visually the film is awful, as the aforementioned climax between The Hulk and the movie’s “villain” The Abomination is laughably ugly. This may have been passable in 2008, but 11 years later we can look back and wince at what made it to screen. The Hulk and The Abomination fit perfectly in the Uncanny Valley, visually similar to a veiny Uncle O’Grimacey. The rest of the movie is saturated with dark color tones and bland visuals. Maybe they were trying to represent The Hulk’s inner conflicts, but he doesn’t really have any here. He gets the girl immediately when he wants to, he fights the bad guy and wins, and escapes to the middle of nowhere with a smirk on his face. Being forced to watch grey scene after dark alleyway after nonsensical action scene is a exercise of how thin you can stretch a film’s plot and my patience.
If the movie looked good, I could give it a pass. If the writing was moderately interesting, I could give it a pass. If the action was overblown and cheesy, I could give it a pass. As it stands however, The Incredible Hulk fails on absolutely every level imaginable. I truly hope that I never have to see this dreadful monstrosity ever again.
I give The Incredible Hulk a 1/10. There’s nothing redeemable about this film and I genuinely wish I could get those two hours back. Avoid this, and you’ll be thankful.
