Review: The Incredible Hulk (2008)
The Incredible Hulk is definitely the weakest of the Marvel Universe movies, that’s not to say it’s bad it’s just pretty average, nothing really stand out or is entirely memorable. It’s hard to pin down why this is but, it just is.
In terms of acting everyone is alright, no-one’s terrible but no-one’s brilliant either. Norton does what he can to portray the dual personality of Banner and you’d think with him doing similar with Fight Club and Primal Fear that he’s do a good job but it’s really nothing special. Liv Tyler elevates herself to just above a useless love interest but still wasn’t that great, she and Norton have some chemistry is a few scenes but not enough to worth mentioning. Tim Blake Nelson did a pretty good job as Dr Sterns, creating a genius with a slight screw loose, William Hurt was also fine as General Ross, he made sure that Ross wasn’t shown to be a bad guy, just someone who made a mistake and wasn’t doing the right things to correct it. The best character was by far Tim Roth as Blonsky, a soldier that’s finally met his match with Hulk, after his defeat he strives to be the best and that means better than Hulk by any means necessary and it’s this attitude that leads to him turning into Abomination.
The directing was also pretty average, Louis Leterrier makes what he can with the film and the big action scenes are impressive but they’re not mind-blowing, add to that that there’s quite a lot of talking and science scenes in-between these action scenes and the film kinda drags after a while. (This is actually the exact same problem I had with Leterrier’s most recent film ‘Clash Of The Titans’.)
I think the main problem with this film is the character, unlike Iron Man, Thor and Captain America you don’t get that same sense of ‘they really are that character’. Hemsworth and Evans both did fantastic jobs as Thor and Rodgers and about half or Iron Man’s charm was how believable Robert Downey JNR was as Tony Stark. But it’s not just that, it’s also the dual nature of Banner and Hulk, when Iron Man fights he’s still Tony Stark, when Captain America fights he’s still Steve Rodgers, Hulk and Banner are both different people in the same body, if that makes any sense and while Hulk is good in the film Banner isn’t and...
I’ll be honest I don’t really know why I wasn’t impressed by this film, it was just above average and frankly a lot of it was forgettable.
6/10