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HULK

With Ang Lee at the helm, one would think HULK would at least have a solid story and be visually amazing, but instead it is strangely disjointed and full of CGI phoniness. Computerized Spider-Man swinging from building to building through the streets of New York worked without a hitch, but the giant, odd looking Hulk bouncing around the desert, on top of mountains and even from the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco for over ten minutes, left me speechless for an entirely different reason. I found myself wondering why, and the only conclusion I could come to, is the story was so weak and crowded that they were trying to overcompensate by needlessly bulking up the "action" sequences. The result was painful to watch, and unbearably too long.

The movie focuses on Bruce Banner (Eric Bana), a scientist who has repressed a memory involving his biological mother and father. It turns out his father (the younger version played by Paul Kersey) was also a scientist working on genetically mutating lab animals, but ultimately against his superior's wishes, started injecting himself and his son...thus creating the HULK. In an effort to protect his on-again off-again girlfriend Betty Ross (Jennifer Connelly), Bruce's "angry side" emerges, thus causing her general father (Sam Elliott) to vow to put him away for life.

There is little character development and seemingly no chemistry between Bana and Connelly, who appear to deliver their lines without any feeling. For two characters once in love or still in love, they look like strangers who just met. The audience isn't given much background into their relationship, and quite frankly less than twenty minutes into the movie I didn't even care anymore. Connelly constantly looks off into the distance, like she's deeply thinking about something else, with eyes glazed over, off in her own world. Nick Nolte, as the older version of Bruce's father, provides an over-the-top performance that fails, when coupled with the rest of the hum drum dialogue and acting. Elliott plays the over-protective father and general a bit too hard, showing little emotion or concern for his daughter.

The use of split screens is another pointless addition to a movie that is just all over the place plot-wise. This effect could have been used as a clever addition to simulate comic book pages in key scenes, but instead the technique is all together random and out of place. Had it been done continuously throughout the entire movie, it would have seemed like it belonged--and made for an interesting whole. However, spliced together as it was, it looks like someone either ran out of time or didn't want to commit to the idea wholeheartedly.

There's not much that works for the HULK, save the ending scene which for me was the best, not only because it meant the movie was over, but because it had the best display of clever wit, absent and so much needed throughout the entire movie to draw in the audience and keep them from checking their watches every ten minutes.

Bigger is not always better. The HULK proves this hands down. Granted until word of mouth gets around, it will draw in some "green," it's still nothing more than a lack-luster popcorn flick gone incredibly wrong.

Written by: Laurie Kisner

Reviewers Rating: 5
Reader's Rating: 5.39
Reader's Votes: 36

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