Thoughts on The Hulk…
First things first… The Hulk is NOT Spiderman. It’s not even Daredevil (we’re not talking quality here; we’re talking content. Hulk is MILES above Daredevil in terms of quality.) Hulk is an old-fashioned movie monster story—it owes more to Frankenstein and Godzilla than it does to Spiderman, Superman, Batman or any other superhero you want to name. The fact that he got his start in the comics like the rest of this gang does not mean his stories are going to be the same type of stories.
What this all means, is that all the people whining about how bad the movie is because it isn’t a popcorn-action-superhero movie should just stop whining because it wasn’t meant to be. If you don’t like Hulk because it’s not like Spiderman or X-Men, that’s your own baggage and you really needed to check it at the door before seeing the movie.
This is not to imply that I thought Hulk was a great film. Just that you’re all whining about the wrong things.
Part of the problem Hulk faces is marketing and placement. It’s been treated like every other superhero film to come out in the past few years and it’s been stuck right in the middle of the “please, it’s summer time, I don’t want to think” movie season. It's obvious Ang Lee was trying for something more than a mindless popcorn movie. Whether he actually delivered anything better is debatable, but it's obviously not popcorn.
My first impression was that it's not that bad and I didn't dislike it. There's a lot to be said for lowered expectations. The more I’ve talked about it, however, the more things I find that annoy me. But I still can't say it's a bad movie.
(Once again, I guess it’s disclaimer time. If you haven’t seen The Hulk and think you might want to and don’t like your movies spoiled by someone giving away the story, better stop reading now!)
There are a bunch of little things that annoy the hell out of me… and then there are some BIG things that REALLY bug me.
The biggest, unfortunately, has to be the thing that attempts to set it apart from other superhero/comic movies. Lee’s film really tries to delve into the psychology of the Hulk (and his human counterpart, Bruce Banner). But if you're going to delve into the psychology of a character like this, why the HELL don't you pick the interesting aspect of that psychology? A significant part of the film is about Bruce coming to terms with what he’s become thanks to the experiments his father performed just before he was born.
But we’re teased the details of this story throughout the movie and it’s all built up to a huge confrontation between Bruce and his father that, frankly, was the most pointless 20 minutes of the entire film. Deal with the father issue in the beginning of the film and move on. Then get into the meat of the psychological issues, the fact that Bruce ENJOYS becoming the Hulk. (He describes the feeling as freedom at one point, damnit!) This is the story I’d like to have seen them tell, the one I think has some real dramatic potential and drives a more interesting story. Maybe this is old ground (done to death in the comics and in the TV series maybe? I don't remember the series that well and never read the comics, so I can't say.)
Speaking of dramatic potential, I'm not sure if it's that Eric Bana is just boring, or that making him play as a Vulcan makes for bad drama, but I could have done without that choice as well. How about, instead of simply repressed to the point of sleepwalking, give him touches of the rage that Hulk embodies? (Hell, I've DONE the whole repressed emotion thing in the past. You know what happens when you repress everything long enough? It bursts out of you!) Obviously, that's what Hulk does for him, but give him some of that on his own—it makes him more dynamic. It also gives his girlfriend better reasons for dumping him (and more potential conflict) than simply "you're emotionally closed off." Imagine that she’s afraid of his temper, since it seems to come out of nowhere. How much more afraid will she be when she sees him Hulk out?
Oh, and while we’re at it, some real emotional connection between these characters would have been nice. Make us feel like there’s actually something between them… that she honestly cares for him and it’s not just the concern that she might have for a wounded puppy.
Little things that bugged me? How about the fact that they went so far out of the way to make sure we all knew Hulk didn’t kill anyone. He gets finished throwing a couple of army attack helicopters around and, as he bounds off into the distance, we see one of the flight crew on the ground radioing for help, so we can reassure ourselves that Hulk didn’t kill the soldiers. He throws a couple of guys around making his escape and, despite the fact that they look awfully dead (and there’s no way they could actually survive this kind of abuse) we’re assured that everyone survived the attack, though one of them does come back in a cast. (He gets killed a few minutes later, but it’s because the rocket he fired at Hulk bounced off and explodes behind him, so he’s killed by his own ruthlessness.) And, the most annoying moment? He sees the fighter jet that’s just finished pouring hot lead into him (with no apparent concern for the civilians on the Golden Gate Bridge, I might add) is about to crash into the bridge, killing untold numbers of said civilians. We see a horrified look on Hulk’s face and he jumps onto the back of the jet to make sure it misses the bridge.
We get it! Hulk’s not a bad guy! He’s not trying to hurt anyone and if we’d all just leave him alone, he wouldn’t get all green and angry, okay? But please, lay off the reassurances! Frankly, what if he accidentally killed someone? How’s that going to mess with his psychology? How does Bruce feel about that freedom now? You want to make a psychologically complex comic-book movie, introduce a little of that into it!
Another thing that bugged me (yeah, I know… what if I thought the movie was BAD?!) is the single-mindedness of General Ross, Betty’s dad. I know we’re following in the grand tradition of Japanese monster movies here, but after you’ve fired thousands of rounds of ammunition into the thing and watched him shrug it all off (not to mention catching one of the rockets you fired at him and throwing it back at you) how do you make the decision to KEEP SHOOTING AT HIM? When do you learn that it doesn’t work? (There’s also the fact that he keeps assuming that he’s killed Hulk without ever seeing any evidence of a body, but let’s not even go there… we haven’t got that kind of time.)
I’ve also heard complaints about the style of the film… the comic-book style frames, with multiple angles of the same scene on screen at the same time. Gotta say that there were times when it really worked and looked pretty cool. But I think it was drastically over-used (and I found the opening credits where they blended everyone’s names into the scene really annoying) and needlessly pulled you out of the film. Here’s the thing… comics use those multiple angle frames and tricks like that to impart a feeling of movement to otherwise static images. But movies already have that movement (that’s why we call them movies after all!) so, while you might be paying tribute to the source material’s origins, if you’re pulling the audience out of the movie every time you do it, you need to give some serious thought to cutting back on it.
(Thoughts on The Hulk Part 2)
First things first… The Hulk is NOT Spiderman. It’s not even Daredevil (we’re not talking quality here; we’re talking content. Hulk is MILES above Daredevil in terms of quality.) Hulk is an old-fashioned movie monster story—it owes more to Frankenstein and Godzilla than it does to Spiderman, Superman, Batman or any other superhero you want to name. The fact that he got his start in the comics like the rest of this gang does not mean his stories are going to be the same type of stories.
What this all means, is that all the people whining about how bad the movie is because it isn’t a popcorn-action-superhero movie should just stop whining because it wasn’t meant to be. If you don’t like Hulk because it’s not like Spiderman or X-Men, that’s your own baggage and you really needed to check it at the door before seeing the movie.
This is not to imply that I thought Hulk was a great film. Just that you’re all whining about the wrong things.
Part of the problem Hulk faces is marketing and placement. It’s been treated like every other superhero film to come out in the past few years and it’s been stuck right in the middle of the “please, it’s summer time, I don’t want to think” movie season. It's obvious Ang Lee was trying for something more than a mindless popcorn movie. Whether he actually delivered anything better is debatable, but it's obviously not popcorn.
My first impression was that it's not that bad and I didn't dislike it. There's a lot to be said for lowered expectations. The more I’ve talked about it, however, the more things I find that annoy me. But I still can't say it's a bad movie.
(Once again, I guess it’s disclaimer time. If you haven’t seen The Hulk and think you might want to and don’t like your movies spoiled by someone giving away the story, better stop reading now!)
There are a bunch of little things that annoy the hell out of me… and then there are some BIG things that REALLY bug me.
The biggest, unfortunately, has to be the thing that attempts to set it apart from other superhero/comic movies. Lee’s film really tries to delve into the psychology of the Hulk (and his human counterpart, Bruce Banner). But if you're going to delve into the psychology of a character like this, why the HELL don't you pick the interesting aspect of that psychology? A significant part of the film is about Bruce coming to terms with what he’s become thanks to the experiments his father performed just before he was born.
But we’re teased the details of this story throughout the movie and it’s all built up to a huge confrontation between Bruce and his father that, frankly, was the most pointless 20 minutes of the entire film. Deal with the father issue in the beginning of the film and move on. Then get into the meat of the psychological issues, the fact that Bruce ENJOYS becoming the Hulk. (He describes the feeling as freedom at one point, damnit!) This is the story I’d like to have seen them tell, the one I think has some real dramatic potential and drives a more interesting story. Maybe this is old ground (done to death in the comics and in the TV series maybe? I don't remember the series that well and never read the comics, so I can't say.)
Speaking of dramatic potential, I'm not sure if it's that Eric Bana is just boring, or that making him play as a Vulcan makes for bad drama, but I could have done without that choice as well. How about, instead of simply repressed to the point of sleepwalking, give him touches of the rage that Hulk embodies? (Hell, I've DONE the whole repressed emotion thing in the past. You know what happens when you repress everything long enough? It bursts out of you!) Obviously, that's what Hulk does for him, but give him some of that on his own—it makes him more dynamic. It also gives his girlfriend better reasons for dumping him (and more potential conflict) than simply "you're emotionally closed off." Imagine that she’s afraid of his temper, since it seems to come out of nowhere. How much more afraid will she be when she sees him Hulk out?
Oh, and while we’re at it, some real emotional connection between these characters would have been nice. Make us feel like there’s actually something between them… that she honestly cares for him and it’s not just the concern that she might have for a wounded puppy.
Little things that bugged me? How about the fact that they went so far out of the way to make sure we all knew Hulk didn’t kill anyone. He gets finished throwing a couple of army attack helicopters around and, as he bounds off into the distance, we see one of the flight crew on the ground radioing for help, so we can reassure ourselves that Hulk didn’t kill the soldiers. He throws a couple of guys around making his escape and, despite the fact that they look awfully dead (and there’s no way they could actually survive this kind of abuse) we’re assured that everyone survived the attack, though one of them does come back in a cast. (He gets killed a few minutes later, but it’s because the rocket he fired at Hulk bounced off and explodes behind him, so he’s killed by his own ruthlessness.) And, the most annoying moment? He sees the fighter jet that’s just finished pouring hot lead into him (with no apparent concern for the civilians on the Golden Gate Bridge, I might add) is about to crash into the bridge, killing untold numbers of said civilians. We see a horrified look on Hulk’s face and he jumps onto the back of the jet to make sure it misses the bridge.
We get it! Hulk’s not a bad guy! He’s not trying to hurt anyone and if we’d all just leave him alone, he wouldn’t get all green and angry, okay? But please, lay off the reassurances! Frankly, what if he accidentally killed someone? How’s that going to mess with his psychology? How does Bruce feel about that freedom now? You want to make a psychologically complex comic-book movie, introduce a little of that into it!
Another thing that bugged me (yeah, I know… what if I thought the movie was BAD?!) is the single-mindedness of General Ross, Betty’s dad. I know we’re following in the grand tradition of Japanese monster movies here, but after you’ve fired thousands of rounds of ammunition into the thing and watched him shrug it all off (not to mention catching one of the rockets you fired at him and throwing it back at you) how do you make the decision to KEEP SHOOTING AT HIM? When do you learn that it doesn’t work? (There’s also the fact that he keeps assuming that he’s killed Hulk without ever seeing any evidence of a body, but let’s not even go there… we haven’t got that kind of time.)
I’ve also heard complaints about the style of the film… the comic-book style frames, with multiple angles of the same scene on screen at the same time. Gotta say that there were times when it really worked and looked pretty cool. But I think it was drastically over-used (and I found the opening credits where they blended everyone’s names into the scene really annoying) and needlessly pulled you out of the film. Here’s the thing… comics use those multiple angle frames and tricks like that to impart a feeling of movement to otherwise static images. But movies already have that movement (that’s why we call them movies after all!) so, while you might be paying tribute to the source material’s origins, if you’re pulling the audience out of the movie every time you do it, you need to give some serious thought to cutting back on it.
(Thoughts on The Hulk Part 2)