With the summer of sequels officially underway, any title devoid of the words: "Part Two/Three", "Returns" or "Reloaded" is automatically pushed to the front of the line in my book. To date, the pairing of super-hero characters with motion pictures has been temperamental at best, but it sure beats sitting through another sequel. So we have Hulk, a blockbuster adaptation of the green giant from Marvel Comics who, barring some made-for-TV jaunts, had yet to receive Hollywood treatment.
Hulk begins in that bastion setting for superhero origins, a science lab, where David Banner (Nick Nolte) tampers with nature while also an employee of the military. Certainly not a wise combination. A mishap occurs. The story moves forward a few decades, where Banner's son Bruce (Eric Bana) now works at a bio/nuclear facility (or something) with his ex-girlfriend Betty. A mishap occurs. Despite a lethal exposure to radiation, Bruce is not killed. He soon discovers he is susceptible to changes he can't control, and everyone has a vested interest in the new transformation.
A movie like this cares enough about the original subject matter to take itself seriously, and it is a welcome change. All too often, action flicks of this sort place heightened importance on artificially balancing levity with gravity, and the results are wishy-washy. Characters will be dangling from rooftops while spewing witty repartee and it causes the audience to roll their eyeballs. Since the Hulk himself doesn't really speak, director Ang Lee implements a serious tone throughout and for the most part, it works.
Of course, Hulk is jam-packed with stunts and special effects, including the digitally-rendered green behemoth himself, who actually comes off much more realistic-looking than the trailers would indicate. For the most part, the players all do their part to make the material important. Sam Elliott and Josh Lucas are convincing in their suspicious motives and Bana and Connelly have interesting chemistry. It's Nolte, though, who steals the show as the wiry mad scientist and see-sawing father. With a grizzled voice and matching grisly hair, it's a fine, over-the-top performance that makes for one of the more intriguing villains in recent memory.
The conclusion of the film is confusing and incongruous with the rest of the piece, which is a bit of a letdown, but the preceding action makes up for the shortcomings of the plot. It's also fun to watch it freely express its ties to the creature features of old, such as the King Kong and Godzilla movies. All analyses aside though, Hulk is a superior superhero adaptation content to entertain and engage comic book fans young and old. The Jekyll and Hyde analogies and Freudian theorems may exist, but on a simpler, visceral level, it's just as much fun to watch a big angry guy smash a lot of things up but good.
