Hulk (2003)

I think the only superhero movie that really dared was "Hulk". They have few but great action scenes! But for comic book fans, it should have more adrenaline and less drama. I really liked the design of this Hulk here, and I would have liked to see more of it during the film, or in a sequel, since the film was mostly devoted to Bruce's past. The idea of edit the movie remembering comics was wonderful!

I don't call something an underrated masterpiece lightly. That's a bold claim, but I feel like this is necessary. Compared to the light and fluffy depiction of Banner and the big guy in the MCU these days, and especially compared to the safe, generic, boring Edward Norton flick, this movie is a deep and intimate journey through the breaking dam of latent rage.Ang Lee is one of my favorite action directors of all time. This movie is sharp, lucid, cognitive... everything in it builds to an effect. The bold split screen effects are more than just comic book emulation, they are confusion and discomfort of an overload of information. The editing in this movie is deliberately crafted to make viewers angry... which was a huge risk that didn't really pay off, because resisting it makes you uncomfortable and it's not really an aesthetically pleasing thing to behold without the effect. But surrender to it, and you really find yourself in Bruce Banner's head... lapses in imagery and real-time continuity, jumbles of information and incoherent panic. The cinematography is perfect and unlike anything else.The saddest thing about this film is Betty Brant's reaction to the monster, and Bruce Banner's dependence on her reaction. And that's really what this movie is about. Can Betty accept the rage and trust in something so wildly unpredictable? Logic versus heart. And Bruce is just lost within it. It's a sad story of helplessness.For a film ripe with sporadic editing, the pacing is rock solid. The tone is very, very deep into the terrifying uncertainty and vulnerability of the two lead characters. We see a relationship unfolding in the first act, focused on vulnerability, and then throughout the second act, we are subjected to experiments with and invasions of that vulnerability in its peak state... and in the third act it builds to a ferocious release of pure chaos.There's a strange sci-fi ending that feels a bit gratuitous, but as a cognition of the incoherent rage, it's cathartic and necessary. The ending of the relationship with Betty and Bruce is left ambiguous, which only makes the impact of the journey all the more potent.This film is a piece of art. The characters may not be charming or likeable, but they're sympathetic. And what little humor there is may be dry, but the true joy of this movie is seeing the beast unleashed. The action in this movie is ultra physical. It is no jumble of grays like the 2008 film, it is no comical joke like Avengers Hulk. It is a terrifying and kinetic rampage. It's a story that is a contradiction, both human and inhuman. It's a monster of a film.

I recorded this movie on TV two years ago to watch after my holiday in Spain and after when I came back I watched it. It was an okay film and it does show how Bruce Banner became The Hulk.However, the special effects in this movie were just bad and the acting wasn't even that good compared to the one after it. But warning ahead, in one scene when Hulk turns back into Bruce he is shown to be butt naked. So if you have children watch it with them.

This is an embarrassment to one of Marvel's best superheroes and it makes it seem that 'it's not easy being green' especially considering that the film didn't bring much green at the box office. The film is a comic book movie that's WAY too literal in its editing (though it is a nice style in an otherwise sloppily paced movie) and even then the movie is BORING! For a film that has the word HULK in the title, it's very unfortunate that the film's name is totally out of place considering the story is basically a slow-paced and Hulk-lite story.As a fan of the Hulk character, this film didn't really want to focus on its title character; instead it wants to be Bruce Banner, a sooky and whiny insult to the character's alter-ego.For 2003 it's technically impressive and well-done multi-million dollar filmmaking, but today it's a bad egg that has collective nostalgia for some, but others not so much. I'm amongst the not-so-much crowd in that regard.