Rating: 
Summary: mixed results
Review: A B-movie monster flick with an A-movie budget, "Hulk" is the latest epic based on a Marvel Comics superhero to hit the big screen. Director Ang Lee has constructed the film like a giant jigsaw puzzle, with images and events that often don't make a lot of sense when seen in isolation but which, when pieced together, form an interesting pattern once the overall picture is revealed.Lee and his bevy of screenwriters have opted for a darker approach to their comic book material than, say, the one used for last year's "Spiderman." The "hero" in this case is Bruce Banner, the conventional "mild-mannered" scientist who doesn't realize that he has been the victim of a genetic experiment that makes him (and his underpants) grow to enormous size whenever he is angered. Unlike Spiderman, Hulk doesn't go out looking to right wrongs, protect the innocent or bring arch-criminals to justice; he basically spends most of his time trying to escape from the army men out to destroy him before he can wreak too much havoc on the unsuspecting citizenry of the country. Although "Hulk" is long, talky and slow-moving at times, it still boasts a few elements that elevate it above the bland innocuousness of the lighter-than-air "Spiderman." One of those elements is the relationship between Bruce and his girlfriend, Betty, who seems genuinely conflicted about just how to deal with this suddenly gargantuan beau she has on her hands. Eric Bana and Jennifer Connelly establish an impressive on-screen rapport that gives the film more depth than it would otherwise have had. Sam Elliott and Nick Nolte ham it up effectively as the youngsters' fathers, the first as a top military leader bent on containing Hulk's deadly and destructive fits of explosive pique, and the second as Bruce's mad-scientist father whose penchant for playing God 35 years ago served as the catalyst for the unique problems besetting the young Bruce today. As to the film's expensive special effects, they are a decidedly mixed bag, to say the least. Hulk looks pretty impressive in the facial close-ups, but he often appears ludicrous in long shot, particularly when he is bouncing around from boulder to boulder out in the desert. It is enough to make one thankful that Steven Spielberg made "E.T." twenty some years ago, long before CGI effects ruled the land. Otherwise, we might have ended up with an alien far less cuddly, believable and real than the one we fell in love with. Sometimes "progress" is not always synonymous with "improvement." Lee also relies heavily on the use of split-screen images, a visual style that is sometimes effective in capturing the fragmentation of Bruce's mind, personality and world, and sometimes just plain irritating in its pretentiousness and artifice. Like virtually everything about "Hulk," the look of the film seems both daring and dorkey at the same time.
Rating:
Summary: Not Bad
Review: Despite an incomprehensible finale that strains the verisimilitude of even a comic book, THE HULK, directed with strong visual flair by the excellent Ang Lee makes for solid summer entertainment. Building upon the Old Testament concept of sin passing from father to son, THE HULK's plot (warning: it does contain the usual Marvel Comics 'shades of gray'- maybe not appropriate for the youngest viewers) revolves around a young scientist with a very bad gamma ray powered Id problem. Eric Bana, playing David Banner, brings intelligence, sensitivity and vulnerability along with a real strength as the film's protagonist. The beautiful and equally intelligent Jennifer Connelly also provides the film with legitimate grace. Nick Nolte and the always worthy Sam Elliot round out a fine cast that manages to take the proceedings fairly serious. But obviously the star of the film, as in all summer junkfood extravaganzas, is the big budget special effects brilliantly provided here by the folks at Industrial Light and Magic. The title character, a fascinating combination of Mr. Hyde and The Frankenstein Monster, interacts with the live actors and produces a fine performance. Plenty of military equipment gets smashed while very few people actually get hurt. Director Lee is the other real star of the film. Often dividing the screen up into multiple panels, like the original comic, Lee captures the visual flair and feel of the colorful graphic origins of the story. The sheer visual look of the film and its ability to pack volumes of information in a few images is quite impressive. With a semi-intelligent script, fine acting, eye-popping special effects and stunning direction, THE HULK makes for a more than passable evening of escapist entertainment.
Rating: 
Summary: What a major letdown.
Review: Okay, I did not mind the CGI 'Hulk'. No matter what they did to make the creature bigger as he got angrier and angrier, it just would not look real. The first half of this movie is excellent as it tells the story to reveal how the 'Hulk' came to be. After that, it was action, and forget about the story. This is very bad since director Ang Lee gave us the awesome 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' with a great story and equally great action. A fight scene toward the end of the movie proves that they just had no clue where to go with this story. Better luck with 'HULK 2'--which is inevitable.
Rating: 
Summary: Great movie. Keeps you "turning the pages."
Review: First off: a longtime Marvel comic reader here and pretty devoted Hulk fan from way back. Ang Lee (best known as the artist behind Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) took a venerated comic institution and actually tackled his soul, and not just in the predictable "you wouldn't like me when I'm angry" way. Like the Wachowskis, it seems nobody remembered to tell Lee the "correct" way to tell a complex, multilayered, thought-provoking story in the context of a cutting-edge action movie, so he clearly made most of it up on his own. And don't let the negative reviews sway you-- it WORKS, right down to the unspoken looks between Eric Bana and Jennifer Connelly. Lee is clearly very much aware of what's he adapting and its place in American pop culture -much of the cinematography presents the drama in the form of multiple "panels" that occasionally distract but nonetheless bridge the plot points and keep bringing the audience along with the inexorable feeling of excited page-turning. Also like its parent medium, the movie is actually pretty sparse on dialogue and long on visual artwork, from close-ups of lichen to the gnarled and twisted roots of forest trees. Anger is clearly a subject near and dear to the hearts of many -let's face it, how many of us entertain the fantasy of "hulking up" and destroying every fax machine, partition, and conference room at the office? There is some pretty unmistakable wish-fulfillment going on here; the sudden, explosive lash-out by the nerdy outsider who's been picked on for too long. The movie also kicks around the dangers of genetic manipulation, but in a way with which we're now pretty familiar, having digested the ethics lessons of "Jurassic Park" and even last summer's "Spider-Man." The overreach of the military/law enforcement and its ties to Big Business are also addressed, but not in the expected manner...there isn't a single decisive villain in the bunch. That's the expected stuff. But Lee also doesn't hesitate to hold some darker and more personal issues up to the light for an uncomfortable audience to examine -repressed memories, for starters. Or the phenomenon of a wall of emotional detachment that happens in even the closest relationships, and the accompanying postulate that long-term emotional damage can ultimately be far deadlier than any physical injury -still not a widely accepted axiom, even in the scientific world. Finally, Lee handles the sensitive notion of confronting one's own long-buried demons in the form of having a face-to-face confrontation with one's father. There are hints of child abuse, child abandonment, and even the disturbing reality that not all parents are automatically emotionally bonded to their own children...Nick Nolte's climactic over-the-top portrayal of the ethically-challenged David Banner dovetails with the equally dysfunctional relationship between General Ross (Sam Elliot) and his estranged daughter Betty. As I said, there's a lot of meat in this one, which is probably the reason for the onslaught of bad reviews. If you were expecting light fare with a crystal-clear delineation of good versus evil, then The Hulk will not deliver. There isn't a decisive villain to be found in the story, nor are there any halos hovering over the "good guys." Having said that, this movie is still worth spending your money on- Newcomer Bana is fascinating to watch, whether he's six feet tall or sixteen feet, the CGI is sharp and clear (in spite of some fans' earlier fears), and the desert chase scenes, besides being lifted straight from the pages of the original comic book, do leave you gasping for breath. In short, I thoroughly enjoyed this movie and fully intend to pay full price to own the DVD when that comes along. If that puts me in the minority, so be it.
Rating:
Summary: More hits than misses.
Review: I wanted to see this movie for the two following reasons: I was curious as to whether or not it could be done successfully, and with Ang Lee as director, given the source material, how could I not see it? First of all, the acting was definitely serviceable. Eric Bana is suitably nondescript in a brilliant, brooding, geeky way so evocative of comics superheroes and the fans that love (and undeniably relate to) them. Jennifer Conelly looks like a superhero's girlfriend and is so skinny, angular, and beautiful that the fleshtones of women in graphic novels everywhere have most likely turned green as the Hulk's epidermis. Nick Nolte is deliciously demented, but I couldn't help but recall mental images of his infamous mugshot about 5 dozen times throughout the duration of the film. As for the supporting cast, the characters all have the right "look" and carriage for the film and they never detract from the flow of the movie. The special effects were remarkably impressive, and though I've heard some complaints about the Hulk's movements during certain scenes, I thought the CG's were always well-executed and fluid, and I'm rather picky when it comes to CGI. In this department, Hulk did not disappoint. I know the movie seemed overlong and stretched to essentially nothing to many viewers, but after some thought, I decided that the movie was not unecessarily long for my tastes. Hulk is based on a lot of source material, and to do the characters and story justice and not trivialize the "reality" of their fictional universe, the movie had to be substantial in content and length. Furthermore, many relationships and themes were developed throughout the 2 1/2 hour timespan thus keeping the story consistently relevant and meaningful. We have man vs. himself (Bruce battling his emotional demons), man vs. nature (Bruce in conflict with his wayward DNA) man vs. man (Bruce vs. his father, Betty's father, and the creepy Atheon guy who's name I forget), etc. . . Besides these obvious archetypes, Bruce must take on the might of the government and its military, a hyperbolic example of the individual fighting for his right to exist without the threat of force breathing down his neck. Bruce battles with scientific industrialization and a corporation (Atheon) that's overly-concerned with profits and scientific advancement while neglecting to consider if their goals SHOULD be pursued or not and if they are ethical as far as Bruce and humanity as a whole are concerned. Bruce wages war on his father, a man who is so consumed with knowledge for knowledge's sake that he immolates any real connection he has with his fellow man, and he is long past contemplating whether or not his scientific exploits are based on integrity and scientific advancement or only on his need to prove that he CAN bring his burning obsession to life. Freud is written all over this movie. Bruce is emotionally impotent, and he is bursting at the seams with repressed memories. He is in conflict with a father who turned Bruce's life into a carbon copy of a Greek tragedy, and the Orpheus complex that is his life threatens to eat him alive. I won't spoil the ending of the movie by providing too much detail, but considering the elements of nature and the extremely dark tone and colors used, it is easy to regard the final climactic battle as one human being in elemental conflict with a very primitive, fundamental element of his own psyche, his unresolved relationship with his father, and even with the totality of nature and the inevitable progression of existence itself. I mention the latter because Bruce is at odds with something he cannot shake, that is, his own genetic structure, and such structure, especially when we consider Bruce's condition, mental illness, and congenital defects, can truly be considered a prison, a horrible dampening of free will and human potential. Or maybe I think too much. Regardless, the fact that the movie even sparked such deliberation of thought in my own mind indicates to me that it reached me in a good way, and even if my opinions are misguided, at least the movie has stuck with me on some level. I'd recommend this film to anyone who can appreciate it on a level that exists beyond special effects, explosions, and action sequences. Sure, the panels and splitscreens were neat, but they hardly made the movie for me, and I was more engrossed in the characters, conflicts, and themes than in anything visual.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't get angry, this movie rocks!
Review: So many people didn't like this movie but it really was a good movie. I liked it better than Daredevil or SpiderMan. One reason people didn't like it (beside the CGI, which I thought was pretty cool) was that it ran 2 hrs & 18 mins. Thats pretty long compared to the running time of most other Marvel comic movies (like Daredevil & X-Men). But, that wasn't their problems, the CGI was. I actually iked the CGI for the Hulk, the Hulk dogs, and another character I won't mension in fear of a huge spioler. All in all, a really cool movie. See it, it won't hurt.
Rating: 
Summary: This movie made me angry.
Review: I sat down, the movie started and half an hour later the Hulk still hadn't turned-up. When he did decide to appear it took an accident involving a combination of genetic manipulation, nanobots, gamma rays and a (literally) incredible string of coincidences. I began to suspect something had gone seriously wrong with the script...
Rating:
Summary: Better for those who don't know "The Hulk"
Review: Because I have read Hulk comix over the years, there was too much "back story" for my tastes. I wanted to know much more about Bruce Banner and needed less of the David Banner story.
However, the movie is lots of fun with terrific CGI. Lee stayed true to the little nuances of the Hulk (like the fact that he jumps incredibly high) and put in lots of mega-action. Bana as Banner and Elliott as Gen. Ross are fabulous.
You won't have a bad time at this movie if you already are a fan of Hulk's; I think you'll like it a great deal more if you know nothing about Hulk at all.
Well worth the price of admission.
Rating:
Summary: The film is as unrealistic as the CGI of the Hulk itself!
Review: As if the fact that Daredevil flop was not enough we now have the Hulk. It is saddening that the whole premise of this film is watching a big green monster jump and break stuff. As it stands such a movie doesn't appeal to the intellectual side of its viewers. In no way will it be able to raise philosophical debates and discussions like the Matrix and it will not come close to developing an interesting heroic characters like the Spider Man. Not to mention that there is no hint of realism to this film. Its just a pure violation of the law of conservation of mass and energy. And what is this formulistic fascination with fatal doses of radiation exposure in comic books? Perhaps I should also try gamma rays for it seems it just give great powers. Unfortunately for us, any radiation exposure gives detrimental results to an organism 99.9 % of the time. Perhaps if the Hulk was a bit of a good movie I could actually forgive it for all the lapses in science. However, the Hulk is a crappy cartoon in every form. It's plot is simple, if nonexistent, the main appeal is practically the same as what we get going to the zoo, to see cool animals. It is incredibly difficult to take this brain numbing film seriously! Overall, it seems that the Hulk is a rip off original King Kong as well as Disney's Beauty and the Beast and as such should be left to the kindergarten kiddies.
Rating:
Summary: one word BAD!
Review: this movie stunk. It was literally 2 1/2 hours long. The first 1 hour and 50 minutes is the plot with just talking and confusing plotlines. The action in the trailers is basically the only action you get from the movie. The action scenes don't come until the end. The only action you get is very slow paced. ...
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