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Hulk (Widescreen Special Edition)

Hulk (Widescreen Special Edition)

List Price: $19.98
Your Price: $15.98
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Drags at times but still a strong, enjoyable movie.
Review: Watching the Hulk battle giant dogs and tear apart tanks as if they were toys is really fun. The CGI isn't the best, but it does replicate the comic-book look well. I was sceptical about the Hulk's movement and fighting from the trailers, but I found these scenes to be amongst the most enjoyable.
The scenes of story-telling drama also has good moments, showing much more depth than many other comic-book type adaptions. Eric Bana's acting is excellent. He is unpredictable and able to appear quiet with a hidden rage beneath. Jennifer Connely is also strong, rising above the usual action movie female role.
The negatives of the Hulk mainly arose from the slow pace. The conscious attempt of Ang Lee to "make a serious picture" bogged the movie's course down. Also of poor quality was Nick Nolte's performance as David Banner. He is ridiculously over the top in a movie that's trying to be serious.
Overall, the Hulk is not up to the standard of last year's Spiderman, but is still an enjoyable time

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Step aside X2....
Review: Forget Daredevil, Forget the Batman movies, forget any cheesy comic book movie you have ever seen. This movie shows that comics have humanity,depth, and heart to them. Yes, The CGI works (forget anyone who said the Hulk looked like a video game, HE DOESN"T IN THIS PICTURE). I hope Marvel and Universal sign the film crew and cast for a couple of sequals. Lets see more.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A monster weekend...worth the hype?
Review: I've heard a number of mediocre reviews of this film and even several friends commented on the fact that the Hulk doesn't look "real" enough...so I went into the film with low expectations. After seeing the film, I don't think "Hulk" is a bad film. All the principle characters do well in there roles and I think Eric Bana does a decent job as the normally low-keyed Bruce Banner, a scientist, who has a monstrous rage lurking deep inside himself. There were some moments when the story dragged a little and it is quite a while before you see the big green guy, but its an interesting look at a comic book character that isn't necessarily a hero...though he may do some good for people sometimes. The CGI Hulk looked fine to me, more like the character from the pages of the Stan Lee comic and I thought it was pretty cool seeing him change from Bruce and back again. My main problem with the film is the use of split screens, which after a while, became incredibly annoying. I think director Ang Lee may have been trying to give us the feel of an actual comic book but in the end it was distracting. Jennifer Connelly did good in her role, though there wasn't a good deal for her to do---I think she would make a terric Wonder Woman in the long postponed Warner Bros film that still has yet to be made. I think next time a round it will be easier for the director to get right into the story now that he's established the Hulk's origin. Nick Nolte was a little over the top for me but still did well as Banner's grungy and insane scientist father. Josh Lucas (of Sweet Home Alabama) does a mean turn as another villain in the story. Is it worth seeing...sure, its a summer blockbuster...a popcorn movie. But lets hope next time around the Hulk is a bigger, badder misunderstood monster, with NO split screens!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Ok
Review: It was good but not funny, unlike spiderman and daredevil. so when you look at a newspaper rating, believe it. it's true!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Is it brilliant? A bore? It's a little of both -- and more.
Review: "Hulk" is directed within an inch of its life by Ang Lee; it's as pristine a comic book movie ever made, and yet its blood is pumped by a calculating, mechanical heart. Just as the original "Batman" seemed more an exercise in the grotesque and macabre, Lee's film is a sunlit meditation on patriarchal and genetic manipulation. And not unlike Martin Scorsese's "Gangs of New York," Lee's punishing, long shooting schedule and agony over the smallest developments of the story have drained the life from half the movie and most of the performances.

Chief among the sufferers is Eric Bana, so plucky and loose in "Black Hawk Down," -- perfect really -- as the deeply repressed, violated David Banner, who pays for the sins of his father (Nick Nolte) after a radiation accident in the laboratory in which he works.

This sin, hinted at in the movie's opening passages, is not hard to guess at well before a wild-maned Nolte reveals it in one of his many goofy-doofy speeches. Banner, of course, finds the Hulk has been unleashed within him after the accident, the giant, green beast feeding on anger and destruction until, well, he simmers down.

For a good half of the movie, however, all we see is Bana, in a performance of such mute, sigh-worthy angst we'd like to ring his neck. Bana, a former Australian standup comedian, has been so spot on otherwise in his career, the onus must fall to Lee, who puts the weight of the world on Banner and Betty Ross, Banner's former girlfriend, played by the still-stunning Jennifer Connelley as a weepy sap that trusts emotionally distant men because she doesn't know any better. Rounding out the big foursome is Sam Elliott as Betty's father, General "Thunderbolt" Ross, who follows duty so blindly as to want to kill the Hulk, knowing Banner's trapped somewhere inside.

The origin story of a comic book movie series is generally a tricky endeavor, as it must combine a history, a villain and a fistful of money scenes -- a difficult troika -- while not bogging down along the journey to the orgasmic climax of action.

"Hulk" nails the history portion of the exam: Gibbon has nothing on Lee and his screenwriter James Schamus when it comes to exposition. Given the way our hand is held through the entire movie, we could scribble an outline on the origin.

But "Hulk" has no singular villain to match Mean Mr. Green -- no strong, tortured beast to square off with at some high locale -- substituting instead a mishmash of everyday torturers (a father, the military, a squeamish corporate suit) to better punctuate Hulk's isolation. Another shortfall is the flashback structure so frequent and subpointed (there is, in the immortal words of "Funny Farm," a flash-sideways) it digs a psychological trench in the first hour from which the film never quite surfaces.

The Hulk itself is a computer-generated creature made by George Lucas's Industrial Light and Magic crew; Lee was never entirely satisfied with its realism, but its animation is much better than the so-so work of the web scenes in "Spider-Man." The most artistic action scene is an echo from "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," as Hulk takes on a pack of dogs in a forest by moonlight. By movie's end we're in the desert and the Hulk creates some impressive destruction against the general's troops. We're thankful for the carnage, when it finally arrives. Worn out too.

The abundant eyebrows that went up when Lee -- who before "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" was best known for period dramas ("The Ice Storm," "Sense and Sensibility," "Ride With the Devil") -- agreed to direct "Hulk" were deserved: Lee's final product wreaks of ambition gone drunk, beauty gone sterile. His use of comic book panel editing -- several screens at once that swish and pan and change viewpoints -- is fabulously artistic but so obsequious it stops the movie in its tracks. Same with Lee's use of the "alternate perspective," where the camera films a character from one angle, then presents the same character from another. It may score points with the pulp collector geeks; regular viewers will see it as pointless and showy. When the Hulk starts contemplating the growing moss on plants, I start wondering if Lee smuggled Terence Malick onto the set for nature-beast consultation.

And Lee gets virtually nothing from his two young stars except the kind of obedient, whatever-you-want performances Stanley Kubrick used to demand of his actors under 40, so leaden and archetypical you wonder if Lee wasn't simply trying to reintroduce the classic monster movie but announce a new religion of it. By contrast, Nolte takes a running start on the plank and jumps right off; he's eating electric cords by the end.

Now that comic book movies not only deliver a paycheck but film-community prestige, it was inevitable that some high-profile director would wax postmodern on the genre; Lee's done it, and the result is pop art that is respledent, iconic and symphonic resounding clearly with a certain element of the critical establishment but leaving audiences wondering if it's all getting a little too heavy for them.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: EXCELLENT!!![.]
Review: This movie was pure braincandy! So many interesting textures and layers.... like reading a great comic book! Ang Lee is brilliant!! If you're expecting mindless action and cgi effects then go see 2 Fast 2 Furious instead.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The BEST comic book adaption!!![.]
Review: This was probably the best comic book adaption to date!! Ang Lee now wins my respect for being truely visionary. This movie was not about the effects as much as it was about the story ( which is the point of all comic books!). It didnt insult my intellegence like that SPIDERMAN movie did. You dont even see the transformation into the HULK until half way into the movie!! The artful camera cuts and transitions were amazing! the use of the comic-like panals to frame the shots were awsome! My only gripe was the end. I literally got the chills seeing Bruce and his father sitting together at the end. I would have hopwed for a better showdown but all in all, This Movie has set the standard for future comic book adaptions!! I can only hope that THE PUNISHER is this good!!

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: This movie DRAAAAAAAGGGEEED
Review: This movie would have been good, but it drug out so long, I got bored. I would have left, but I didn't, because I hoped it would get better. It didn't. There is very little action in it, and what action the movie has consists solely of the Hulk getting mad, breaking stuff, and then growing bigger. That's about it. Don't go see this movie, it's a waste of time and money.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: "Hulk" is a smashing good time
Review: "The Hulk" is one of the best super hero films ever. Ang Lee has created a brilliant, creative, beautiful film with the help of an incredible cast and crew who deliver on every level. The story and characters are both well written and interesting. The entire cast does a great job, especially Eric Bana and Nick Nolte. A well done film and definitely well worth seeing.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: A for effort, but falls short.
Review: I just saw The Hulk at the theater and it is a mixed bag.

The Good
First off, ILM did it again. The CGI effects are spectacular. It's a shame that the Super Bowl commercial featuring unfinished effects tainted some expectations. The finished effects are awesome.

Overall, the acting is very good. Sam Elliot as Gen. Ross was inspired casting. And while Nick Nolte chewed the scenery (more than once), his driven insanity was a nice counter point to Elliot's. I completely bought Jennifer Connelly's Betty Ross. She brought a humanity and intelligence to the role that perfectly fit her dual roll of love interest and woman of science. Eric Bana was functional, but you could have stuck any actor in there, told him to be bland, and gotten the same effect.

The Bad
Ok, you spend millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours to perfect the CG to make people forget that the Hulk is a computer creation, then you repeatedly split the screen up in comic book chunks. Ang Lee, what were you thinking? Suspend your disbelief, but not too much?

On top of that, Lee would sometimes split the screen during some pretty impressive effects. As if seeing a row of cars slide down a hill isn't enough, we need a second window showing a close up of a fire hydrant smashing a windshield? I read that Lee wanted to do this split screen effect even more often. Thankfully, someone said no. It was unnecessary, distracting, and overloading. Nice try, but please don't use that technique again.

Josh Lucas' character "Talbot" could not have been more one-dimensional. Come to think of it, I'm surprised Lee didn't have a caption appear above Talbot's head reading, "He's the bad guy". That would have fit right into the split screen distraction technique. But I digress. I doubt that we can blame Josh Lucas here, he didn't seem to have too much to work with.

The rest of the story was interesting, if a touch over intellectual. The ad campaign makes you think "Hulk Smash!" type of adventure. And I'm sure that's what all of the parents and their children who saw the movie with me were thinking. Instead of showing tanks getting tossed, perhaps the commercials should have delved deeper into the father/son dynamic, which is really what the story is about. But of course, that wouldn't have put butts in the seats. So they push the "Hulk Smash!" angle in the ads, and feed you psychodrama once you've bought your ticket. I couldn't help but feel a little tricked.

Lastly, the final battle is set at night and is so dark, you cannot tell what's going on. Given the wonderful effects we saw during the daytime scenes, I'm sure the nighttime battle looked incredible. But all I saw was a big dark gray blob move left and right on a black background. Hopefully they'll lighten this sequence up when it's transferred to DVD.

Summary
Ang Lee convinced Nick Nolte to do this movie because Lee was out to do Greek tragedy, not a super hero movie. And he succeeded. This isn't a super hero movie, and it's not really an adventure. It is an examination of the dark corners of humanity unleashed. And if you find that entertaining, then this movie may be for you.


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