Rating: 
Summary: The Hulk Wins with Me!
Review: While some didn't enjoy the deep intellectual discussions and the scientific background of this movie, I did, because this movie is worth it. The special effects are amazing. Jennifer Connelly was fantastic. I loved the costumes (I'm the Costume Master for my school's Drama department), and the whole movie was pieced together great. I didn't enjoy the comic book look, though. It was great, but more suited for something like The Flash, if they ever make a movie on him. The plot is also a little slow. The ending left a little to be desired, but it was a all-around good movie.
Rating: 
Summary: Just Didn't Get It
Review: Perhaps I was distracted the night I watched the movie. Perhaps it was all of the pseudo-scientific jargon. Perhaps it was the cheesy "comic book frame" technique that Ang Lee seemed to use ad nauseum throughout the film. Whatever it was, the film did not resonate with me at all the way I thought it would. Eric Bana displays the range of a turnip as Bruce Banner. He has a total of three expressions throughout the film: vacant, morose, and angry, and tends to remain in the first through most of the film. I grew up watching Bill Bixby "hulk out" into Lou Ferrigno, and for all the cheesiness of the series, I'd take it any day over this overblown piece of cinematic fluff. This film is painfully slow and pathetically written. If you haven't seen it already, save your money for the X-Men or Spiderman franchises--they know how to do comic book action properly.
Rating: 
Summary: 110 Seconds
Review: That is how long it took Dad Banner (Nick Nolte) to approach his son in a military warehouse towards the end of the movie. Not a single word uttered, he just gets out of the car and walks towards him. It took even longer than real-time.
This is only one of several scenes that had me hanging, hanging over the sofa with my finger on the FForward on my remote waiting for something....anything...to happen. The editor for this movie, if there was one, really did a poor job. The pace is unbelievably slow.
Hulk was somewhat entertaining but a bit too deep for the kids. I loved the style which almost made up for the lack of substance and coupled with the Burtonesque score was really a treat. It delivers in some respects but is not as memorable as Spiderman or even the original Batman in '89 that sort of kickstarted this genre. Both of those movies left you with that mixed emotion of the superhero complexity and made you reflect a bit - "what if I had this ability...." Frankly, if you can appreciate a solid production worthy of pre-CGI effects, get your hands on the newer DVD of the Superman original - really quite a beautiful movie for its time with much more memorable performances. And kids these days laugh at the credits in the beginning (sparklers in outer space!) but about 30 minutes into it are absolutely captivated because there was a great story unfolding.
I can't say the same for Hulk.
Rating:
Summary: what on Earth is this crap!?
Review: this is one of THE WORST movies i have ever seen! about fourty minutes of of really bad scientific jargon, and about fourty minutes of horrid looking shrek style action! and the remaining time is a feeble attempt at a romance betweenthe jolly gren giant on steroids and a very roasted Jennifer Connolley, and an attempt to be deep and deal with some disturbing issues about child trauma. I wish i could give it less than one star! AVOID AT ALL COSTS!!!!
Rating:
Summary: JUST AWFUL - GROW UP HOLLYWOOD!
Review: "The Incredible Hulk" is the big budget, CGI, wasteful remake of the television show starring Lou Ferrigno that, of course, was based on the huge green guy in DC comics. Here we get none of the television series depth of character development or interesting narrative. Instead its a CGI festival, practically from the word GO and its dismal, dismal dismal. One has the experience of being hurled into a none-too-friendly arcade game and with just about as much detachment as watching a box of cornflakes grow mold. Oh well, at least they're both green!
TRANSFER: Fairly decent, though the CGI effects look even more artifical than they did on the big screen. The desaturated color scheme is nicely balanced. Texture on Mr. Green is accurate in close ups but tends to get a bit soft around the edges as the hulk goes into tearing up things. Blacks are black. Contrast and shadow delineation is effectively rendered. The audio is 5.1 and explosive - did you expect anything less?
EXTRAS: They're there but I have to fess up - after a film as bad as this, I just didn't care!
BOTTOM LINE: The hulk should have been cast from the ever growing aray of steroid-abusing bodybuilders that tend to resemble him more and more. Venice Beach is where the producers should start looking for their follow up sequel, not behind the keyboard of a computer geek with dreams of tossing his computer out the window!
Rating: 
Summary: Tried to be too much
Review: This movie was a big disappointment. I was hoping for an entertaining flick, lots of action and fighting, etc. but instead it was kind of slow and tried to fill in way too much back story. Really we just want a story, don't we?, when we watch one of these comic book character driven movies, not the whole history. The computer effects were good and there are a couple of decent action scenes, in fact, if it means anything, my 2 and a half year old saw the "green monster" on the cover of the dvd and asked to see it. So I showed her the part of the movie from the previews, where the Hulk fights the tanks and helicopters. She made me replay it about 10 times, so I guess that's an endorsement of that sequence, too bad the rest of the movie couldn't keep up.
Rating:
Summary: I didn't even watch it all!
Review: Horrible movie, trailers sure can make a movie look good.
Rating:
Summary: Action AND Character Development . . . Imagine That!
Review: I'd cite some of the negative reviews of this movie as exhibit A for why so many action movies these days are so shallow and pointless--apparently, that's what many moviegoers prefer. If some of the naysayers had gotten their way, we'd have two solid hours of the Hulk destroying things: See Hulk smash cars--now buildings--now tanks--now helicopters--now monsters. What did we miss? National landmarks? Check out King Kong and Godzilla if you didn't get your fill in that department. No, Hulk isn't perfect; but what a pleasant surprise to see a comic-book flick that trys to offer a bit more than a token storyline and endless eye-candy special effects. Let's face it, folks, the Hulk isn't much of a conversationalist; he doesn't dish out the witty repartee with his enemies that Batman and Spiderman do. No fancy utility belt or vehicles, either. He's just a big green guy whose special power is his knack for reducing his surroundings to rubble. You've got to fill in the gaps between those crushfests with something of substance or what you end up with is akin to watching another person play a video game. The original comic-book storyline for the Hulk wasn't anything earthshattering. But within the parameters they had to work with, the filmmakers managed to put together a decent story (with a few new twists) which is bolstered by some pretty respectable acting all around. The fact that the movie builds up to the fun stuff by laying down foundational material is, to some, an unpardonable sin. But unless you resort to flashbacks, how else do you to develop the story and characters enough that the audience cares one bit about what happens to them? If your answer is, "Who cares?" see my first paragraph. I enjoyed the comic-book-style split screens and wipes (which some people were put off by) and thought they were deftly applied. The techniques weren't overused and were mostly relegated to transitions and non-action sequences where they provided a spot of visual gee-whiz during otherwise slow moments. So, why not five stars? While I did enjoy the movie, there was room for improvement. For starters, the big climax was, well, a bit anticlimactic. The final fight seemed too short and hardly gave you a chance to appreciate the unique powers of the Hulk's adversary. (WARNING: spoiler coming in the next sentence) Also, how in the world could they choose an ending in which a no-name fighter jockey is the one who defeats the bad guy and saves the protagonist? Isn't that Filmmaking 101 stuff? Actor Eric Bana may have brought the "hunk" factor to the role of Bruce Banner, but I felt there was something missing from the part. Banner's character seemed detached (which was fine), but I didn't get the sense there was great turmoil bubbling under the surface--just a lot of blank spots in his childhood memory bank. He needed to portray more internal conflict and less blank confusion due to repressed memories. Even the Hulk himself seemed a little placid at times. Once or twice he could have benefited from a transfusion of rage. In fairness, this may be truer to Stan Lee's original vision than what I would have prefered. Lee says in one of the featurettes that he was inspired, in part, by Frankenstein--not a rampaging monster, rather a creature who basically just wanted to be left alone but for the pesky villagers who kept harassing him. The Hulk did look remarkably lifelike and shows off the state of the art in humanoid CGI work (which is still less than perfect). But I don't understand why they put such a (relatively) whimpy chest on an otherwise massive character. Criminy, he's the Hulk--give the guy some pecs to match the rest of his physique. Oh, and his four-mile "hops" were even more physics defying than his ability to grow 15 feet tall yet still retain his Bruce-Banner-sized pants. But, ok, this is the realm of comic books, so we'll give it to him. Another minor quibble--I thought director Ang Lee's decision to don the black suit with polka dots used for the motion-capture filming was less inspired than the crew seemed to think in the making-of featurette. It may have helped Lee capture the Hulk's more poignant moments, but it was less effective in some of the action sequences. Lee, for all his enthusiasm, is no athlete, and--if you watch closely--it's evident in a couple of the scenes. At times, the Hulk's movements looked, um, less than Hulk-Hoganesque. Nothing too glaring, but Lee should have turned the suit over to a stuntman or pro wrestler for the action shots. (Hey, we want our boy to look his best when he's out kickin' fanny.) But on balance, Hulk delivers pretty solid entertainment for a comic-book film and is a worthy addition to the body of work born of Stan Lee's forty-year-old brainchild. If you're looking for camp and non-stop action, go watch the Batman sequels. If you want action at the expense of character development, go watch the first X-men movie. But if you want a well-acted, intelligible storyline punctuated with some rather impressive visual effects, pull up a chair. Three-and-a-half stars (rounded up to four).
Rating:
Summary: Why are all the superhero movies all so bad?
Review: A pattern is starting to develop here. All the superhero movies with the exception of the X-men in recent years have all been terrible. Why is that? I think the big reason is that the studios emphasize the wrong things. First and foremost they ought to work on the story, but the screenplay often seems to be an afterthought. Instead, they focus on who is going to star in the film, and on all the special effects. At least THE HULK showed signs of the filmmakers trying to make a good movie. They tried to do more with the plot than in, say, THE DAREDEVIL or the first SPIDERMAN. I will add that I think the next SPIDERMAN could be really good, because Michael Chabon did the story. But we'll have to see what happens.
Rating:
Summary: Good movie.
Review: Not the best movie in the whole wide world, and I can understand why alot of people didn't like it. But in my opinion, it stayed more true to any comic, than any of the other comic book movies I've seen thus far. And as all Ang Lee movies are; it's pretty slow moving, so be prepared.
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