The Case for Hulkamania

Okay, okay. I will admit it. I went to the Incredible Hulk 2.

I had to. It is a superhero movie. It stars Edward Norton. Two good reasons to go, in my book anyway. I will concede that the last movie was a misjudged Angst Lee interpretation of the tortured hero, and so was unforgivably dull. But this time around, the deep metaphysics were to be replaced by ultra dodgy physics and it was promised the film would be a roller coaster ride instead.

And, for the most part, it delivered on that promise. Edward Norton (stepping into Eric Bana’s furrowed brow as Bruce Banner) is always amazing, and for someone buff and shirtless for a great deal of the film, he still managed to portray a man haunted and ill at ease with himself and what he can do. CGI ruled, and did amazing things with morphing the human body, including inflating Liv Tyler’s lips to zeppelin-like proportions (don’t tell me they were real?!). The US military ruled supreme, with the army running around in other countries with no issue whatsoever (within the US, it is a different ball game of course), and technology operated in the realms of movie physics.

As the movie is based on a character already well established in comics and on the telly, there were nods to Hulk incarnations past: Stan Lee showed up for his mandatory cameo, and the comic’s purple Hulk pants were flashed about briefly; and in honour of the TV series, there was a Bill Bixby tribute, the TV theme song made its way into the movie’s score, the “original” gamma machine looked distinctly 1970s tele-budgetish, and Lou Ferrigno muscled in for a very imposing minute of screen time.

It was all going along very nicely on Edward Norton’s charisma until the final showdown, when he disappeared (to be replaced by the Hulk) along with any attempts at resolving the plots and subplots in any satisfactory sense. The big monsters, big guns and big screams came out to trash (as bloodlessly as possible) New York, and the “real” characters ended up standing around waiting for something to do. There was a glimmer of redemption as Robert Downey Junior made a show-stealing guest appearance, reminding everyone of how much energy he brought to Ironman, but his time was unfortunately all too brief.

Verdict: Overall, The Incredible Hulk 2 was not a bad movie, but with no real conclusion, it felt a bit flat. Like Ironman, the star (Edward Norton) makes the film, but, unlike the man of iron, the Hulk cannot appear while Bruce Banner is around. 5 ripped shirts out of 10.