Saturday, June 14, 2008

AIN'T HE UN-GLAMO-RAYS? Yes, The Incredible Hulk appears to be pleasing crowds, with far more HULK SMASH! and far less HULK SMASH PERSONAL DEMONS! than Ang Lee's version of 5 years ago. (Sadly, no HULK SMASH CORPORATE AMERICA! (tm Phil)) And yes, the final scene, laying still further groundwork for The Avengers, and during which there was loud applause from the audience I saw it with, is awesome. Two big problems--Hulk, by its nature, is dark and heavy. It's not about a man reveling in his powers or having joy in them (e.g., Iron Man, Spider-Man), and there's no counterbalancing hero character there (e.g., the contrast between The Thing and The Human Torch in Fantastic Four), but just grimness and fear.

An even bigger problem is that in a modern Hulk movie, both the hero and the villain (at least in the inevitable big conflict) are going to have to be CGI creations. Part of what has made so many of the superhero movies of recent years memorable is that the heroes and villains are portrayed by actors who make us invest something in them, and when they're doing the heroism or villainy, we at least hear their voices. Big fights between two CGI behemoths (or CGI behemoth and tank) just don't bring that in, especially when the Hulk delivers three lines of comprehensible dialogue in the movie (assuming you count the repeated "line" "ROAR!" as one). The best superhero movies (the original Superman, Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2, the Singer-directed X-Men movies, Iron Man) depend as much or more on characters who connect with the audience than they do on CGI pyrotechnics. Sadly, Incredible Hulk falls into the latter category.

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