Big and Green

posted on july 3, 2003, tag: entertainment

Let me start off by saying I can understand why 75% of people who see Ang Lee's Hulk absolutely hate it. I can also understand why 15% of the remainder sorta liked it maybe a little I don't know it was sorta boring in places and he looked weird oh and what was that all about I know but it could have been faster. I fall into the remaining 10% who really liked it.

Hulk is not an average comic book movie. It doesn't have a concrete good versus evil story (hell, Hulk isn't really good at all anyway), it doesn't have a sweeping, epic love story or a moral. What it does have, though, is a giant, completely CG, completely green, relatively crappy in parts Hulk. Oh, and Jennifer Connelly. And fantastic cinematography. And some really great transitions. And an enormous amount of silence, in those places where you would expect loud and yet the quiet is even more interesting and powerful. And the editing—well, it's amazing.

Yes, it takes about 45 minutes before you get to see the Hulk. Yes, the movie is over two hours long. Yes, the Hulk looks really bad in parts. But see, what you're missing is that this isn't Spider-man. It isn't supposed to be. It's supposed to be a story about a man. Not a super-hero. Not a saviour. Just a man who has something inside of him no one expected. Something he cannot control. It is, very much, the opening act of Bruce Banner's life.

I really enjoyed it, but I can understand why you wouldn't. Absolutely. With no ill-regard, either. I don't think I'll ever seek out seeing this film again, but I'm glad I saw it today.

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