Hulk |
  • USA • 2003 • 138m •    • Directed by: Ang Lee. • Starring: Eric Bana, Jennifer Connelly, Sam Elliott, Josh Lucas, Nick Nolte, Paul Kersey, Cara Buono, Todd Tesen, Kevin Rankin, Celia Weston, Mike Erwin, Lou Ferrigno, Stan Lee. • Music by: Danny Elfman.      After a terrible accident of Bruce banner in the lab his extraordinary mind is now making him angry. He then figures out that David banner is his real father. Bruce has now turned into hulk and nothing can stop him for when he is angry. Betty is the only person that can stop him from being angry. Betty has now gone to the father to ask for help how to help him, but the father has now sent his super villian dogs like hulk to kill her, hulk is now the only person to stop the mutant dogs.David banner has now transformed himself into anything he touches and with evil power, hulk must now save the world and save the people.
|
Trailers:
| Length: | Languages: | Subtitles: |
Review:
So... I just watched the DVD and I was surprisingly rather amused by it. I must say that I didn't expect much from it and actually didn't even know what to expect anymore. But I quite liked it.
I've skimmed through some of the comments made in the threads here and also managed to grasp some of the msgs in between the flaming posts :-D hehe... and this is what I think:
"If The Hulk was announced in the beginning that it was going to be a trilogy... right from the start and that the story is going to be split into different parts... I think the critics might be a little different." It's kind fo hard to say now, now that most people's frame of mind are in the "this movie was so bad I walked out after 10 mins or fell asleep or whatever. But I personally just saw this movie as an introduction. Why? Well... :
As many in here mentioned... IT WAS A LOOOOONG movie. As others mentioned... "Where in the world was THE HULK??? Me wanna see mo' gweeeen guy" However, I thought that there was more character build up by not showing the HULK all the time. It didn't overdo the character build up either but shot scenes at the right time. I guess the reason why I felt this way, when watching it was cause I walked into the movie with a very neutral frame of mind. Most that I have come across had expected this movie to be something like Spiderman, X-Men, etc... the ones which really got a better audience than previous attempts like Spawn hehe.
But, what I found was that the beginning had a pretty cool introduction. It showed different parts and made one wonder what really happened. It kind of followed the mindset of the Hulk himself... Whatever he didn't know, we didn't know... The way he was emotionless most of the time, carried a fake smile every now and then... I thought that it fit with the character, esp. considering the internal turmoil that he's been going through, day in and out. It already hinted to us in the beginning how he was already as well, when Betty said to him that it wasn't his fault that it didn't work out etc... and that she just can't be with someone who's so emotionally distant... And this is what I liked in the movie too... There was consistency in that retrospect.
As the movie goes on, Nick Nolte's character... I felt a mix there... One second I'm feeling ped off at him, the next I'm starting to feel sorry for him and I get the feeling that maybe he did what he did because of the situation... the next second he seems like a hypocrite but at the same time, you wonder if it was because despite his determination, his goodwill etc... he was weak... and "easily" influenced by the surroundings... self-esteem problem. If he doesn't get what he wants... he gets lost and after some time... angry because he can't solve the problem himself...
This trait passes onto Banner as well. Like father, like son... Even Banner seems to have a self confidence problem. At times he tries to act tough e.g. the scene where he tells that irritating dork to get out of the office etc... But at the same time, he never punched him or did anything drastic... Everything seemed to be a face thing... all a cover up of what was really going on inside.
I felt the confusion and trauma that he was going through - as in, I felt rather sorry for Banner and all that he was going through. You could just feel his frustration of not knowing what was going on. Sure, this part could have been done better.. by adding a few scenes and taking some out... But, overall, the effect came across to me anyways. Also the part where he's talking to General Ross and he's getting grilled. That part was efficient in bringing out the confusion aspect of it all.
I could go on about the small details of build up etc. but I won't, as you're probably falling asleep, reading this already :D Hehe.
---
In the case of the filming... I thought it was nice that it changed angles here and there... camera view etc. And as for the "24" effect... yeah, it was a bit overdone in some areas BUT... I thought that the parts where it all looked like a comic book was pretty cool. It was a very experimental thing but new... and quite neat. Someone made a comment about whether it was necessary to shoot the same damn helicopter in all five screens haha. I agree with that point :-D... although with the helicopter in five scenes, I got an even better visual and feel of the large empty surroundings.
---
As for the CGI itself... I thought it was amusing as well. Sure, it doesn't look "REAL"... but heck, it's an extract from a comic book... I gotta be open minded when I watch such a movie. But I definitely agree with those in here who mentioned about the details and all. The muscles and tissue texture... the face even (rather Shrek like :-D hhe), the details of the sand and dirt and wounds, the hair etc... that was all done REALLY well. Sure, it "could've been better" but man, it was nice enough. I also noticed that the more dirty he got, thereby having some brown, dark brown and light brown colours on his green skin, actually enabled him to blend in better with the surroundings. When all green, he stands out a bit too much but still... not too bad. If they had used a yellowy green, I think that would have made it easier to "blend in" to everything else. But that's besides the point really...
As for the movements... he's supposed to be fast, swift, etc. And when you're that, you're going to have those cartoony movements... "1 sec the hand is here, the next it's there..." etc. It would have been awesome to hvae a cartoon with that CGI, that's for sure... but I still thought that it was amusing watching him smash the tanks up... That scene was cool enough. And being open minded about the fakeness etc... let that part get by with no problems :).
I didn't want to bring this in but the discussion about Lord of the Rings... I can see that a lot of the stuff is CGI as well. But it's still amazing. Gollum vs. Hulk - I don't even think there should be such a comparison... The whole scenary is different... the envronment etc...
When comparing it like that, maybe one could just use "Mighty Joe Young" for comparison... when they digitally made the big ape... That was cool too. But I think props were used as well. I can't remember but I remember something about the hairs all being computer generated.
But ether way, I find both doing quite well. Gollum had a more emotional and in depth script... thus more forms of facial expressions... I was amazed by it... that's for sure... Yet with all these CGI things coming out, sometimes one just begins to take the enhancements for granted... e.g. "Ah, about time!:D" Hehe. But really cool.
The Hulk... if he was asked to act more, then maybe it could've been done... The scene where Hulk turns back into Banner with the SWAT team all around him... the stage in between The Savege Hulk and Banner, I thought was good... If they had made the movie with that shot of him... like that... withthat skin tone etc... I think that people would be complaining less... However, as fo teh movements etc. who knows. Poeple will always complain in some way or another :-D. But that's what makes the new things better:).
But... imagine if they had used Hulk... dressed up Banner with vasts amoutn of makeup, special fx, and given him props to wear to make huge muscles... etc. and then dumped all the actions into a computer and added it to the scenes etc... maybe that would have looked more "realistic"... But heck... comic book.... comic character... comic style movie... Cartoony is all cool :). ---
What I had hoped for was a bit more time of self reflection by Banner... e.g. when he's in the desert etc... looking at the plants and wanting to rest for a while... thinking things through, when he suddenly gets interrupted again. I would have liked a scene where they'd show a bit of "acting" by the CGI. But I guess being interrupted during such a moment is what would p someone off... But I thought he made a cute and cool face when he heard that the plane couldn't turn up and he jumped right on it to bring it under the bridge hehe.
---
Ahh I could go on but I won't... I'll basically make the rest short now...
As for the ending... yeah, it would've been cool to actually see the Hulk interact with "bad guys" for once... (okay he did that in his own house, throwing the IDIOT out of the house and into the agent car etc.) but a bit more action with other types of props. And since they were in the jungle, that could've made things interesting ;). However... it ended that way... and if it ended with another form of cliffhanger... slightly different from that... "because we are making a trilogy"... I think the movie would have gotten slightly better reviews and this part... being long and all would be seen as an introduction.
It's kind of like LOTR, Fellowship - there it was extremely long in the beginning... You just had to give it the chance... get into the story... allow yourself to let your guard down and wait patiently for things to happen... After 1.x hrs... things start to happen... And just as soon as it gets more interesting... ERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR... the movie ends and you had to wait a WHOLE YEAR before watching the second part... and the continuation... Hehe.
Then watching the 2nd part... you end up watching trees for one quarter of the movie :p. Nah, I liked it too... But it got slow in the middle of the second one as well but had some really cool fight scenes... The orcs and stuff looked real cause... they were simply makeup and a lot of them were probably "copied and pasted" over and over again but doing different things... The large monsters were clearly CGI but I still found them cool... Big powerful beings with swift and fast fatal swings... But either way, the 2nd Part.... Two Towers... was yet another build up for the third part.. AND that's where suddenly most of the action comes into play... You start seeing new things etc... Some parts were really quite "fake" but I simply looked at the scenes where one could see a glow behind the characters... as a magical thing...
---
Psssh all this makes me sound "ignorant" I'm sure hehe... As in, very "not critical" towards movies... However, I often try to make the best of every movie I watch. Some of them are just hard lol. When I watched Daredevil the first time around... I was like, "What in the world is this? What did they doooooo??? There was so much potential and they screwed it up pretty bad :("... Then I skimmed through the movie again, this one other time and some of the scenes were so so. It really does depend on the mood when you start to watch a movie... that's for sure... A lot of it depends on expectations too.
I personally have watched a movie where I didn't really like it the first time around but the 2nd time around, I ended up liking it... cause it had a deeper effect on me. Sounds weird huh? But I guess that's what can happen when you watch movies depending on the mood + attitude.
---
So, overall, I found The Hulk pretty cool. As a standalone movie, it could have definitely done a better job, with regards to the script. The last fighting scene was so so but at the same time... unsatisfying. I would have liked a bigger fight but still... whatever happened to the dad? Hehe. He passed away from the bomb shock, even after gaining power? Or was he too unstable?
Ah yeah, Nick Nolte, I thought he did alright... I haven't seen him play like that for a while. The part where he goes nuts and says one thing and then the next... the whole scenary felt as if they were on a stage... performing some play... but I got the feeling, at the same time, that he was a bit of a nutcase... not really knowing what he wanted. One second he wants one thing, the next second he wants something else and starts saying that he had always wanted that something else in the first place, when in reality, he's hurt from all the years of distress... He was filled with anger... and that's what made him go crazy... But I thought the father's character could be built up a tad bit more... showing a bit more of his craziness etc... but all this adding will simply make the movie THAT long :p. I wonder if there's a director's cut of this movie or something.
Either way, I enjoyed it... I dunno why but I did :-D. Hehe. The acting I found was alright... Got a comic feel to it :). Hehe. Jennifer Connelly played quite alright... She's good with those tears :D Haha. But unfortunately, I didn't feel the hurt enough... It almost got to me when the scene changed... or when they said something else etc...
To those that haven't seen it, I still recommend you to watch it and not be overly critical in the beginning. Don't expect much when watching it and you might be surprised... Someone might come and say, "Don't waste 2.5hrs of your life for this movie etc." but we waste so much time doing other things anyways:D Haha jk.
Review by pancakes27 from the Internet Movie Database.
Movie Database