this movie felt sooo strange, man.
Airdate: June 13, 2008
Directed by Louis Leterrier
After seeing this movie again, it makes me wonder how much this was a big impact on the stories of MCU movies. This was mostly an origin story for Bruce Banner becoming Hulk and that's about it. No implications of this movie was ever brought up in the future movies, I believe and other than Ross appearing in Civil War, nothing. I gotta admit that this feels way more different than any other MCU movies and yeah, I did say the same thing to Iron Man but this movie is something else. This is probably the most depressing and moody MCU movie to date and other than a few funny scenes, this movie is really serious, dark and sad. Kind of your monster horror movie and to me, that's how a Hulk movie should be like and I don't know if this overall moody tone would be included If they made this movie couple of years later. Nevertheless, It's interesting that this is the only Hulk movie that got somewhat a positive reaction from the fans and it's the most forgotten MCU movie. I gotta say that this movie was also better on the second viewing but I can totally see why this is kind of forgotten. Mark Ruffalo has been such a terrific actor to play Bruce and Edward Norton didn't have much chance to shine much in this weird CGI fest. Nevertheless, he was a decent Bruce Banner.
This movie started with a pretty cool title sequence that quickly explains what happened to Bruce Banner. Ross was experimenting on Bruce. It failed badly and he got turned into Hulk. He accidentally injured his girlfriend Betty Ross who never got mentioned in other MCU films and we sadly got Bruce paired up with Natasha and it was a huge mistake. Then Ross kicks him out from Betty's hospital room without even trying to capture him before he attacks some houses and then moves into another country? That was odd. We later saw him living in Brazil and trying to control his temper. He started to work in a bottling factory, he accidentally got his blood hit one of the bottles, Stan Lee drank that bottle, Ross noticed that, he sent his military people to hunt down Bruce and I think that was the only time Stan Lee actually moved a movie plot forward lmao. Bruce got noticed by the military, lost control and managed to escape from them. Man, the chase sequence was so thrilling and exciting. Gotta love that they used a classic monster trope of not showing the monster in the full form, instead they made us see people getting attacked. The music was amazing, okay, the music was INCREDIBLE (obvious pun) in the movie. Ross explained what happened to Bruce to a sokldier named Blonsky and he quickly turned him into a super soldier without considering how damange he could create and oh boy, he did. Bruce woke up and couple of minutes later in the movie, he saw that Betty got a new boyfriend ot just a male friend? At least that didn't piss him off. Bruce went to a pizza shop and later on, he disguised as a pizza delivery to to enter military files to see datas of the experiment, so he can show it to Mr. Blue who can help him healed. Bruce found out the files were gone but then he came across to Betty and he escaped from her. Walking in the raining scene started and then THE FEELS, you know what I'm taking about. God, I felt so bad for him in the scene. He was turned into a monster, people wanted to hunt him down and he didn't want to hurt Betty.
I'm not too crazy about Bruce as a character but he's one of the most tragic comic book chracters ever and the movie played that part so well. If you are a big Hulk fan, you'll definitely love how themes of Hulk were portrayed here. Of course that didn't stop Betty, she found Bruce and she told Bruce that she took the files. Suddenly they found Bruce's location and they attacked him a second and we saw Hulk in the full form. And yeah, the CGI on Hulk was okay but honestly, it was a bit let down compared to how Iron Man looked amazing in CGI. This was a pure fun action scene though. I kept rooting for Hulk to smash these military losers but then Blonsky got cocky and got too close to Hulk, that led to him getting hurt but he made it out alive. Idiot boy. Betty got in the middle of the fight and Hulk managed to protect Betty and escaped with her. We later found out that Betty's (ex?)boyfriend or friend was the one that called Ross about Hulk but here was what I liked. Usually third wheel boyfriends of our hero's crush gets jealous of the hero but It was good to see him actually seeing what kind of a hero Hulk is and what kind of a monster Ross is. Betty knew it and she felt disappointed him him over the years. And couple of hours later, we wouldn't have a nice moment with Hulk and Betty without rain. Seriously, rain is the overall thing with Hulk but that was also kewllll. sorry If this is not a professional review. Bruce was back to being him and later we saw Bruce and Betty trying to have sex. Umm, Betty, what about that boi that you were seeing him? Is he still your boyfriend or are you just friends with him?
Sadly Bruce can't have sex because that made him too excited to become Hulk. Oh come on, Hulk, sex is all about excitement, Hulk would be very kinky. Okay, that got too immature, thanks MCU.
Bruce and Betty met Mr. Blue and Mr. Blue temporarily healed Bruce. Bruce found out that Mr. Blue has been using his bloods to cexpreiment on them. Looks like we have another curious dude that will cause more harm. Humanity will never learn from its mistakes. And knowing Ross, he just couldn't give Bruce a break. He managed to capture him, Blonskey showed up an he threatened Mr. Blue to turn him into another Hulk. Okay, Blonskey just calm down, you are addicted with power. Yeah, after this, the movie lost its momentum for me. I really liked how they went with making Hulk alienated from his normal life and I wish Ross would be the end game for Bruce like he was Red Hulk in the comics. It would have been much more compelling If Ross turned himself into Red Hulk to stop Hulk from being to dangerous but later him losing control of Red Hulk in him. Instead it was Abomination and he sucked. I didn't care much for what the heck was his deal? What I got from him is that he was 39 and he looked older, he took super soldier serum to feel more powerful, that was about it? Not the mention his design was bad. Hulk didn't look half-bad but Abomination was kind of laughable. Bruce saw Abomination attacking people to fight with Hulk. So he jumped and hit the ground and that totally wasn't used as a comedy in Thor: Ragnarok. Don't worry lads, he was fine, he was turned into Hulk and he fought wth him in a quality CGI festival. Can't compalin too much because the climax was fun but still, CGI was weak. Hulk stopped Abomination and almost killed him before Betty told him not to. He escaped and Tony arrived that he's collecting powerful people. The movie ended and why the heck Ross wasn't arrested for his crimes? Explain it to me, movie.
Well, that was The Incredible Hulk for ya. Rewatching it again, I surprisingly found more positives to be found here than negatives, even though the story and the special effects could have been improved. I loved that this was a serious horror/thriller wanna be movie with gorgeous music and engaging character origin. It does make me sad that this movie wasn't that impactful in other MCU movies because some seriousness could been a benefit for couple of movies that suffered from too much humor and this movie didn't feel matter much like no mention of Betty or what happened to Abomination afterwards or why did Ross get away from his crimes? I don't know why Edward Norton walked away from this universe forever because of this movie but honestly I still prefer Mark Ruffalo and you don't really this movie to understand Hulk in the later movies. If you still insist to watch this, fine by me. This was a decent serious Hulk movie but I wish it could have been so much more than being forgotten by people.
MCU movie ranking:
Iron Man - A
The Incredible Hulk - B
get ready for Iron Man 2 tomorrow to see If that movie is still the worst MCU movie to date or was I wrong?