Hulk

Gale Anne Hurd presents a Avi Arad production

Starring: Eric Bana and Jennifer Connelly and Nick Nolte

Directed by: Ang Lee

Rating:*****

Plot: A young boy who lives with a father who is a bit insane, once he grows up does he find out just how insane his father was. This boy is now a man and is a scientist and after being hit by gamma rays, whenever he gets mad he becomes a giant green invincible creature who likes to smash things, he must find out how to control himself before something goes wrong. Smashing ensues.

Acting: Casting Eric Bana as the humble Bruce Banner was brilliant I don't think many people remember him from Black Hawk Down. He is not a big named action star and that is what made this work for me. Bana I just like as an actor there is something about how calm he is during any role. I would also think it would be hard because your performance will be up staged by a giant green computer animated character. Now Connelly loves doing the same character but she is great, talk about a humble character she just seems sweet in nature and it glows from the screen and makes her more enjoyable to watch and more realistic. She is crying in like every scene in this movie and I personally don't think they used her to all her limits, I mean she has an academy award let her do something. The very stand out actor though is Nolte. He plays the father and his crazyness really works here. There is a scene in the end where he and Bana confront each other and Nolta goes all out so close to go over the top but it almost feels like a stage performance. So the entire cast is amazing in this movie.

Directing/Writing: This is Ang Lee's Hulk. Not the Hulk from TV and only a little of him from the comic. This is all Lee on screen. He now has set the level for comic book movies. He knew how to make this feel real and intense by bringing a real life feeling to the movie. Spider-man was campy and Dare Devil had problems but those are very good movies but Hulk has gotten a level above them. Lee has basically made a comic book on screen and this is hard to explain but it is brilliant in all forms. The screen is broken apart into different sized squares like a comic book but things are happening seperately it was just amazing to watch. Once the action starts it is smooth and intense and has all elements which make the movie kick ass. Now I'll talk about the Hulk the commercials make him look bad but in the movie you forget all that and in the end they did a pretty damn good job making the big green boy. My only complaint is that the middle of this movie starts to repeat itself and slows down. Since the movie is 2 hours and twenty minutes long they could have done some cutting since the point was made several times and it was pointless. But all of this is made up at the end where Hulk fights tanks, helicopters and even messes up a street in San Francisco. All of these scenes are well timed and memorable and made for a good hulking time.

Overall: One kick ass movie, its smarter then anything else out there and actually has dialogue and story plot. The action scenes are so good I want to see it again. One thing before I end this review. I saw this movie and this guy brought his kids in and they were acting like idiots. Waving straws in the air and acting like little shit heads. They distracted me through a action scene and I was pissed off and was about to stand up and beat up the kids, but then I would be the bad guy, so just to note don't take kids to see this movie its long and kids are not smart enough to listen to good dialogue. So only bring kids along if you have tranq darts availble otherwise stay at home and play scrabble. Kids make me angry, you wouldn't like me when I'm angry... The was a Hulk quote