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For those of us that are not avid readers of comic books, when we think of The Hulk, Lou Ferrigno of the 70’s TV series is what comes to mind, not director Ang Lee’s digital version of this genetic accident. Although the computerized version stays more in-line with the comic book in his abilities, such as, being able to jump three miles at a time. Can Lou do that? Well, Lou will always be the Hulk, even in his King of Queens sitcom because it is too hard to relate to this completely fake monster. Lou does have a cameo as a security guard in this movie, The Hulk. The film begins with a young David Banner (Paul Kersey) conducting genetic experiments in a desert military lab. He has been experimenting on himself because he was ordered to stop this research. This is about the time his wife Edith (Cara Buono) tells him she is pregnant. Although his son Bruce looks normal enough, his genes have been mutated from his fathers rouge experiments. When Bruce was about four, his fathers lab was seized, he freaked out and sabotaged it to blow up as he raced home, grabbed his wife and hauled her into the bedroom. Cut to Bruce heading off to college and his mother, not the same mom as before is telling him how proud she is of him. We next see Bruce (Eric Bana, Black Hawk Down) as an adult scientist in a San Francisco lab who was recently dumped by his co-worker Betty Ross (Jennifer Connelly, A Beautiful Mind). She claims he is emotionally unavailable. They are conducting experiments with gamma rays to heal a wound in seconds. It would be a coup for the military on the battlefield if it actually works. Then Talbot (Josh Lucas, Sweet Home Alabama) shows up. He has a past with Betty through General Ross, her father (Sam Elliott, We Were Soldiers) who coincidently is the same officer who shut down Banner’s lab. He tells her the lab is going to be sold off to the military to guarantee that they have this newest weapon in warfare. This is also around the same time Nick Nolte (The Thin Red Line) shows up as a creepy janitor in this lab. Turns out he is Bruce’s father and has been in a military prison all this time. Well the experiment looks like it is going to work, but fails once again when the test animal explodes. We are then tortured with learning the past of Betty and Bruce, but only small incomplete increments of it. Enough already, we know Bruce’s dad kills his mother even though the door never opens again. Much later we see the scene acted out, but for some reason Lee wants to keep us in suspense, so he thinks. Later Bruce is exposed to a gamma ray, but does not die. Eventually he gets angry though and destroys his lab in a tantrum as this green Hulk and his daddy confronts him. Betty discovers Bruce the next morning and calls her father. Well you can guess what the military does next. Didn’t Sam Elliott’s character in ET, incarcerate ET once he was discovered too? This action film with huge special effects is held back with a love story that is not there and is so forced it becomes comical. The Hulk escapes the military to save Betty from the mutant dogs his psycho father sent to kill her. An interesting sequence with three giant mutant dogs fighting The Hulk. Again she turns him into her father who banishes him to the same desert facility where it all began. Only Talbot has another agenda. The Hulk then escapes to wreck havoc on the desert community and San Francisco unless he finds his true love. What a fairytale of a beautiful maiden calming the savage beast. If only the director had the writers stick to the concept of the TV series and not tangle the story with a complicated love story, then this would have been a kick ass movie, but alas another action film was butchered with a sappy storyline. Others appearing in this film were Todd Tesen, Kevin Rankin, Celia Weston, Mike Erwin, Stan Lee, Regi Davis and Craig Damon. I gave The Hulk a six on the About-Movies.com scale. Later.
Last updated: Thursday, March 20, 2008 02:46:14 AM Click Here to get back into frames.
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