HULK (2003)

Ang Lee was an interesting choice to direct a Marvel adaptation. An ‘art’ director with sensibilities distinctly out of the Hollywood norm, his take on the ‘giant green monster’ was not well received by mainstream audiences. I’d say there was even a sense of bafflement about the finished project, and people left unsatisfied. Some blamed this on the artistic flourishes of the director, who took the project from surprisingly real, to metaphysical, to comic book. However I think the problem may not have been that screen occasionally paneled (an effect I didn’t mind), but that the movie was more ‘graphic novel’ then comic book. It was a Frankenstein tale, combined with a bit of King Kong, that was largely internal for a film about a giant green man who smashes stuff. In truth it’s a film about the suppressed rage of the trauma victim, and no amount of special effects trappings were able to make that completely palatable as the event movie fodder it was expected to be. Well at least Jennifer Connally looked great. I actually liked it, but for those who didn’t no worries, the studio’s going to reboot the thing this summer with Edward Norton in more genera friendly form. There’s simply to much merchandising money to be made not too. Three out of Five.