Of the various Phase I Marvel movies that came out before The Avengers, this was one that I missed at the time. Admittedly, I am only a casual Hulk fan who enjoys specific storylines, but I didn’t really follow his comics very closely. After the disappointing movie by Ang Lee in 2004, I didn’t expect much of The Incredible Hulk because I wasn’t convinced that Hollywood knew how to make a Hulk movie. After finally seeing it for myself, I can say that I wasn’t wrong at the time.

Pros

Nice to see Hulk go up against another superbeast creature instead of what was in the Ang Lee movie
Some actors turn in decent performances
Classic Hulk moves like the big clap attack

Cons

Dull, slow-moving, thin plot
Some bland performances from the leads
CGI has aged poorly; climax is a muddy mess
Dumb character choices

Plot & Thoughts

Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) is on the run in South America, communicating with some mysterious individual who claims he might be able to help him find a cure for the Hulk, but he’s eventually discovered and forced to return to the United States to find this mysterious benefactor with the help of his ex-girlfriend, Betty, played by the perpetual mouthbreathing elf, Liv Tyler. He turns into Hulk a few times when nearly caught by the military troops chasing him, and eventually comes face to face with the Abomination, a soldier who had been given some of Banner’s blood as an experiment to make a super-soldier capable of taking down the Hulk.

I had heard this was a pretty weak entry in the Marvel pantheon well before I saw it, and I can say that it lived up to expectations. The plot of this film is nearly nonexistent. I know I summarized the events, but there’s not much agency in what is happening other than Banner needing to get to the next location without getting caught. What is required to achieve his goal is not really made clear until well into the second act of the movie. The character arc of Banner trying to rid himself of the Hulk until he realizes that he needs the green monster is a continuous one that would appear in future Avengers films, so this movie does not add much to the character to make it worth watching. Considering Banner is played by Mark Ruffalo after this, The Incredible Hulk feels even less connected to the MCU than any other movie in the Infinity Saga.

When it comes to the villains, there’s not a whole lot going on either. The creation of the Abomination also just seems like writers didn’t really know what they were doing. Why would General Ross (William Hurt), the one guy who is determined to catch the Hulk because of how dangerous he is, be so willing to further experiment with the blood without a more controlled environment or recipient? Ross is not supposed to be an idiot, just a headstrong and stubborn military man. Flippantly injecting Banner blood into another person without testing it elsewhere first seems like a pretty dumb idea, right?

As for the performances, Tim Roth and William Hurt are the better actors of this movie, who help make up for the somewhat bored Edward Norton and flat, breathy Liv Tyler. The action is not great. The sequences that don’t involve the Hulk are not shot in a way to make things interesting, and it gets worse when the CGI enters the mix. Much of the CGI looks pretty dated, which is why most of the scenes with the Hulk are in somewhat dim environments. The action sequence in which he appears in daylight is probably the one that got the most attention from animators to make up for how unimpressive it looked. Simply put, things may get destroyed in this movie, but it never looks good enough to evoke the phrase “Hulk smash.”

TL;DR

All in all, The Incredible Hulk is a slow, uninteresting, and unnecessary experience. The only character to return with the same actor in other Marvel movies is General Ross, but there’s not much in this movie that makes him nearly as interesting as he is in Captain America: Civil War. The big plot points hinge on dumb decisions by certain characters, and it takes a while to see the Hulk do much smashing of anything in a well-lit environment. Edward Norton looked about as bored in this movie as I was watching it. I won’t be coming back to this one.

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