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Review: Hulk (2003)

time for the pho view, as everyone knows this is the important one

right, bit of background if you don't know my rants about this movie. first of all, the cg in the trailers looked abysmal. absolutely horrendous, but people were saying that it was going to be better in the final print, so with caution i forgave, but something stilled irked me badly about this movie. then hearing rumours about the studio disliking the emotional way that lee dealt with the film, i started to perk up and think to myself that i would enjoy it, but the awful trailers just kept coming.

the movie opens well, typical comic book credit sequence as expected, and the first 20 or so minutes starts well, more dramatic than anything, but with very nice comic panel style cuts. whilst not certain if i always liked their use, i liked the way lee was trying to make it feel like the comic book, even if it conflicted with the more serious nature the film was leading. but so far so good, if the studios were upset with this, then it proves im right about the stupid studio execs afterall.

then things start to break down.. first of all, and mostly, that cg model IS terrible. no doubt about it, it looks like claymation more than millions of dollars of hardware rendering. its motion is dreadful, and when something like that moves and jumps thousands of meters at a time, you kinda expect SOME terrain damage? a bit of dust at the most im afriad. during the first transformation, the lighting is low enough to forgive some of this, but as the film progresses and this stupid 10+ft monster thats supposed to represent a human is throwing tanks thru the air, the film starts to turn into somewhat of a joke.

when matrix reloaded combined a psycological and intelligent storyline with lots of fancy action, it worked. it worked brilliantly to be honest. having the main storyline told in the slower parts of the movie kept the intelligent crowd happy, then action sequences that didn't progress the movie at all meant the action freaks were happy, whilst most people were loving both sections.

this is where hulk totally falls flat on its arse. it has an emotional side, it has an action side... if the action was more serious then this could've worked fine i think. the problem lies in the fact that they try to meet the two. when banner is the hulk, this 10ft piece of clay that barely resembles the original character, the audience loses sympathy with the character. unfortunately, the makers decide to try and make some of the emotional scenes whilst he's in this state, and it looks so bad you dont feel any sorrow, you just want him to turn back to a human and continue the film.

outside of the awful model, the action scenes to be fair are pretty good. the tanks being thrown thru the air, and hulk destroying as many big objects as the makers could think of is great fun, as long as you overlook the fact that the centre of attention is this big green blob. my opinion? if the whole "hulk" motif was taken more seriously, and banner was made stronger, bigger (but not to the stupid scale he is) and generally more human but with this thing inside of him, the hulk could've been a fantastic movie. but the way it is, it feels like there's two sets of people working on the same movie without any communication between them, and the whole thing is a huge disappointment compared to what it could've been.

the ending again, was totally expected, and whilst the human side of banners father was excellently played, his transformation was thrown in to finish the film, which i definitely agree with most people, was 20 minutes too long. the whole thing felt dragged out, and rather making the audience tense and excited by the end, it just felt tedious.

a great shame, as i honestly thought it was going to work after the beginning sequences and before banner changed into the hulk. but alas, too many details, and major details to me, made the film a lot less enjoyable.

5.5-6 / 10. worth watching, but you'll be frustrated.

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563-773-1880

<Dwaggy> i caught you a delicious Bass
<The404> This is because you are an idiot

I rate this review an 8/10, with special bonus points for excessive "whilst" usage.

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Scrobble all you want, we'll make more!

Nice review, and yeah, this movie was bollocks. Sent me to sleep!

My score: 3/10

i tend to use the same words/phrases whilst writing out long things, one of my worst habits i try to notice the major ones before hittin the submit tho

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563-773-1880

<Dwaggy> i caught you a delicious Bass
<The404> This is because you are an idiot

Very Nice Review m8. *applauds*

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Re-incarnated as evil overlord..

Nice review dude, but I was extremely disppointed with this movie, and I agree about that comment regarding terrain damage... it just didn't look real.

Overall I think I would give this movie a 5/10. They could've done a lot better with the budget that they had.