The Incredible Hulk

Release Date: June 13, 2008

Watch Date: August 11 – August 13, 2024

“Scientist Bruce Banner lives in the shadows, cut off from the woman he loves and scouring the planet for an antidote to the unbridled force of rage within him. When the military masterminds who dream of exploiting his powers force back to civilization, he finds himself face-to-face with his most formidable foe: the Abomination–a nightmare beast of pure aggression whose powers match the Hulk’s own.”

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   I would not personally call ‘The Incredible Hulk’ an incredible film. But I would definitely call it better than the last version of the Hulk I watched in movie format – so that’s something.

   I appreciate that this film glosses over the Hulks origin story. It’s a sequel but not really. The main actor and Hulk design have been completely swapped, but other characters return. The plot of the previous isn’t really mentioned beyond the army’s experiments, but it’s silently understood that they probably did happen.

   This Hulk does not look like he was made of playdough, though oddly it does feel like he’s barely in the film. He gets…what? Two, maybe 3 scenes as the Hulk and one of those times is him not being the Hulk.

   The Abomination is intimidating, but he takes most of the film to appear on the screen. For most of it, he’s just a grumpy British dude whose taking a cocktail of untested drugs from the U.S. Army. Not being a citizen, I have no idea if that’s a normal strategy on their part. Bob, being a citizen, tells me he doesn’t know, and would never suggest they do.

   I will say that our daughter was very into it. Every single time the Hulk was on the screen she was cheering and applauding. She started a chant of “Hulk, save the world!” Not very imaginative, but, not too bad for her first attempt at the chant.

   I’m happy that this is not the actor or version of the Hulk that appears in all future movies in the MCU. Norton takes the role too seriously, whereas Ruffalo finds a way to walk the line between a man with anger problems constantly trying to stop the monster inside him from unleashing and also being incredibly smart, goofy and witty.

   As much as I wish go have seen a Ruffalo MCU feature film, I’m quite happy that Disney seems to have decided that the Hulk is a character best relegated to support. That feels like the best place for him.

   Just…don’t tell him I said that. I don’t feel like being on the receiving end of his anger.