starring Eric Bana, Jennifer Connelly, Sam Elliot, Josh Lucas and Nick Nolte
written by John Turman, Michael France and Jones Schamus
directed by Ang Lee
Movies made from comic books are nothing but unmitigated garbage and this is another one. I have made this complaint before about other movies made from what were originally comic books (then TV shows before finally coming out as films): Superman; Batman; Spiderman; Spawn; X-Men; Dark Angel; Inspector Gadget; Richie Rich; and more. I keep hoping that one will be an exception and might actually be good, and so I continue to rent them on video, hoping. But I was disappointed once more. This one is based on the Marvel Comic created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. At 138-minutes it is just too long.
I remember the TV show from the 1970s, “The Incredible Hulk,” starring Bill Bixby (Eddie’s Father) as scientist Bruce Banner, and body-builder Lou Ferigno as his giant, green nemesis, the Hulk. Looking back I guess even the TV show was trash. But I was a kid then, stupid and not very discriminating about anything at all - least of all TV shows.
The premise for this science fiction tale is good enough to make a good story out of it. But instead the filmmakers want to re-create some kind of animation, or animation effects on celluloid. That never works for me, but I know a couple of (British) fellows who love this kind of movie. They are animation afiionados, and they appreciate the computer graphics used in this film and others like it. I do not. This film especially over-uses the split-screen effect. Several times, the screen was subdivided into several different frames at once so that we could see simultaneous action in different locations. I didn’t dig it but, again, my friends did. There is some manner of comfort in knowing that I have friends that I can predict and depend on, even if it is to disagree with.