The Hulk movie was pretty good...

I have to disagree, I didn't enjoy it. I can appreicate what Ang Lee was trying to accomplish, and his approach to the material (namely a pscycho-drama of rage, childhood trauma, and repressed memories) sounded appealing, but his execution of it was extremely boring and flat.

The movie just plodded on, with little dramatic tension. I can understand that the characters are supposed to be emotionally suppressed but it resulted in flat, wooden characters whom I really found uninteresting and really couldn't care about their situation.

The CGI was okay, though not as good as Gollum in my opinion. But then, Gollum was a dynamic character with personality whose was easy to identify with. The Hulk was merely an action icon/cypher for rage and really came off as more a technical thing than a character

Hulk was merely an action icon/cypher for rage and really came off as more a technical thing than a character

I haven't seen the movie, but I did read the book based on the movie and it was a great read. Though it might not have played out well on the screen?

Oh, by the way, the Hulk was the product of a twisted and demented father who was part of the Military Civilian force working on creating Super Human Warriors. As such, having a humongous pansy planting green Hug able would have been off the script, story line and well, the Hulk Comics wouldn't?

I haven't seen the movie, but I did read the book based on the movie and it was a great read. Though it might not have played out well on the screen?

I haven't read Peter David's novelization. The movie was true to the themes of the Hulk. Some people loved the movie, others didn't. I really wanted to like it, but I felt underwhelmed by it all.

It didn't help that I saw it in less than ideal circumstances (someone's screaming baby in the theater and several young, bored children talking an scampering about). I wouldn't recommend taking young kids to this, not because they'd be scared but because they'd be bored through the long stretches of exposition and lowkey character interaction that segregate the action.


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oh, very dry, huh?

guess we'll wait for HBO then

The sudden rush of Comic Books characters turned Hollywood blockbusters hits have really twist the whole original concept and story line from the comic books. I'm a collector, I've been collecting and reading comic books since the age of 12, and the story line that have been written and followed in the books has been twisted beyond recognition by Hollywood.
Superman and Batman pretty much followed the original story, but as far as X Men, Spiderman, Daredevil and now the Hulk, well, they pretty much messed up the whole thing.
Take for instance X Men, for the past 50 yrs, the comic book has told the story about the origin of the 1st X Men team (Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Iceman, The Angel and Beast) and how the relationship between Cyclops and Marvel Girl came to be, and How they end up married. Now here comes Hollywood and changed all that around.
Spiderman's 1st true love was Gwen Stacey and his anger towards the Green Goblin is due to the death of Gwen on the hands of the Goblin. Hollywood tells a different story.
I think I'll stick to the Comic Books

Plodding, too long, too much psychobabble, and Hulk looked like a musclebound Gumby. Jennifer Connerly was great, but isn't she always? There were some good special effects but it wasn't enough to save this dog. Speaking of which, a poodle-hulk? What's with that?

The trailer was enough to put me off.

A green Bibendum? No thanks!

I'm hoping you're all wrong, as after being somewhat disappointed by the first full trailer, my hopes were significantly boosted by the most recent one.

I think there are three very seperate groups of people who go to see these movies.

There are the comic geeks (which I admit to being to some extent) who are outraged by any change to a story that has sometimes developed over the space of thousands of issues of a comic book, and yet needs to be modified and condensed to fit into a 2 hour movie. The comic versions are often variable quality plot-wise and very much hit and miss affairs which are only ever remembered for their high points, so a literal translation to movie form of just about any of the big comic books would be a total disaster. This group of people will never be satisfied with movie adaptions. Likes - Very little. Dislikes - Most comic adaptions.

The second group consists of those who know little to nothing about the comic material and just want to see the next big brainless action movie where things get blown up and fights go on for hours. They don't care about plot or character development, and any lengthy periods of story with no action bore them. If they have to think about the story, it's not a good movie. Likes - X-Men, Superman, the later Batmans, Spawn. Dislikes - The Crow, the first Batman.

The final group are those who again know little to nothing about the source material, but want to see a movie with deep character development and twisting clever plotlines. Too much action makes the movie brainless and boring. They want to know what makes these characters tick and find out what drove them to be who they are. Likes - The first Batman, The Crow. Dislikes - X-Men, Superman, the later Batmans, Spawn.

So which group is most likely to like to Hulk? I'm probably a little bit of all three anyway!

As a kid, through my twenties (and to some extant today) I've been a big comics fan, particulary Marvel comics. However, I'm in the latter two categories. I have no problems with any alterations in story when bringing it to film. Ideally I love a film that can both entertain on both a viceral level, and an intellectual level. It's rare that you can find a film that achieves both.

I enjoyed the first X-Men movie, and though the second one was much better. I enjoyed the first Batman movie, and to a lesser extant the second. The latter two I disliked as they were disjointed campy messes with production values straight out of Las Vegas. The first Crow movie was wonderful, the latter terrible. The same could be said of the first Highlander movie, which was entertaining, but failed with the sequels. The first Superman movie was quite good if a bit too cheesy. The sequels were not good (at least, 3 and 4).

I enjoyed Spider-man, primarlly because of the characters, not because Spider-man is swinging about. When I read comics as a kid, it was the characters that intersted me the most: their backstory and the bizarre situation they found themselves thrust into, rather than the superhero antics.

The approach Ang Lee took with the Hulk was initially interesting to me. However, the problem is that it's two separate movies. Since this is a tale of suppressed characters, its difficult to convey the character development as its so internalized. As a result, it ends up being too sedate, the characters flat, and completely uninteresting.

The second half of the Hulk had problems as well.. The media over-saturation of the Hulk advertisements on the television, complete with various scenes of the Hulk doing Hulky things pretty much made me immune to any sense of wonder that the film tried to convey and ultimately felt like souless CGI The movie failed to engage on an intellectual, character-driven level, and on an action level. It was not a bad movie, just a mediocre, uninvolving one.




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I disagree that the spiderman movie wasn't true - aside from the natural webshooting (which to me makes more sense than a teenager making something as advanced as webbing in a highschool chem lab) it was pretty true to form - besides the whole spiderman storyline has been revamped so many times which is the right one (is peter parker a clone? does his spider abilities come from the tomemistic spider spirit? etc) anyway - its just a movie , its just a comic book - either way its better than an endless stream of boring movies

Sheesh, talk about over analyzing a movie about a comic book hero. It was just a movie people!

The CGI was okay, though not as good as Gollum in my opinion. But then, Gollum was a dynamic character with personality whose was easy to identify with. The Hulk was merely an action icon/cypher for rage and really came off as more a technical thing than a character

Nothing and I mean nothing is as good as Lord Of The Rings...

In my opinion, what made Spiderman work, and why HULK doesn't, is that both comics were originally conceived as sort of revenge of the nerds pieces. Both protagonists were bright, meek, 98 pound weaklings, that suddenly were endowed with incredible powers.

Spiderman showed Peter Parker coming to grips with his new powers, Bruce Banner just spent a lot of time dealing with repressed memories, that, in the end, did nothing to advance the story.

Does anyone think that the series from the 80's might have influence on peoples expectations for the movie in 2003?

With the weekly running on the series people had a long period of time to grasp the human factor, so much of it that it might lead people to expect the same kind of thought process and personalities to be involved in the movie and not finding them is/was a let down on some level?

I never watched the TV series. I base my entire opinion on the comic. That being said, I have wanted to like every Marvel comic movie because of my love affair with them as a kid. But a bad movie is a bad movie. Daredevil, awful; X-Men 1, partly cloudy; X-Men 2, better but still not great; Spiderman, by far the best of lot. It remained the truest (is that a word) to the original comic yet was accessible to people who did not follow the webslinger.

When I watched the Hulk it was difficult to stay focused through the first half. It just seemed to meandor around, very little to get excited about. Most good movies have a natural ebb and flow to them, where things pick up speed at times, then slow down, etc.
Hulk just plodded along until finally they let him out of the bag and finally it was exciting.
The ending I thought was horrible (I never read the comics so am not sure how closely it comes to that). I just found it to be too cheesy and ridiculous an ending.

In the end for me Hulk ends up being worse than Spiderman, which is tough since I was disappointed with that one too. But at least Spiderman was in touch with himself, accepting. Perhaps Hulk couldn't do anything about that aspect considering being based more on the comics. Although I do recall the TV series showing him more in touch with things.

The Hulk TV series never followed the original story line from the books, as a matter of fact , the only similarity that the TV series had with the book is that the hulk was green and bruce banner turned into the HULK when he got angry.
The 2003 movie also lacks similarity with the story line from the book. The original story line is that Bruce Banner, a brilliant nerd, became the HULK when he absorbed the radiation from a gamma bomb detonation while trying to save a young boy that wondered into the test site.
His powers do not come from heredity genes, since his father nor mother were ever in contact with any gamma radiation before Bruce's birth, as a matter of fact, the comic book hardly mentions anything about Bruce parents.
The only similarity between the book and the movie is that the Hulk is green, Bruce becomes the Hulk when angry, and he is in love (and married) with Betty Ross, the daughter of General Ross.
I for one would have love to see the Hulk battle the Abomination or the Super Skrull, rather than 3 over-growned and under-groomed puppies and a father that doesnt exsist in the true story line.