Tagline:
This summer, our only hope is something incredible.

Wide Release Date:
June 13, 2008

Directed by:
Louis Leterrier
Written by:
Zak Penn
Produced by:
Avi Arad, Gale Anne Hurd, Kevin Feige

Starring:
Edward Norton
Liv Tyler
Tim Roth
William Hurt
Tim Blake Nelson
Ty Burrell
Christina Cabot

PREGAME THOUGHTS

I continue my mission to watch every single MCU in release order with The Incredible Hulk. I was all over Iron Man at the time, but this movie? This movie that came out one month after Iron Man? I didn’t even know it existed! Edward Norton? What?? Weird.

Now that I’m done Mandela Effect-ing myself, let me see how much of a letdown this is going to end up being.

THE 500(ish)-WORD SYNOPSIS

The story begins in a laboratory at some university in Virginia where General Ross (William Hurt) experiments on her daughter Betty’s (Liv Tyler) boyfriend Bruce Banner (Edward Norton). The experiment is meant to make humans immune to gamma radiation in order to further chase his super-soldier dream, but WHAT HAPPENS INSTEAD is that the experiment fails and now he’s the Hulk. He’s the Hulk now. When he gets mad or his heart rate spikes too high he becomes the Hulk. Sad! As the Hulk, Banner destroys the lab and hurts a slew of people, including the Rosses. And now Banner’s on the run, and the U.S. military’s goal is to track him down and weaponize his Hulkiness to further chase General Ross’ super-soldier dream.

The first rule of Hulk Club is don’t talk about Hulk Club.

Five years later, Banner is just chilling in Brazil, laying low, learning yoga and taking vitamins and keeping his heart rate and anger down while searching for a Hulk cure with the aid of an anonymous internet friend named “Mr. Blue” (Banner is, lol, lolol, “Mr. Green”). Banner earns his living working at a bottling factory, which is only important because Banner’s blood accidentally gets into a bottle of pop that is later drunk by Stan Lee.

The poor poisoned elderly gentlemen catches attention by the military, who now know where to track down Banner. General Ross hires rogue leader of a special forces team Emil Blonksy (Tim Roth) to help gun this fucker back into the United States Military’s “good hands”. After a 20-minute action sequence, Banner (as the angry Hulk) kicks Blonsky’s team’s collective ass and skedaddles away like a gazelle. Tail between his legs, Blonsky reports the incident to Ross and then agrees to get injected with the same shit that turned Banner into Hulky Banner. Side effects abound.

Because the military started hounding his shit, Banner returns to Virginia and meets up with Betty, who has a BOYFRIEND by the way (Ty Burrell). Betty all but dumps his ass and spends the rest of the movie making kissy faces at Edward Norton. There’s another Hulk fight with Blonsky and Co., which ends with Banner and Betty on the lam. After another contact with Mr. Blue, it is agreed to meet up in New York City. Mr. Blue is Samuel Sterns (Tim Blake Nelson), who tells Banner that he may have his cure. They give it a try, and it works, but it won’t cause him to actually stop Hulking out. It’ll just reverse the effects if/when he does. So it’s only half-useful!

I will flip you like an omelet, William Hurt. So help me god.

Blonsky’s got a bone to pick with Mr. Banner and goes for another shot at SUBDUING THE BEAST. He successfully detains both Banner and Betty, then holds a gun to Mr. Blue’s head and is like “INJECT ME WITH HULK SPOOGE, BITCH”. Blonsky becomes the Abomination. Abomination smash.

The Abomination starts tearing things up around the city, and realizing that Banner is the only one who may be able to stop him, General Ross agrees to let Banner jump from a helicopter (!). He turns into Hulk as he hits the ground, which is awfully convenient! There’s a big fight between Hulk and Abomination that takes about six hours. Hulk wins.

That’s about it I guess!

TOM’S DISCUSSION CORNER

TOPIC 1 — General Movie Thoughts

Compare and contrast! Iron Man, a movie that came out a month before The Incredible Hulk, involved a man who deliberately, and literally, built his way into superhero-dom. This movie involved a man who wanted nothing more than to get the hell out of it. Really makes you think…

No it doesn’t? Well, it makes me think. Banner spends a good portion of the beginning of the movie isolating himself in Brazil while trying to find a cure and live a life of mellow simplicity. Tony Stark spent a good portion of the beginning of his movie isolating himself while trying to BUILD A SUIT IN A CAVE! WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS! This Bruce Banner can’t fuck or else his heart rate surpasses 200 beats per minute. And then WHAMMO! Hulk smush! Something like that. Anyway, sounds like the life for me. Well, everything but the not fucking part.

IT AIN’T EASY BEING GREEN.

I really, really don’t know much about the Incredible Hulk. “Incredible” might be pushing it, at any rate. As of now I haven’t read any comics yet that focus on our flawed, pickle-green hero, so he may have a whole emotional daddy-issues backstory that goes right over my head. This film doesn’t appear to focus much on that. Two hours of Edward Norton crying about his dad would not make the best movie, unless that’s what American History X is about. Which is probably is. Nothing creates a Nazi quite like a well-hammered-in daddy issue.

I have mixed feelings about the story. Banner spends the movie desperate to avoid Hulking out, evident by his “DAYS SINCE HULKING OUT” counter every 30 minutes or so. He goes all the way to Brazil to learn Brazilian yoga to keep his pulse low in times of excitement, anger, or stress. It all goes well; he could just live out his days doing that! He seems content enough. But the American military is just really, really, really intent on finding Banner so that they can harness his Hulkiness in order to create a super Hulky team of Hulky super-soldiers. I think that’s dumb, considering that Hulk can’t be controlled and he’d just as likely be killing other fellow Americans as he would be killing Botswanans or Papua New Guineans or whatever flavor of the month country we’re invading next is. Then he hires the most reckless and morally corrupt leader of a special forces team, Blonksy, to bring Hulk down, but Blonsky himself wants to get injected with Hulk juice so he can fight fire with fire. It culminates into a big, dumb, boring action scene with two characters who don’t know each other or why they’re really fighting each other. Kinda stinks.

Hey Betty, wouldn’t it be weird if your dad was the Aerosmith guy?

I can see why Betty Ross has hostile feelings toward her dad, considering General Ross is wasting $400,000,000,000,000 dollars of taxpayer money in order to shoot as many bullets as he can into a big, green monster with a shitty haircut. And that big, green monster just happens to be her old squeeze! Arrrgh, I hate you, Father! Although they don’t dwell on that much. There’s basically one throwaway scene where Liv Tyler storms away and Ty Burrell says something to the effect of “Aha, I get why she hates you now!”

There’s little to no backstory behind Bruce and Betty’s relationship, but I guess Banner is important enough to her that she all but throws Ty Burrell away in the middle of the movie. There’s little to no backstory about what happened to Banner, or what Banner did, to cause him to fuck off the Brazil to find a cure. Did he kill a kid? Did he destroy a power plant? Did he punch beloved Internet nice guy Keanu Reeves in the face? A little something from the past would have been nice to know.

TOPIC 2 — The Worst Movie in the MCU Franchise

Granted, I’ve only seen about five of these movies as of writing this. I remember Captain America: Civil War being kind of a snooze, but maybe that’s because Captain America is a big ol’ snooze himself.

The Incredible Hulk is all style and no substance. The characters all feel wooden, with very little in the way of genuine emotion or engaging dialogue. I mean, the most emotive character is Mr. Fucking Blue, and he’s just hyper and nerdy. The action scenes are drawn out and pointless. There’s a really cool lead-in to a possible story where Banner’s blood gets accidentally dropped into a bottle of pop at the bottling plant. There could have been so much potential, but instead Stan Lee drinks it, the military uses this to track Banner, and we don’t see the aftermath. Talk about a real cocktease, sir.

Where’s muh Carnation Instant Breakfast??

Until proven otherwise, I have to agree that this is the worst MCU movie I’ve seen so far, but I still have about 30 to go so WHO KNOWS? Maybe I’ll absolutely despise Avengers: Infinity War! Wouldn’t that be annoying for everyone? All you geeks would be like “NUUUUUURRRRRRRRR“.

IMDb TRIVIA FUNHOUSE!

According to Tim Roth, Edward Norton re-wrote scenes every day. Norton and Liv Tyler also spent hours discussing their characters’ lives (especially before the Hulk appeared).
Couple of nerds right here. Also, isn’t writing scenes a writer’s job? Who gave Edward Norton the carte blanche to literally rewrite the whole movie? Maybe Norton and Tyler should’ve stayed awake during their cozy pajama party discussing that instead.

Betty Ross buys Bruce some purple pants. In the comics, the Hulk is almost always seen wearing purple pants.
EDWARD NORTON (REWRITING THE MOVIE): “LET’S USE THE COMICS AS SOURCE MATERIAL, ISN’T THAT A GENIUS IDEA?? *POINTS TO PURPLE PANTS* WE CAN START HERE.”

Liv Tyler accepted her role without reading the script.
Why wouldn’t you? Superhero movies make bank. Even if you had to fellate Edward Norton like Chloë Sevigny, you take the job in a superhero movie.

When Bruce infiltrates the university as a pizza delivery man, he bribes the security guard played by Lou Ferrigno (who played the Hulk in the TV series).
LOU FERRIGNO LIKES HIS PIZZA WITH PEPPERONI! GRRRR! HULK SMASH!

No Muppets were harmed in the making of this movie. Except Elmo, who was beheaded by the Taliban.

It took the visual effects artists over a year to construct a shot where Dr. Banner’s gamma-irradiated blood falls through three factory stories into a bottle.
When someone gives me shit at work for my deadlines, I’ll point to the “three factory stories blood in a bottle” scene as proof that all good things take time.

David Duchovny was considered to play Bruce Banner before Edward Norton.
Oh what could have been! “Don’t make me angry, Scully. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry. Or emotive in any way, to be honest with you.”

IS IT WORTH A WATCH?

Kinda? I mean, it’s a big dumb action movie, so there’s always a lot of fun to be had. I hear Hulk purists aren’t too impressed with this story, so if you’re looking for something a little more true to the Hulk canon then perhaps check out a movie like Philadelphia!