Skip to main content

Into the MCU: "The Incredible Hulk" (2008)


Wednesday arrives again- and with it, another installment of "Into the MCU".  This week, we bulk up and get incredible with 2008's "The Incredible Hulk"...

Mild mannered scientist Bruce Banner is part of a "super soldier" project to grant soldiers immunity to gamma radiation.

 But something goes wrong... and Bruce Banner is thrust into a world of anger management issues, super heroics... and trying to find pants that'll survive "leg day"...

I will start off by saying that 2008's "The Incredible Hulk" is certainly better than "The Hulk" that came out in 2003.

The story is  much more focused and smoother, and offers the audience more emotional depth and intensity.  It has a pretty good balance between action, drama and humor that moves along at a pretty solid speed.  I wasn't left bored by it, and found it to be quite cohesive and tightly written- with very few loose threads.

The characters- other than Banner, were fairly standard characters- and could be honestly interchanged with any character in another movie with little difference.  Rather formulaic- which is sad, since the story itself deserved characters that were as interesting as the plot.  Banner, on the other hand, was extremely well written, and stood out as unique, interesting, likable- and memorable.  Fortunately, the movie follows Banner much more than the others.

There was great performers in this movie- Liv Tyler, Tim Roth, and William Hurt in addition to Edward Norton.  Tyler, Roth, and Hurt gave great performances, but other than Roth- they weren't given much to work with in terms of character depth.  Even Roth as the bad guy fell rather short of being a memorable villain... and felt pretty shallow and "meh".  Edward Norton brought a real sense of life and energy to the role of Bruce Banner.  Just fantastic acting from him.  It would've been interesting to see what he could've done with the character in the further films.

For one of the earliest films in the MCU, "The Incredible Hulk" has some pretty great visuals.  The Hulk himself was certainly a step above the 2003 version, but still a little odd looking in that you could tell that he was CGI.

Although it's officially part of the MCU, there aren't too many threads- beyond the reference to the "super soldier" program Captain America was part of, and Tony Stark's post-credit cameo, to really connect it.  This film could very well stand on it's own- and given future developments, I suspect that most fans do consider it a separate movie in it's own right.  I would certainly recommend it- though I'm not sure I'd give it repeat viewings.  As enjoyable as it was, I'm giving it a "Bad".
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Justin Cider welcomes a Homewrecker to the Fanily

COVID-19 has impacted pretty much everything and, although some industries have slowly been able to get rolling again, sport is one that remains in limbo. This holds true for the world of Thrash Wrestling, which we in The Basement are a proud sponsor of. But the men and woman of Thrash Wrestling continue to challenge each other, and entertain fans, in a creative way. Which is why Jason and Shawn welcome Thrash Wrestler Justin Cider into the ring... err, Basement, when From The Basements takes over the Radio NL 610 AM airwaves at 6:05 tonight! Cider will update listeners on how Thrash Wrestling continues with social distancing in place. And he'll shed some light on the future of the sport, how people can support his Fanily, and more! And stick with us, as Justin joins The Basement Boys for a review of the new horror/comedy Homewrecker starring Alex Essoe and Precious Chong. Does this female-focused comedic thriller deliver the goods? Tune in after the 6 o'clock news ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Top 5 quotes from the Rambo franchise

It's Rambo Day, which means it's a day we celebrate all things Rambo. And no, we didn't make that up. It's a real thing, and part of the lead in to Rambo: Last Blood coming out on Friday. We were going to celebrate by doing a Top 5 favourite Rambo kills, but the fine folks at Arrow in the Head already did something like that, so I figured why not share our favourite Rambo quotes. I like quotes. Quotes are good. Anyway, here we go with our Top 5, in no particular order: 5) "They drew first blood." - John Rambo, First Blood (1982) Because it's always cool when the hero references the title of the movie in a quote. 4) "Live for nothing, or die for something. Your call." - John Rambo, Rambo (2008) Because it's 100-per-cent truth, and is the exclamation mark on a great monologue by Stallone. 3) "I could have killed 'em all. I could kill you. In town, you're the law. Out here, it's me. Don't push it, or I'l...
Post a Comment
Read more

Grace Victoria Patterson returns

What's this? Two podcasts From The Basement in less than nine months? Has the world gone mad!?! No, but when past Basement guest Grace Victoria Patterson asked nicely if she could return to this fine podcast, Jason and Shawn -- agreeable sorts that they are -- said yes. Hence we have this new episode for your ear holes! Grace provides an update on her career, which has seen the cheerleader-turned-actress appear in no fewer than eight films plus a TV series, with more projects on the way. She and Jason talk all about this, plus some other stuff. What kind of stuff? Stick with us! And stay tuned, as The Basement Boys discuss a whole slew of movies and television, including the Netflix Jimmy Savile documentary, The Batman, the horror romp The Cellar and more! It's podcasting that's so awesome, you'll be awesomed out by its awesomeness! What are you waiting for? Push play and enjoy!
Post a Comment
Read more