Hulk Details

Simply too slow

When you go to watch a film based on a comic book there are certain things you have in your mind as a prerequisite, the most obvious being action, action and more action. The problem with this film is that nothing - and i mean *nothing* - happens in the first 90 minutes. Granted after an hour and a half you are presented with 20-25 minutes of unadulterated comic book action, but unfortunately until that happens its quite simply dull. Its such a shame that it turned out this way as I was really looking forward to seeing the Hulk get the Spiderman/Daredevil/Batman blockbuster treatment it deserved. However I had to watch this film four times to actually be able to make it through the first 90 minutes without dozing off (seriously - Merchant Ivory films have more action!)...and I honestly believe that if it wasn't for the stunning good looks of Jennifer Connelly, I wouldn't have made it on the fourth watch. I give this movie 2 stars; one star for the great cast, Eric Bana, Jennifer Connelly, Sam Elliott & Nick Nolte (who looks remarkably like Kris Kristofferson in this film) and one star for the special effects in the last half hour, I unlike many here appreciated the amount of effort that was put into the CGI. Great cast, Great story, Reasonable script, Good special effects - just overlong, uninteresting and plain dull dull dull for the first 90 minutes.

Perhaps its an adverse reaction to all the comic-book hero movies that are doing the rounds at the moment, but I had a job persuading my two teens that they wanted to watch The Hulk - and by the time the film had finished I had a job persuading myself that I wanted to see it through to the ending. Special effects were good, but the plot was weak and we felt the movie relied too much on the technical effects. Some good performances but the overall theme of 'good versus evil' felt tired and there was little new here. Being old enough to remember the original TV series, I suppose I'm a little biased, but my 13 year old son summed it up "Ok, so he's been working out, has a skin problem and needs a little anger management therapy......". The consensus was - who cares?