SuperSearnold - Comic Book Reviews

Greetings – once again – from your friendly neighborhood Searnold [Shár- Nŭhld]. Today is Friday, November 14th, 2008. Welcome to my daily comic book review blog – thanks for tuning in! Are you interested in a comic book but not sure you want to shell out the cash? Let me know and I’ll review it for you – letting you know if it’s worth your hard earned money!

Today’s Movie:
The Incredible Hulk - 2008 version. This movie stars Edward Norton and Liv Tyler and was directed by Louis Leterrier. It was recently released on DVD. If you want an explanation about why the Special Edition DVD isn’t worth your money, go ahead and keep reading down to yesterday’s entry. Today, I’m going to talk about the movie itself.

Premise:
Well… for those of you who somehow don’t know… there’s this scientist guy named Bruce Banner. And when he gets angry he turns into a giant green monster called The Hulk. In this particular adventure, Bruce is trying to rid himself of The Hulk inside him, and the army is trying to get their hands on Bruce to use him as a weapon.

Awesome Parts:
I thoroughly enjoyed this film. And that is in stark contrast with the fact that I thoroughly HATED the 2003 Hulk movie. One of my favorite parts of the new version was the introductory credits which was a nice montage of Liv Tyler and Edward Norton reinacting some of the scenes from Hulk’s origin. It was ambiguous enough that those who want to consider this a direct sequel with different actors can - but those who want to completely shrug off the Ang Lee version were given a nice succinct introduction to Hulk’s origin. Also - Edward Norton is a phenomenal actor. He played Banner so well - and that’s what I’ve always liked about this character. Banner’s struggle with his anger is a timeless human struggle. So I’m glad that this movie focused on that instead of on Hulk smashing things. But Hulk did get to smash a lot of things - and when he did, it was pretty bad-ass. The movie had a nice original plot that clearly drew from the comics without simply directly adapting a previously written story. There was a great blend of suspense, action, and even a little romance for those who are into that sort of thing. I was never bored while watching the film - I never even had to check my watch. And Robert Downey Jr.’s cameo as Tony Stark at the end of the movie was a great way to seal the deal.

Un-Awesome Parts:
I’ve noticed something interesting with movies. If you like a movie, you go away remembering the great parts, and the bad parts fade from your memory. But if you didn’t enjoy a movie, you tend to focus on why you didn’t have any fun, and you’ll forget any great moments that the movie might have had. Take The Dark Knight, for example. It was such a spectacular movie with so many great things to talk about, that nobody focuses on the less-than-awesome parts (like Bat-Sonar, yuck!) The same thing happened for me with this incarnation of The Hulk. I enjoyed the experience of watching this movie. So now, all I remember are the reasons why I enjoyed it – and picking out the bad aspects from the recesses of my mind is quite a difficult task.

I do remember this much: the pacing of the climax was odd. It’s hard to talk about this intelligibly without giving away some pretty hard-core spoilers – so let’s just say they finally resolved one of the core conflicts of the movie, but it only stayed resolved for a few minutes before a new problem arrived. The CORE problem of any movie isn’t supposed to be resolved until the VERY end, or the pacing will feel off. We’re so used to movie conventions and the traditional pacing of a three act story that deviating too far from that structure will feel off – even if we can’t quite explain why.

My Recommendation:
Anyone who likes the Hulk will probably enjoy this movie. It was a great homage to the character. But you don’t need to know ANYTHING about him in order for this to be a good movie. The concept of the character is simple enough and explained well enough in the film that you needn’t have ever read a comic book for the movie to be enjoyable and make sense. If you’ve ever had anger problems, you’ll probably be able to relate to the character struggles in the movie. And if you just like semi-unrealistic (meaning impossible to happen in our boring-ass real world) action scenes of military tanks being ripped in twain, then this movie is definitely for you. Don’t see it for the love story, though. That aspect isn’t strong enough to carry the film.

However, as much as I recommend you see this movie, the Special Edition DVD is not worth your money. Read on and my friend Robert will tell you why.

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