(Big spoilage ahoy)
Bonkers.
I can't believe this movie even got fucking made. It's a catalogue of exploding frogs, mutilated starfish, jellyfish flying over deserts, and giant mutant poodles. At one point Josh Lucas' grenade explodes behind him, throwing him towards the camera, where he freeze frames, outlined in black, only to be consumed by flames a second later. It's the kind of manic stylisation that you expect in Charlie's Angels, and it's only one example of the way in which this movie consistently confounds expectations, daring the viewer to attempt to judge or categorise what their seeing.
The question on everyone's minds seems to be, "How believable are the special effects?" This question is rendered utterly redundant by a movie which gibbers and spasms its way to a bizarre conclusion. The film makes no pretense at realism, taking leaps into pure fantasy, surreal dream sequences, comic book page layouts, lettering and time compression techniques. Hypocritamus and I agreed that it seemed very anime in tone. Technology out of control, inevitability of fate, the sins of the father, surrealism alongside action - its the first movie I've seen which gives me hope for the live action adaptation of Evangelion. Let's hope they get Ang Lee to direct it.
Images remain in the mind long after you leave the cinema. The Hulk leaping from rock to rock, charging across the desert, hurling tanks and catching missiles. The oh-so-anime fight with the Absorbing Man, pictured in still frames as they are glimpsed within the clouds. Hulk dreaming as he drops from orbit, pitcuring himself and Banner wiping away the condensation from either side of a mirror, reaching through the glass a growling "Puny Human." The Absorbing Man becoming the elements themselves, eventualy going out of control and seeming to absorb reality itself.
Don't have any preconceptions going into this. It's weird and contrary. Lee's usual deft handling of emotions, character and acting is almost totally absent from this film - his treatment of his actors is very Kubrick, alien and jarring in places. The film is repressed for the first fourty-five minutes, just as Banner is repressed. We're given next to no insight into him, which makes the first transformation seem out of place, as if he hasn't been through enough to warrant it. That's no criticism, it's a valid choice - and a choice that's very in keeping with Banner's tendancy to bottle everything up until he explodes. I also initially had problems with the ending, as it doesn't take a genius to realise that putting David and Bruce Banner in the same room is going to cause a hell of a lot of violence. Perhaps that was Ross' intention: he realises that the only way out is to force a confrontation, knowing that the only option will be to effectively nuke these two men who he feels that he's failed.
So its just sheer unexpected lunacy from start to finish. You won't have seen anything quite like Hulk. Lee seems to have overdosed on a lethal cocktail of Kubrick, Raimi, comics and anime. I've heard reports of him personally doing the Hulk's motion capture, or trying to explain in preproduction meetings that the film should have the texture of moss growing on a log. He seems to have genuinely lost the plot, and I doubt he'll be trusted with a large budget again. I'm just very glad I'm going to see it again within the next fortnight - there's just tons of stuff in this movie to consider. The most convention trashing, exhilirating spectacle I've seen from Hollywood in years. |
