A Fresh Perspective on The Incredible Hulk


If you’ve read my review of Iron Man, you’ll probably know that I have never seen any of the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies before, and that I’ve taken it upon myself to… y’know, catch up before Avengers. As mentioned above, I’ve already watched and reviewed Iron Man (Click HERE), so it was time to watch the black sheep of the Marvel movies. Second stop: The Incredible Hulk.

Okay, maybe I’m being a little bit harsh. The Incredible Hulk did decently at the box office, attracted positive reviews and made a hell of a lot of money from DVD sales. But still, The Incredible Hulk is by far the least well known movie in the MCU. Probably because people tend to get a little bored when two monsters continually punch each other in the face and jump around a little for the best part of 20 minutes.

That’s not to say I didn’t like The Incredible Hulk – far from it. I actually enjoyed it quite a lot, not nowhere near as much as Iron Man. Or come to think of it… *reels off list of superhero movies better than this movie* It was just a bit unexceptional and formulaic, really. Outcast lives normal life. Outcast spotted by evil military types. Outcast runs and is reunited with girlfriend. Outcast turn into – OK, perhaps not.

There were some great bits – the rooftop chase at the start (borrowing quite a lot of ideas from Bourne there), the rampage at the university, the battle in the bottles factory, and bits of the final battle where Hulk and Abomination weren’t just running at each other and punching each other. The acting was all decent, with Edward Norton doing a good job as Bruce Banner – but to be honest, I’m not particularly upset about the recasting of Banner for Avengers.

Speaking of Avengers, the final scene was great, with a welcome cameo from Robert Downey Jr (aka Tony Stark) to continue the Avengers arc. I also found out that Downey Jr and William Hurt (General Ross) were actually improvising for the entire scene – they obviously didn’t appear to be doing improvisation.

So, in conclusion: is The Incredible Hulk good? Yes. Is it great? No. Does it deserve a sequel? Maybe. But we’ll have to wait until 2014 at the earliest to get The Incredible Hulk 2, if we even get a sequel. So, with two movies down, I have three to go before Avengers comes out. Next, we return to the world of Tony Stark (well, same world, but… Gah, forget it.)

Next stop, ‘A Fresh Perspective on Iron Man 2 coming late next week.