The Hose

NO DADDY NO!

I went to watch The Hulk on sunday and have some thoughts. My first, as I walked out of the theater, is what would have happened if the 4 year old Bruce had tried to do anything during that scene with his parents? Would he still be carrying around the repressed guilt and rage? Dunno... ANYWAY, on to other thoughts. Overall, I must say I liked it. Ang Lee did an interesting job filming what was a tough movie to make and the CGI Hulk that ILM put together was sufficiently realistic in his movements and his facial expressions. Although, like with all CGI animation I get creeped looking at their eyes. They look kind of empty don't they? Also, they don't always seem to be looking at the right place. CREE-PEE. Anywho, there were some awesome touches, like the split panel scenes, that was designed to resemble a comic book, the gamma irridated poodle also rock quite hard, as did Nick Nolte and his overe the top, BAD DAD, David Banner. The casting of VICTIM MOMMY BANNER was also interesting because she looked a lot like Jennifer Connoley, and kind of threw a whole creepy mother love, greek tragedy thing into the mix for me. I'm not sure that was intentional or not. Also, how awesome in Jennifer Connoley. I can stare at her for hours.

There was also bad. Firstly and most importantly, the first 30 minutes or so moved about as smoothly as me trying to drive stick shift. That is to say, not at all. The first 30 minutes blew. It was kind of like Ang just said, "let's just pump through the background and into the hulk smask as quickly as possible". I had a hard time guaging the Hulk's weight. When he was doing his Hulk Jumps, I kept expecting more ground to break under him. At times it looked like he did not have any weight. That bugged. Also, at one point BAD DADDY Banner reveals himself to be some sort of anarchist type, except that came out like 2 hours into the movie and did not seem terribly consistent with everything else he said. Also, why were they allowed in a room together? Who thought that the Army would let that happen...no way...

I would have handled it differently. To address pacing, I would have opened the movie with both Banners in capitvity. The opening line would have been a therapist saying something like "Tell me about your father" and we could pan to reveal Bruce all captured Hannibal Lecter style and telling his story. The story would the be intercut with Bad Daddy, delivering an oral manifesto to his therapist talking about whatever and what not. Each telling the story from their own perspective. We would have all been spared the clunkiness of the openning scenes and one or two awkward lines that made me flinch. All the events could have gone down the same way, but told in flash back and glossing over some stuff. At the end of session, BAD DADDY would reveal himself and then go after his son. The last 20 minutes of the movie stay exactly the same. What would this do
(1) hopefully improve pacing, especially early on
(2) set up Bad Daddy's motivation minute one, as opposed to retro-fitting
(3) kind of give you a bit of tension that certain parts of the movie lack
(4) Set up a sequal, because all familiar with the Hulk mythology know, that the split personality stuff is what makes banner and the hulk separate. The sequal would then be about the merger of the personalities or the emergence of the third personality. As it is, in the movie, this whole idea is touched on only once, when Banner looks int eh mirror and the hulk looks back and tries to choke him.

Anyway, I liked it. Flawed but good. Ang Lee rocks.

Best Comic Book Movies EVER!!
While thinking about the Hulk I started wondering where it fit in relation to other movies in the genre. Here is a list I came up with. Anyone got a better one?

(1) Spiderman - Just perfectly executed. A movie for everyone. Four year old Isaiah Abreu's favorite flick! Occasional wack CGI be damned.
(2) Road To Perdition - I probably should not rate this this highly, just because i never read the comic. But still, it was really pretty and the photographer scenes really added a cool "splash panel" comic book effect.
(3) X2 - Best open 35 minutes of any movie on this list. Period. On point characterization, and no need for too much exposition
(4) Unbreakable - Not based on a comic book per se, so it gets dinged down to the 4 spot as a result. Pacing issues aside, its an awesome homage to the genre
(5) Superman 2- Not a great film, but perfectly executed and true to the mythology. The only time, there was a credible threat to Superman, which is always cool.
(6) Batman - Tim Burton brought the Dark Knight to Life in a way no one thought possible. The fore father to the modern comic book movie.
(7) Blade - Disco blood sprinklers, nuff said.
(8) X-men - "We're the future Charles, not them." Best Line reading ever! Of course, the worst line reading ever is also in this movie, thanks Halle...
(9) Hulk- Yah! Hulk makes the list, I could stare and Jennifer Connely for ever.
(10) From Hell - Very cool, flick set in Victorian England. Try your best to ignore the crappy accents.

Anyone got a better List? Let's hear it.


LXG
Message to the crew at Fox, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen would be LEG not LXG. Do X's really equal ticket sales? is this porn? If you need a compressed title, i would have suggested, "League..."