The Hulk (2 Stars)

What went wrong?

That's the question that everyone has to ask who sees this film.

Ang Lee is one of the world's greatest living directors. He's made many brilliant films in his life, including "The Life of Pi" and "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk" and "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". He's won two Academy Awards as Best Director, for "The Life of Pi" and "Brokeback Mountain" (which I still haven't seen).

So how could Ang Lee produce this awful piece of trash? When it was complete he realised what he'd done. He felt so depressed that he wanted to give up filmmaking, but his father convinced him to carry on. Fortunately. This would have been a poor film to end his career. Two years later he won his first Academy Award as Best Director.

So what's so bad about the film?

First I'll say what's good. There's a nine-second Stan Lee cameo. It's actually a double cameo. Stan is shown walking out of a building with Lou Ferrigno, the bodybuilder who played the Hulk in the television series from 1978 to 1982. Both of them are security guards, one tougher than the other. Stan tells Lou that they need to beef up security. Never a truer word was spoken.

The other thing I like is the cinematography. Ang Lee uses imaginative split screen images frequently throughout the film. Sometimes different scenes are shown side by side; sometimes the same scene is shown from different angles; sometimes we see different phases of the same scene, seconds or minutes apart, being shown simultaneously. Sometimes it's even a fake split screen, i.e. there's a line across the screen, but something crosses the line. Here are a few examples.

Beautiful. It looks even better on screen, because the frames aren't static. The lines wander across the screen, changing the size of the images relative to one another. This is the only reason I've given the film a two-star rating. It's the only thing the film has in its favour.

It would be too difficult for me to name all the film's faults. I'm sure I would forget some, so I'll stick to the biggest errors. Just look at this screenshot of the Hulk. What did Ang Lee spend his $175 million budget on? Obviously not the CGI. The Hulk looks like a cheap plastic children's toy. It's embarrassing. He didn't even look that bad in the television series made 20 years earlier.

The Hulk's clothing has been a recurring joke since he first appeared in the comics in the 1960's. When he grows in size his shirt is shredded, but he never loses his underpants. They're a revolutionary brand that can stretch to four times the size without being damaged. When the Hulk turns back to Bruce Banner his underpants shrink back to their previous size. I'm not naive. I know the reason for this. It would have been inappropriate to draw a completely naked green monster in the 1960's.

Ang Lee tries to fix this problem, but his botched attempt makes things even worse. When Bruce Banner turns into the Hulk the first time he keeps his stretch pants. Then he turns back into Bruce Banner a short distance away from Betty Ross. He's shown completely naked from behind. Ah ha! So his underpants fell off because they were too loose after being stretched? That makes sense. Almost. The next camera shot shows him walking towards Betty, and his underpants have magically re-appeared, guaranteeing the film a family-friendly rating. This is a stupid continuity error. At the very least the camera angle could have been changed to only show Bruce Banner from the waist up. Didn't Ang Lee notice his blunder?

The acting is lacklustre, even from Eric Bana (Bruce Banner), who I usually admire. Josh Lucas (Glenn Talbot) and Sam Elliott (General Ross) are annoyingly shallow. Jennifer Connelly (Betty Ross) is an actress I've never liked. She can't express the slightest emotion on screen, so her performance in "The Hulk" is typical for her.

The film's biggest problem is the story itself. From what I've read, there were problems with the screenplay, and the re-writing made it worse. The original story should have shown Bruce Banner battling Crusher Creel, better known as the Absorbing Man, while attempting to find his father. This was re-written, making Bruce's father the Absorbing Man. So Bruce has to battle his evil father? This is a ridiculous story, even for those who don't know the original comics. Why not just stick to what Stan Lee wrote in 1962? Stan knew what he was doing. He was a genius. The new generation of Marvel screenwriters are high-school dropouts who have no idea how to write a good story.

Even worse, the Hulk's origin runs through the whole film, new details added through things remembered in dreams from scene to scene. Using dreams to solve a mystery is bad storytelling. Ang Lee should have thrown this script in the trash can where it belonged.

When I last watched this film in 2014 I said I probably wouldn't watch it again. After Stan Lee's death it floated to the top of my to-watch list in a list of Marvel films based on Stan Lee's creations. It was difficult for me to watch the film today. I found myself getting bored, wondering when it would finally end. Now I can say with certainty that I won't watch it again. I'll keep it in my collection, because I'm a completist. I need to have all the Marvel films on my shelf, neatly ordered. I know that's obsessive, but it's the way I am. Maybe the person who inherits the films after my death will enjoy it. Probably not.

The film was a box office failure, deservedly. Supposedly it was a success in the first week, but then dropped in popularity. This was probably when people started telling their friends how bad it was.

I can only think of one value that Ang Lee's Hulk film might have: it can be shown at film schools as an example of a big budget film by a successful director that went astray. Students can write essays on the film's faults and attempt to explain how they happened. I'm sure that there's a psychology behind bad films. There has to be an explanation why directors are blind to a film's faults until after completion, when it's too late.

Success Rate:  - 0.2

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