Time for some brevity. I went to see this movie Friday night kind of suddenly with a friend. He just asked me what my plans were and I said I had none so he invited me to join him for the movies. He wanted to see the Incredible Hulk and I was curious about it as well. Let me state my opinion about the first one released in 2003 and I’ll try to be as mild as possible.
Watching a test pattern would be more entertaining than watching the first Hulk movie.
My friend had told me that he hadn’t seen the first one to which I said that was a good thing. When asked why I said “Consider this: The first fight in that movie the Hulk had was against mutant poodles.” I then went on to explain that when the final battle scene was reached, it was a let-down. You saw his Dad turn into this huge figure and thought this would be an epic battle, but you couldn’t tell what was going on. I had to read it online before I knew.
This one was much better!
Now I’m not a professional film critic so don’t expect me to write about the acting and things of that matter unless I really think something needs to be pointed out. I’m also not one of those people that really goes to a movie to look for a lot of “realistic” stuff in that “Well we never had that explained” or “That doesn’t seem to make perfect sense.” I realize in creating a fantasy situation that sometimes there are things hard to explain and I don’t try to get nit-picky at the movies.
First off, this is a good movie. It’s not at the level of Iron Man definitely, but it is a good one, and if you go see it, be sure to stay til the end, although there is nothing after the credits. The movie didn’t exactly have me on the edge of my seat, but it was able to keep my interest. This was also by and large a very clean film the family could easily see. I can only think of one questionable scene.
Second, from what I checked, it was faithful to the comics with the same characters as well though their stories might be different a slight bit. It’s always interesting for me after I see a superhero movie to come back home and look and see how things really were. My Dad was a fan of many of these superheroes and it’s always interesting to see the stories as they are now and as they were then.
Now for the more serious content.
One scene that stands out in my mind has the Hulk rescuing his girl from a dangerous situation and he takes her to these crevices set along a mountain cliff. As he puts her in a nook away from the rain, he seems to get hit by lightning and in response picks up a rock and hurls it into the sky. My immediate thought was, and I could be wrong on this of course, was anger towards God. The Hulk in the film is very angry about the way that he is as it isolates him from the girl that he loves and from his life as a successful scientist. Why not lash out at God?
I was also moved by the one time in the movie where he tries to get romantic with his lady. Now you all know I am staunchly against pre-marital sex, but yet I did find some sorrow as he realized that he couldn’t risk anything with her in case he got too excited and the Hulk came out. It really made me think about what it must be like to have the lady you love and not be able to do anything with her. Especially if the reason is because of the way you are.
The Hulk also has often been seen as a picture of anger going out of control. Indeed, in the movie, it seems that the Hulk is a different person in some respects from Bruce Banner in that Bruce just fades into the background when the Hulk is out and Bruce can only remember bits and pieces when he is the Hulk. However, like real anger, it is controllable. Christians today need to learn anger is not a sin. It’s how we use it that’s a sin. (Although there are some things that we should not be angry over and some things we should be angry over.)
(On a side-note also, villains in movies need to learn that attacking the hero’s girlfriend is never a good idea, especially if that hero is the Hulk.)
Bruce overcomes his final enemy by willingly becoming the Hulk and figthing his opponent, though this seems to be the one time that he really learns to aim his anger and control it. In doing so, he does prevent a greater evil. In contrast to the other Hulk movie, this final battle is quite enjoyable and you can tell what is going on.
Overall, I do recommend the Hulk and I recommend watching for some tie-ins to Iron Man.
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