The Incredible Hulk Review
Cast: Edward Norton. Liv Tyler, William Hurt, Tim Roth
Dir: Louis Leterrier
Rat: 4/5
The hope behind the Edward Norton penned script is that The Incredible Hulk will re-ignite The Hulk franchise that has taken a beating over the last few years.
But being unfortunately sandwiched between comic movies Iron Man and The Dark Knight does The Incredible Hulk have the ability to stand apart from the rest as a great superhero movie?
Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) is desperately hunting for a cure to the gamma radiation that poisoned his cells and unleashed the unbridled force of rage within him: The Hulk.
Living in the shadows, cut of from the life he knew and the woman he loves - Betty Ross (Liv Tyler), Banner struggles to avoid the obsessive pursuit of his nemesis General Thunderbolt Ross (William Hurt) and the military machinery that seeks to capture him and brutally exploit his power.
As all three grapple with the secrets that led to The Hulk's creation they are confronted with a monstrous new adversary known as The Abomination (Tim Roth), whose destructive strength exceeds even The Hulk's own.
The scientist must make an agonising choice: accept a peaceful life as Bruce Banner or find heroism in the creature he holds inside.
And the answer to this question is absolutely!
It's great to see, like Robert Downey Jr in Iron Man, Edward Norton step into this blockbuster role, a role we don't associate with the actor, as the tortured Bruce Banner looking for a cure.
While the film is action packed and full of CGI at the heart of the picture is a man at war with the anger that is inside of him who is desperate to go home.
And Norton's ability as an actor brings more depth and emotion to a character who, in the past, has been a little 2D.
But when you come to see a movie like this is really is all about the CGI and, unlike Indy, the effects really do not disappoint.
They clever delay of the appearance of Banner's alter ego to at last thirty minutes into the movie slowly cranks up the audiences' anticipation to see the new Hulk.
And the clash between our sort of hero and the spike-spined Abomination is highly adrenalised, violent and with a lot of noise and destruction.
Norton is surrounded by a great cast of the General, played by William Hurt, who has put his desires to get his hands on what flows through Banner's body before what it right and even his own daughter.
Liv Tyler returns to the big blockbuster movie as Banner's ex-girlfriend Betty Ross who, naturally, still carries a torch for Banner and is estranged from her father.
There is also a great turn from Tim Roth as the psychotic commando Emil Blonsky who becomes obsessed with the Hulk and ends up with a nemesis of his own to contend with.
In all this is a rip-roaring ride that is everything that you would expect from a summer blockbuster, an intelligent script, great action and a superb cast.
However despite this I doubt it will reach the dizzy heights of Iron Man's box office success, if it had been released first then it might have stood out more on the long list of superhero movies that are coming to the big screen this summer.
And talking of Iron Man there is a clever little cross over with that franchise as Downey Jr reprises, if only for a brief scene, his role as Tony Stark that could lead to a great cross-over between these two cinema superheroes.
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw
Tagged in Edward Norton