Doom and Doomer: The Incredible Hulk

Welcome to the latest installment of “Doom and Doomer,” in which members of the Legion take a look at comics on the big screen. Tonight, your participants are Doom DeLuise and Jim Doom, looking at the new Incredible Hulk movie, starring Ed Norton, Liv Tyler, Tim Roth, and William Hurt, based on the Marvel Comics character created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

DOOM DELUISE: The new Incredible Hulk movie sought to reinvigorate a character that was pretty bungled in his first go ’round in movie form, ala Batman Begins’ attempt to reboot that character a few summers ago. Batman Begins was successful for a variety of reasons, and the sequel to that, The Dark Knight, is one of the most anticipated movies of the summer. Do you think the Incredible Hulk succeeded in what it was trying to accomplish, and do you think sequels will be in the wings, or was this just another big green dud?

JIM DOOM: Well, yeah, it definitely rebooted the character.

And I think more importantly, it rebooted the character in a way that fit in with Marvel’s bigger-picture efforts to create a cohesive universe from film to film.

The tone difference between Hulk and Iron Man wasn’t night-and-day the way X2 and Fantastic Four 2 were. There were differences for the sake of the character differences and the needs of the story, but it’s easy to imagine this all coming together. Tony Stark’s appearance didn’t hurt.

It wasn’t as good as Iron Man, but it was a very good superhero movie and way better than the first Hulk.

DOOM DELUISE: You’re right. I did appreciate how it worked to create the Cinematic Marvel Universe. The inclusion of the Super Soldier Serum was a nice touch, and the appearance of Stark, as you said, didn’t hurt at all.

However, I did not much care for this movie at all, whatsoever.

JIM DOOM: No kidding? What did you dislike about it?

DOOM DELUISE: First and foremost, try as they may, try as they might, the Hulk still is a computer graphic; he still looks fake; he still lacks weight; and he still distracts from the overall believability of the movie every single time he steps into frame.

And, yes, I realize I’m complaining about the believability of a giant green guy hopped up on gamma rays.

JIM DOOM: I thought he still looked fake at times, but unlike the first Hulk movie, I thought he still actually looked like he was there. I realize that seems contradictory, but I don’t know how to explain it better. One big improvement over the first movie is that he didn’t keep changing size.

DOOM DELUISE: That is an improvement. The effects were much better in this movie than the first, but still, two grossly phony pieces of digital meat pounding each other with all kinds of weightless, inconsequential modeled props just doesn’t do it for me.

Five years later, and the Hulk still looks like a mongoloid version of Brock Lesnar scaled up to four times bigger than regular humans.

JIM DOOM: Wow. I’m really surprised at your reaction on that. If nothing else, I thought the Abomination looked great. And as far as them being “weightless,” I just really don’t agree at all.

DOOM DELUISE: Did you ever get the feeling, when the Hulk was bludgeoning the Abomination with the cop car pieces that that car had any sort of weight to it? I didn’t.

JIM DOOM: Yes, I actually did.

DOOM DELUISE: Don’t get me wrong, these computer graphics looked great, as far as computer graphics go, but I’d rather take a ‘roided out Lou Ferrigno straining to lift the bumper of a car five feet off the ground any day of the week.

But let’s talk about some stuff other than my hatred for the Hulk graphics. How did you feel about Ed Norton’s portrayal of Bruce Banner?

JIM DOOM: I thought he did a good job of being nerdy but still relatable. The problem with playing a nerdy character is that you run the risk of alienating the audience, who might be too embarrassed of you to really care much about you. He had a charm to his nerdiness.

DOOM DELUISE: I liked how when he came down from the Hulk spells, he looked like a homeless guy.

I also really enjoyed the beginning of the movie, up until the first appearance of the Hulk. Bruce Banner living in South America as a fugitive led to some cool action scenes and entertaining character work.

What were some of the other main things you enjoyed about the movie?

JIM DOOM: I thought the Brazilian stuff was beautiful. I thought the descent of Blonski was great. I enjoyed that the subtle references to the old TV show were able to be funny without distracting from the flow of the movie (“you wouldn’t like me when I’m hungry” was my favorite). And I like that it gave The Hulk an opportunity to be a hero rather than just a misunderstood non-villain.

DOOM DELUISE: I agree with all of that stuff. That mountain-side village that Banner was living in at the start was gorgeous. I can’t blame the director for spending as many shots just floating over the top of it to show us more, because it was so visually stunning.

How did you feel about the love story? Lots of times in comic book movies, the females are treated as either a) damsels in distress with nothing to do but scream or cry, or b) genuine hard-asses who share the same traits as the male characters, only happen to be women. Liv Tyler had a character that was a departure, for the most part, from both of those molds. How’d you buy that?

JIM DOOM: Totally dug it. I was glad they didn’t completely go the Ultimates route and have her just be a PR monster. She was smart and basically his equal. Their love was out of a mutual respect, not some kind of fragile damsel in distress who needs to be rescued situation. I normally don’t care too much for Liv Tyler, but she didn’t rely on the whole pouty-face substituted for acting like she often has in the past.

So I found myself totally buying her in that role.

DOOM DELUISE: I agree completely.

That and Blonski’s descent, as you referred to it, are my favorite parts of the movie, for sure.

What are some of the things in the movie, though, that you weren’t so fond of? I’ve already mentioned the computer graphics, for me, and I also thought the pacing was a bit too rapid fire (though the last one was the complete opposite, to worse effect). What are your thoughts on “the bad?”

JIM DOOM: Well, I think the love story part was a bit cheesy at times. I can’t think of any good examples though, and actually the only examples I can think of regarding the love story were the great little things they did right — the funny argument over which of those things from her purse they could or couldn’t take along; the discussion and fake-fight about her anger management in New York City — they were believable as a couple 95% of the time, so when the 5% felt off, it really stuck out.

DOOM DELUISE: What did you think of when they woke up after the night where she was calming him down from being the Hulk (in the rain)? Am I the only person who laughed, assuming she, at one point, was spooning the Hulk?

JIM DOOM: Probably, because she was lying on his chest. I imagined he just kind of cradled her at some point to protect her from the elements, which I don’t think would look weird at all.

DOOM DELUISE: No, no, Hulk was little spoon!

Anyway, sum up. What are you closing thoughts?

JIM DOOM: The Hulk is one of those movies that is going to be really hard to do, for the visuals and for the limitation of the character. I thought this was about as good as possibly could have been done. I didn’t have the same hangups about the visuals as you did; like I said, he looked fake at times, but I still felt like he was there in the scene. Sort of like the way you don’t think a guy in a chicken costume is actually a chicken.

But most importantly, I think it did an excellent job of continuing to build the Marvel Universe in motion-picture form. This did absolutely no damage to the world they’re constructing, and if my non-comic-reading friends who have seen it are any indication, it’s getting more people interested.

DOOM DELUISE: I agree with the second part. Making more hints at future movies with characters that haven’t been introduced to the Cinematic Marvel Universe yet has built some great buzz among lots of people. When I was watching the fight between Blonski and Hulk when Blonski was first injected with the Super Soldier Serum, I was really impressed. And when he lost, I couldn’t help to think to myself, “You know who wouldn’t have lost that fight? Captain America.”

That’s an exciting feeling.

But, yet, there was a lot to this movie that I didn’t care for. I didn’t enjoy the way he was found out (that scene with Stan Lee was groan inducing, especially since Iron Man showed how to make a Stan Lee cameo a highlight of a movie rather than a lowlight), and I thought some of the lines were pretty cheesy. Plus, the ending, where it shows that he’s working to control the Hulk power was kind of silly.

Overall, I thought there were some serious pacing problems, and I’m sure Ed Norton would agree, and, for some reason or another, I couldn’t get over how fake I thought the Hulk looked. There was one scene, in the rain, where he was standing still, where I was impressed by how non-fake he looked. In a perfect world, it would be the other way around, with only one or two shots popping up where I could tell that he wasn’t real. And, for me, that really tanked the movie.

JIM DOOM: Can you elaborate on the pacing problems?

DOOM DELUISE: Sure. One scene, Bruce Banner cuts himself and drips some blood into a bottle of juice. The next scene, General Ross is being told about it, quick cut to Stan Lee, and the very next scene, the Mercs are in South America.

It just seemed extremely rapid fire.

JIM DOOM: Yeah, it did — I just took that as a way of showing how quickly one little mistake could allow these wolves to close in on him.

DOOM DELUISE: Anything that wasn’t a big action sequence seemed like everybody was just saying, “Quick, let’s get back to fighting”

JIM DOOM: That’s just so funny you say that — I remember thinking there was so much exposition and not as much fighting as I expected.

It’s like we saw two different movies.

DOOM DELUISE: You’ve heard about the big controversy with Ed Norton, haven’t you? How he wanted to include lots more character scenes with exposition and stuff, but Marvel wanted balls-out action non-stop, so he got kind of pissed off and fought with them, before he ultimately lost.

JIM DOOM: Yeah, there were 70 minutes cut out.

DOOM DELUISE: That makes me think of another positive for the movie. In the first Hulk movie, I kept thinking, “Jesus, this is longer than shit!” but I didn’t really feel the time in this one at all.

JIM DOOM: I was guessing that the hallucination-montage from the very beginning was probably all filled out with dialogue and whatnot in the original, and if that was the case, I’m glad they skipped past doing another origin.

DOOM DELUISE: Yeah, that opening montage totally worked.

JIM DOOM: I’m guessing that Ed Norton’s fallout with the producers means he’s not going to reprise his role in the Avengers movie, would you guess?

DOOM DELUISE: He might already be contractually bound. I heard Marvel tied down a lot of these guys so that they have to be in the Avengers.

That’s something I have to tip my hat at. Marvel Studios has this shit on lockdown.

JIM DOOM: Good thinking. I was also kind of wondering if they considered shooting a lot of the films at once and then taking a couple years for post-production, like with the Lord of the Rings movies.

DOOM DELUISE: Well, once they get around to the Avengers movie, that will probably take three years worth of post-production just to finish it. I mean, every single character is gonna be using heavy CGI.

It’ll be interesting how they shoe-horn Thor into this universe they’re creating. Like you said, the tone of Iron Man’s universe meshes well with what they’ve done with Hulk, but I can’t imagine Thor’s fitting in all that neatly.

JIM DOOM: Good point. I was surprised to see him in the lineup.

But no, I don’t have any more thoughts. Hulk gets a big thumbs up from me as a comic book superhero movie. Iron Man got big thumbs up from me as a great movie.

DOOM DELUISE: Not me. Iron Man was fantastic, yes, but Hulk gets a big middle finger from me as a movie and a thumbs in the middle as a superhero movie.

But that’s only because I have to compare it with Daredevil, Elektra, Fantastic Four, and Ghost Rider.

JIM DOOM: Well, the good thing is at least this wasn’t just another thing where we agreed on everything.

DOOM DELUISE: I agree.

OH SHHHHHHI–