The Incredible Hulk (2008)

[Mr. Snackpants]

Great movie. I thought this movie would be bad, bad, bad based on the trailers. I actually was hoping it would fail, because the thought of a re-hash(even though it's really not) after only a few years pissed me off. But after the awesomeness that was Iron Man and The Avengers news...I wanted this movie to be great and it was.

Edward Norton. Fantastic. CGI was better than what the trailers indicated. Had great flow to it. This movie surprised the crap outta me, I'm so excited for the Avengers and future Marvel movies.

[ZariusTwo]

Originally Posted by poiuytre

The new movie features poor acting, awkward lines and bland CG effects with stiff animation that just disconnect you from the film.

Your free and individual opinion is so fracking wrong it ought to be invaded on grounds of locating WMDs

[cqb101]

Originally Posted by Putrescent

Wait you think the CG looks worse than the last hulk film? I mean because that was pretty damn crappy.
I thought this new one looked ok for what it was..just allot of the character designs are bland to me especially the abomination.

How anyone can say the Abomination's design is bland is beyond me. Just because it's not the same as the comics, doesn't make it "bland".

[The Stryker]

I saw it, thought it was great all around.

I probably liked it just a bit more than Iron Man, I'm gonna need to see it again to solidify that.

[Revan]

There was one thing I didn't fully understand. Perhaps there is nothing to it but...

Spoiler:

When Abomination kills Mr. Blue, Blue is lying there on the ground and something falls onto the cut on his head. Then his skin starts to move. It's suttle and if you didn't catch it check for it the next time around. But was that significant at all or was it just kinda... there?

[cqb101]

Originally Posted by Neutrino

There was one thing I didn't fully understand. Perhaps there is nothing to it but...

Spoiler:

When Abomination kills Mr. Blue, Blue is lying there on the ground and something falls onto the cut on his head. Then his skin starts to move. It's suttle and if you didn't catch it check for it the next time around. But was that significant at all or was it just kinda... there?

Spoiler:

It's hinting at The Leader as the villain in the next movie.

[Barkworm]

I saw it a couple of days ago and I was positively surprised by it. It was simply a good and entertaining summer flick, kind of like Iron Man.

[Andrew NDB]

Ed Norton seems to remember his "walking away" very differently than, like, every news story leading up to "The Avengers." As in, he didn't walk away from crap... he was deemed a risk and barred from being a part of it.

http://www.darkhorizons.com/ed-norto...ulk-departure/

[Leo656]

Looking over this thread is funny. Everyone really wanted to hate it, then they saw it and loved it... then a couple of years went by, "The Internet" told everyone it was bad, so nowadays everyone hates it again.

People are so gloriously and consistently full of sh*t. It's grand.

[Andrew NDB]

Personally I didn't care. Let Norton be opinionated. Set boundaries if need be. Seeing him interact with everyone in Avengers was like the top thing I was looking forward to.

And now that we see their "we have a big arc for Hulk... it begins in Ragnarok and ends in Endgame" thing... lame. They didn't have one. I want to see what Norton was talking about.

[Leo656]

I liked Ruffalo fine in what I saw, but I'd gladly take Ed Norton and whatever his vision was over what we eventually got. If the man was guilty of anything, it was caring too much and actually trying to inject a little bit of humanity and drama into what eventually became a giant cartoon years later. I can't be mad at him for that.

Everything I've heard and seen of Ragnarok ensures that I'll most likely never watch it. I saw Taika Waititi say somewhere that before he came along, "Asgard didn't look like much of a party town", and I decided then and there that I probably shouldn't watch any of his movies, ever.

[Sumac]

Thor: Ragnarok is one of the best comic book movies, I've seen, in the sense that it is THE COMIC BOOK movie, being fun and entertaining crazy thing.

I know, some people think to highly of themselves to be bothered with a simple fun, but for everyone else, I can say: its worth it.

[Leo656]

More like, I'm personally more a fan of mythology than comedy, and when I hear that someone's going to tell a story about "The Fall Of The Old Gods", I personally don't think of dick and fart jokes.

That doesn't in any way imply that I have a problem; more like, I don't think that was the best way to tell that particular kind of story. Maybe it wouldn't seem so off-putting in a different context or a different Thor story, but it doesn't mesh well with that specific one.

As Shane Helms once said to me while we were discussing the Green Lantern movie, "I can't stand it when people think the 'comic' in 'comic book' means everything has to be totally silly. Especially when so many people worked so hard to try and change that the last few years." People can like whatever they want, but when they start implying that it's "wrong" for someone to want things to be taken more seriously from time to time, well, that's a problem.

The guy makes comedies, so he made a comedic Thor movie. That's his prerogative; I personally expect something completely different from a piece of fiction called "Ragnarok" (Plus, the fact that Thor isn't supposed to be a comedic character in the first place). But again, looking at his filmography, it apparently has nothing to do with his view on comic book storylines; his type of "humor" in general simply is not my taste. That new Hitler movie he has coming out, for example, looks dreadful. But people can like it if they want to. I won't be seeing it. But I won't tell you not to, and if you laugh your ass off, more power to you.

I don't like the guy's style in general. That's allowed. I've never been a fan of over-the-top comedies to begin with. The key thing is, while I'm never going to watch, say, "The Hangover", I'm also not going to waste time telling anyone who thinks it's funny that they have some kind of attitude problem. I'm just gonna do my thing and let them do their thing.

[sdp]

I genunely remember people debating whether Hulk or Iron Man had been the better Marvel movie that summer, sure Iron Man was the hit but many argued Hulk had been the better movie. Nowadays the average MCU fanboy says it's noncanon.

[ranger_scout]

I have only been able to sit through two viewings of Ruffalo's performance in Avengers: Infinity War. It was way too hammy and cartoonish in that film. He was coming across as a male version of Bette Midler but almost even more over-the-top. Even when I took my dad to see it in theaters, he wasn't a fan of Ruffalo's performance. Norton is a much better actor in IMHO.

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by sdp

I genunely remember people debating whether Hulk or Iron Man had been the better Marvel movie that summer, sure Iron Man was the hit but many argued Hulk had been the better movie. Nowadays the average MCU fanboy says it's noncanon.

I know, ain't it weird? People are bipolar as f*ck about this kinda stuff.

[Sumac]

Last time I watched Incredible Hulk, I've nearly fallen asleep.
So there is no way I call it better than an Iron Man.

[Coola Yagami]

I'unno. I liked it and still liked it. It's just jarring in retrospect since we've see Ruffalo in way more movies. Compared to just the Hulk fighting the military all the time and mutant dogs, seeing him fight with someone that was pretty much his equal was pretty awesome.

It's just weird seeing this now with General Ross appearing in newer movies and Tony's cameo in that one that we got Ruffalo in the end. Even though Ross did ask for Banner's whereabouts in one of the movies, those two haven't shared a scene yet in the newer movies. And seeing as Abomination is one of the bad guys that survived, it's a shame we might never see him again.

[Leo656]

The biggest thing that knocked the live-action Hulk projects off-course is the general audience's expectations mixed with a general misunderstanding about what the character represents.

Since he's been an Avenger sometimes, people often mistake Hulk as a "super-hero character" even though he's really not. "Crusading Do-Gooder" isn't really the gimmick; Hulk is a tragedy/horror story specifically based off of Jekyll and Hyde along with traditional werewolf folklore. He originally only got lumped into the Avengers comics due to Marvel Comics suffering financial problems at the time, and he never quite fit in with the rest of them, which is occasionally a story point.

The character isn't supposed to be such comic relief, but since that's what people expected from the MCU version based on pretty much every character being comic relief, that's what we have, but it undercuts the character's potential. Not as much as the studio nonsense that prevents another solo film from ever happening, which is some real piss.

As imperfect as they are, only the Lou Ferrigno TV series and the Ang Lee movie really tried to get past the superficial parts of the character and into the psychological horror it was based on. Unfortunately, the CGI in the Lee version was so terrible it prevents anyone from seeing past it and appreciating the many things it got right, and furthermore, nobody wants to see a "psychological horror" movie about someone they *think* is a conventional super-hero. You can tell them all day long that Hulk is no more a "super-hero" than Lobo, but they aren't going to get it.

There still hasn't been a Hulk movie that really gets it all together in a satisfying way, and that's a shame, because I feel that it's one of the more versatile Marvel characters. You *can* do conventional super-hero stuff with him, but you can also do lots of other things that wouldn't work with other characters. You can do horror, drama, chase movies like "The Fugitive", just about anything, really. But since they can't make a solo film anytime soon, he's stuck as a bit-player, which is the last thing he should be, and definitely limits the type of stories they can tell.

Lee's film nailed the story and the tone, but the CGI was just awful. Norton's was a fun, if rather typical super-hero romp, with much better special effects but it tried a little too hard to be a crowd-pleaser and some of the jokes don't land as a result, and the cast of the Ang Lee version was far superior, so while everyone in the Norton version was serviceable, it still felt like a step backwards.

To be fair, when you start with Sam Elliot, pretty much anything else is a step backwards, and that's not anyone's fault. Sam Elliot!