Hulk

Director: Ang Lee
Year Released: 2003
Rating: 1.0

Insipid film of the Marvel comic - it even pays 'homage' to Stan Lee and Lou Ferrigno by giving them about thirteen seconds of on-screen time and Lee a mouthful of lines - that is scared of being just another childish action movie, so the makers felt obliged to probe into the Oedipal and psychological subtext. The visual design made me think of the old Sega Genesis game Comix Zone, which has its digital characters leaping from one comic panel to another, but the editing wizardry here doesn't mesh with the emphasis on heavy drama and quasi-serious monologues about family. Eric Bana, such a standout in Black Hawk Down, gets lost in this picture, as does Jennifer Connelly, who must have felt obliged to uphold her ranking as an Oscar winner by crying on demand in a few scenes. The weakest aspect of all is the noticeably poor CGI, which looks more like it should be in the Hulk video game than a movie (which, coincidentally, is just as redundant to play as this is to watch). My rating should read "two stars" (for effort), but loses one for its beastly running time: there is no way in hell this thing should run over an hour and forty-five minutes.