Shots Across The Bow

The Hulk

I admit it; I'm a nerd.

I played D&D (although I preferred other RPGs); I played wargames; I read science fiction by the truckload. I've been messing around with computers for over 20 years now; I've had modems from 300 baud all the way up to my current cable modem. I've been a member of Q-Link, Compuserve and AOL (oh the shame!).

And I collected comics.

Not just as a kid; I started in college, and continued after I joined the Navy. I've still got 'em backed and bagged (For the uninitiated, comic collectors keep their comics in pristine condition by placing each one in an individual bag, backed with a piece of cardboard to prevent wrinkles) in my room. Over the years, I guess I've collected about a thousand of them, and The Hulk has his place in that collection.

I was eager to see the movie version for a couple of reasons. First, I love Ang Lee's work. Like the best authors of speculative fiction, he uses the extraordinary to explore the ordinary. While the mayhem is entertaining, it's the story that grabs you, and the characters that keep you. Stan Lee understood that principle, and used it to drive Marvel to the top of the comic book world. I wanted to see if Ang and Stan had anything in common beyond a last name. Second, Marvel seems to be on a roll with their latest movie adaptations. Spiderman rocked, and Daredevil was electric, so I had high hopes that the Hulk would work as well.

As the guy standing beside me on the way out of the theater said to his date, "They got it right!"

We'll get the bad out of the way quickly.

First, there was that godawful travesty aired during the Superbowl. What on earth possessed them to market an unfinished clip? On the basis of that promo, I was planning to skip the movie entirely. Fortunately, the trailer I saw later showed more movie, and less unfinished CG work. Next, capturing Nick Nolte's descent into madness on film (David Banner/Nick Nolte...typecasting? You be the judge) may have been interesting, but it led to some truly unbelievable moments in the film.

Yeah, I know, we're watching a movie about a guy who turns into a giant green monster, and I'm carping about unbelievable moments from Nick Nolte. As any writer worth his salt knows, maintaining the reader's suspension of disbelief is paramount. He has to convince the reader that what is going on is real in order to get him to care about it. In general fiction, this is hard enough; in speculative fiction, you've already got one strike against you, namely that giant green monster jumping around onscreen. The audience already has to work hard enough to stay with you on that; to ask that same audience to believe that the Army, knowing what Banner is capable of, would allow his father to try and bait him into a homicidal rage without acting to stop it is asking too much.

Now, for the good.

First, the obvious; Jennifer Connelly is the most beautiful actress in Hollywood today, and one of the most underutilized. With any luck, betwen this movie and her Oscar winning role in A Beautiful Mind, we'll get to see a lot more of her. Maybe they'll give her a role where she's not in love with an emotionally disturbed genius. How about one where she's in love with an emotionally disturbed blogger?

It could happen...

Second, Ang Lee's direction and Frederick Elmes' cinematography combine to echo the comic book format while transcending it. The split screens, the transitions, the extreme closeups, and the multiple angles all evoke the language of comics, where artists had to use all kinds of visual shorthand to convey complex emotions and actions in a few highly stylized static panels. Lee chose to emulate that shorthand and Elmes made it work brilliantly, bending and sometimes breaking cinematographic rules in the process, but producing a truly unioque and powerful look to the film. I'm betting that Hulk will be nominated and win for Best Cinematography.

The story itself is busy, as we have Bruce and his father, Betty and her father, Bruce and Betty, and both fathers, all interacting in a complex chain of move and countermove, all trying to influence the actions of Bruce. In this light, the Hulk becomes the monster, and more the victim of the machinations of those who try to take advantage of him. It is the contrast of that towering rage and relative innocence that makes the Hulk such a popular character, and this movie captures that contrast perfectly.

Rating: 9 out of 10.

Posted by Rich at June 22, 2003 2:28 AM | TrackBack