i saw the hulk last night, and i thought it was pretty good. it was long for a summer blockbuster but there weren’t any parts where i felt bored meaning every part of the movie seemed important (unlike say a lot of the parts in matrix reloaded). some parts of the movie were done really well (possibly the best opening credits sequence i’ve ever seen?), there were a lot of new ideas that i haven’t seen in movies before. probably the most talked about is the “comic book” style editing where there are multiple frames on the screen at the same time, but that’s the one effect that i really didn’t like. i can understand that ang lee wanted to make it more like a comic, but the movie dealt with serious issues and that sort of editing made it look goofy. i was actually quite impressed at how serious and deep the movie was. compared with xmen and blade, which were the best comic book movies until the hulk, there was a lot of character development and action. i didn’t feel short changed because i was expecting to see an action movie as many reviews had said and as a bonus there was actually a coherent plot. there was a lot of unspoken emotional tension, in some scenes you could look into the characters’ faces and watch them struggle to deal with the baggage they carry. that was the struggle that peter parker should have had and this was the movie that spiderman should have been. there was one spiderman moment in the hulk. i use the term spiderman moment to describe something similar to when spiderman went web slinging for the first time. it’s the joy and amazement when you find out how to use your superpower. well there was one part where the hulk was running like a madman until he figured that he could jump a lot farther and quicker than he could run, so then he proceeded to hop around the desert. some other thoughts: the hulk didn’t look as cg as the trailers had made him out to be. eric bana doesn’t look anything like how i expected bruce banner to look like, but when he’s the hulk he does actually look like the hulk (i know i know, cg) and that he came from bruce banner. jennifer connelly’s character had some nice snarky one-liners at the beginning…and then kinda becomes her character from a beautiful mind. so much attention to detail! footprints when the hulk’s hopping around and not in the desert, socks exploding, etc etc. the guy at the end kinda reminds me of the skrulls in the marvel universe, aside from that i don’t think he’s in the marvel universe. the hulk’s strength should be a function of his anger, but it didn’t seem like that. there was a trailer for dr seuss’ the cat in the hat before the hulk. it looked really cool, the sets looked amazing. i might buy the dvd when it comes out because i’ll be too embarrassed to watch it in theatres. some other things from friday: got my clie, form factor’s a lot better than i expected. not sure how long it’ll last since i’m going to keep it in my pants pocket. there’s a guy at queen & university who keeps 3 pet rats on his arm. saw something like a bike protest, a lot of cyclists some normal some in weird clownish bikes rode around downtown in a mob delaying traffic. there were people on bikes videotaping the entire thing and the police cyclists were at the back of the pack so i’m not sure what the whole thing was about.

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: comics, moviereview, techlust, toronto