Good Bad Flicks: Hulk (2003)

Mister K

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Apr 25, 2011
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I still like this movie. I liked this Hulk himself because they've managed to show that he is not just a monster, but a person, a human stuck in body of a berserker. I also liked the actors casting and the "comicbook-like" editing.

Though the movie was a bit too artsy sometimes.

Can't believe it was 14 years...

P.S. I went to see this movie with my friend back in 2003. She was the only one in the theater who kept her eyes closed during fight scenes and had uttered the most frightened shriek when Hulk killed the Hulk-poodle. Fun times.
 

TheScorpion

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Feb 24, 2016
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Yeah, I mostly have bad memories with this one.

This mainly comes from me, my dad, and my sister being bored out of our skulls when we saw this in theaters. My dad even wanted to walk out, but I wanted to see more action. Boy was that a mistake considering the climax being impossible to see and me not even able to tell who won. I do remember that I got a T-shirt out of the ordeal for some reason but in hindsight, I kinda grew to dislike the film as I began to talk about it with my dad in long walks. In some manners, I once said it was worse than Godzilla 98 due to the dull factor of the film and the shit climax alone.

I love the 2008 film though. Though, I am curious about that unmade 90s Hulk movie involving the gamma bugs.
 

Chuppi

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Mar 6, 2013
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The best Hulk Movie in my opinion.
I loved the different approach, they did on this.
The second one had it?s moments but the end with the two gamma monsters fighting looked like something out of a Playstation game.
 

Rawbeard

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Jan 28, 2010
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I like this one, more than the Norton follow up. a lot of it is from Ang Lee, and appriciating the technical aspects, but overall since I had more exposure to the Hulk TV show than the comics, I also liked the tone, didn't mind the "liberties" they took and who doesn't like seeing the Hulk punching out a tank?
 

Metalrocks

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Jan 15, 2009
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to me this movie was rather forgettable and the incredible hulk was way better. to me, the first one still looks fake compared the CG animated dinos in the first jurassic park movie.
the story may have been slow to show the human sites but it still didnt convince me that it makes it any better.
 

008Zulu_v1legacy

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Sep 6, 2009
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I thought the movie was good, but not great. I felt every minute of it's 2 hour run time, and I remember leaving the cinema feeling drained. I didn't like the shade of green they chose for the Hulk either.
 

Callate

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Dec 5, 2008
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Mostly what I remember of this one was the feeling that the movie was going ridiculously out of its way not to have the Hulk kill anyone. Throws a tank twenty miles? Everyone is okay. Knocks a helicopter out of the sky? Crash-lands safely. Bad guy needs to be killed off? Blows himself up with his own grenade (with an "art-house" comic book panel wipe, so we aren't forced to think about any of the icky results.) It's hard to take the whole "tragic berserker" thing seriously when his rages don't ever seem to have any significant results other than property damage. It begins to feel a little like a Warner Bros. cartoon. I don't know if the MPAA was watching the "PG-13" rating much more strenuously in 2003 than they are now, but it feels like, if that was the primary factor in those choices, there had to be a better way to handle it. Even just leaving things more ambiguous.
 

Thurston

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Nov 1, 2007
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The fight with the Gamma Hounds was my favourite part. I remember it being an ugly, desperate struggle, and it imprinted on me. It may not have aged well, but it sure made an impression on me at the time.

One of it's issues, similar to many other superhero movies is, "Too Many Villains!" In this case, Ang Lee took several classic Hulk villains, combined them, and didn't even give them a name, or a build-up.
 

Remus

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Nov 24, 2012
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I like this movie as a stepping stone more than anything. There are a lot of experiments in this one. Some panned out and improved with later iterations, such as full CG hulk, and some didn't. Only a couple other movies, and 24, have panelled themselves out like this movie has. The actual Absorbing Man, Crusher Creel, appeared on Agents of Shield, as played by Brian Patrick Wade. CG Hulk over the years:
 

Darth Rosenberg

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Oct 25, 2011
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Remus said:
I like this movie as a stepping stone more than anything.
I suppose stepping stone works as well, but given the MCU I can't see this version as anything but a curio; a comicbook film that existed ostensibly in a vacuum, before the genre evolved into it what I feel is its natural cinematic state, i.e. multiple characters in a connected universe.

So much that makes comicbook characters and arcs enjoyable is that they do not exist in a vacuum, and that they have this shared world and ever shifting casts. I think that was another brilliantly novel aspect of The Avengers; not only was it the first time we'd seen superheroes team up in such a way in live-action, it acted as an Event similar to countless Marvel arcs over the years. That's a remarkable thing, and a faithful form of adaptation from the page to the screen.

...cutting up the screen into panels, however? Ang Lee's done some phenomenal work (Ride With The Devil's probably my favourite of his), but I just don't feel he was suited to comicbook narratives. On top of that I've personally never found Banner or the Hulk to be at all interesting as a character - with The Ultimates' petty, bitter Banner a possible exception (at least of the versions/eras I'm familiar with), because at least with that Banner the 'monster' was truly monstrous. I like Age Of Ultron, but the main Hulk scene in that is just a waste of time given how conservative the MCU is with collateral damage and the character himself.

I agree with the notion that the Hulk just doesn't work well as a solo character, and both recent Hulk films attest to that. Oh, to be fair to Lee's version, though, it's more engaging and novel than the bland Norton version.
 
Sep 24, 2008
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I like the Norton version more simply due to it not being another origin story. Seeing how he deals with life and research was immensely more interesting than anything else.

HULK JU-JISTU, however, left me a bit cold.
 

CarrogsCromFlakes

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Dec 29, 2016
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They were right to scoff at it. It doesn't matter how many hours they put into it, if that was the BEST CGI TEAM available they should have just gone with a freaking huge bodybuilder bigger than Ferrigno, there are plenty of them, it's not like Hulk requires a Christian Bale to emote.

It's an incredibly boring film, there is no tension, there is no suspense, it's not thrilling in any way. Ang Lee was the absolute wrong choice just as Ronny Yu was the wrong choice for Freddy Vs Jason.

You didn't even mention how piss poor Eric Bana's american accent is either, Cecil. It's down right parody material and you can tell he didn't have a voice coach. "I got a southern twang, y'all" LOL.

Even if I was to ignore how rudimentary and lacklustre the story is, half-arsing between comic book and atypical dramatic blandness, empty vapid towns full of empty vapid carnage and a lead who is as compelling as a talking butt, the visuals are unmistakably laughable and so "2003" it hurts. Hulk looks exactly like a videogame character, there is no moment of believability. This film shouldn't be given a pass just to be a contrarian, it's not a good-bad flick, it's a failed attempt that makes the TV Show seem amazing in comparison.
 

gorfias

Unrealistic but happy
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May 13, 2009
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So, does Universal still own movie Hulk? How is he in the Avengers? Is he owned by Disney now? I hear he will be in Thor Ragnarock, which will be fun to see.