What Did People Not Like About Ang Lee's Hulk?

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

They did well to try to capture Banner's brooding.

The problem is, they did very little to show off what the hulk can do. The Hulk has only three lines he's known for.

"Leave Hulk Alone!"

"Hulk Smash!"

"Hulk is the Strongest there is!"

... So where was the strongest there is part?

He threw a tank. I know I can't do it, but big whoop. Superman saved an airplane from crashing and lifted an island made out of his own weakness and threw it into orbit. Superman took a bullet in the eye.

What did the Hulk really do that was so mindblowing? He's the ultimate power male fantasy. Even more than Superman. Because the Hulk is unrestrained and if angered, precious few things can stop him. You decide to film the ultimate male power fantasy and then you make him limp. What's the point then? What's the point of casting a binary character and really just focus on the cerebral part and not give equal amount of love to the brawn part?

 

[happyninja42]

I liked the movie well enough. It wasn't great, but it wasn't terrible. I've seen worse superhero movies.

 

[Zhukov]

It had fuck all action.

If it had had a whole bunch of really great action scenes in which the Hulk smashes stuff then I could have happily ignored its other flaws. But it didn't. It had one kinda cool scene with him smashing up military hardware, a really crappy nighttime scene in which he fights a mutant poodle and another crappy nighttime scene where he fights some kind of amorphous guy.

So with hardly any action in this rather long movie, what's left? A ton of awkward dialogue, a bunch of flashbacks that nobody cares about and Eric Bana and The Woman making sad eyes at each other.

What fun.

 

[Hawki]

I saw it way back in the day before the giant homogenous blog that's the MCU started consuming the cinema landscape. And personally, I found it okay. The comments about bad CGI and lacklusture villains I can get behind, but apart from that, there's nothing I dislike about it per se. Characters were sympathetic enough. The style was interesting. What action there was was decent. Honestly, I'd take the Hulk over many MCU films by virtue of it not being a brainless action flick.

 

[Cicada 5]

They did well to try to capture Banner's brooding.

The problem is, they did very little to show off what the hulk can do. The Hulk has only three lines he's known for.

"Leave Hulk Alone!"

"Hulk Smash!"

"Hulk is the Strongest there is!"

... So where was the strongest there is part?

He threw a tank. I know I can't do it, but big whoop. Superman saved an airplane from crashing and lifted an island made out of his own weakness and threw it into orbit. Superman took a bullet in the eye.

What did the Hulk really do that was so mindblowing? He's the ultimate power male fantasy. Even more than Superman. Because the Hulk is unrestrained and if angered, precious few things can stop him. You decide to film the ultimate male power fantasy and then you make him limp. What's the point then? What's the point of casting a binary character and really just focus on the cerebral part and not give equal amount of love to the brawn part?

Superman being nigh unstoppable was one of several complaints of that film.

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

Superman being nigh unstoppable was one of several complaints of that film.

Which, of course, is kind of laughable.

It's like complaining that Spiderman travels around New York City like Tarzan with these strings he made.

Or Iron Man being smart enough to make a metal suit.

Superman is unstoppable. That's the fantasy with him. People going to see a movie about an unstoppable force for good and being upset about that he's an unstoppable force for good... that's the kind of criticism I tend to brush aside.

captcha: You can do this.

... Thank you, Captcha. I make it through every day knowing that you're backing me.

 

[Cicada 5]

Superman being nigh unstoppable was one of several complaints of that film.

Which, of course, is kind of laughable.

It's like complaining that Spiderman travels around New York City like Tarzan with these strings he made.

Or Iron Man being smart enough to make a metal suit.

Superman is unstoppable. That's the fantasy with him. People going to see a movie about an unstoppable force for good and being upset about that he's an unstoppable force for good... that's the kind of criticism I tend to brush aside.

captcha: You can do this.

... Thank you, Captcha. I make it through every day knowing that you're backing me.

There are multiple reasons for why Superman is appealing. Being an unstoppable force isn't the only one. Hell, he hasn't been written like that for decades.

As Ang Lee's Hulk, he survived having a rocky canyon blown up around him and getting shot into the upper atmosphere and in the fight between him and his father, the Hulk is the last man standing.

The main theme of the Hulk is the horrors that science can create when abused and that's what the film gave us. it asked some big questions about science and the limitations of humanity, which is why the "Puny Human" line was so intense. Despite the "avocado" coloring the Hulk himself was much more convincing than the 2008 version, who to me always looked like a video game character because of the shiny skin and limited facial expression.

 

[Mr.Petey]

Er in my opinion I just found it dour and depressing. It has no hope, clings to misery and just seems incredibly, unnecessarily tragic. The dog monsters were a little out of place and setting the tone into mild horror, which felt like a huge step in the wrong direction

 

[Wuvlycuddles]

You wouldn't like me when I'm Ang Lee.


Anyway.... Honestly I think it's pretty hard to do the character justice on film unless you go full on 50's sci fi monster movie.

 

[LostCrusader]

It had a few scenes that I thought were interesting, but it was way to long and the CGI was terrible.

 

[Gretha Unterberg]

They did well to try to capture Banner's brooding.

The problem is, they did very little to show off what the hulk can do. The Hulk has only three lines he's known for.

"Leave Hulk Alone!"

"Hulk Smash!"

"Hulk is the Strongest there is!"

... So where was the strongest there is part?

He threw a tank. I know I can't do it, but big whoop. Superman saved an airplane from crashing and lifted an island made out of his own weakness and threw it into orbit. Superman took a bullet in the eye.

What did the Hulk really do that was so mindblowing? He's the ultimate power male fantasy. Even more than Superman. Because the Hulk is unrestrained and if angered, precious few things can stop him. You decide to film the ultimate male power fantasy and then you make him limp. What's the point then? What's the point of casting a binary character and really just focus on the cerebral part and not give equal amount of love to the brawn part?

Not a Comicperson , so I'm probably wrong about the cannon in there.
But the Image of Hulk in pop-culture is an adaption of Dr. Jekyll und Mr. Hyde that took it to the extreme.

Most people have the urge for shouting and lashing out in order to vent their anger,
but we are civiliced and keep that beast contained, figurative speaking. (also a likely origin of the Werewolf myth)

When pushed to far , Banner dosn't just give in to his rage, snaps and runs amok.
He becomes rampage incarnate. The reason he is afraight of becoming super strong is because it can't be controlled, who knows what happens once the beast is unleased.

They got the brooding part right, the build up.
But when it finally happens ..... been years since I have seen the movie, I mostly remember a sad and confused looking bodybuilder bouncing like a gummyball thought the desert.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

As a lot of people have already said, the CGI for the time just wasn't up to snuff.

The "Hulk Dogs" part was just terrible. They didn't even look like dogs by that point, they just looked like some sort of weird puppets.

I get what it was going for, but I hated the comic book panels thing.

The final part with Absorbing Man or whoever he was supposed to be was needlessly confusing.

 

[Remus]

Hulk big but not twice tank size. They got the scale a bit off when they designed Hulk in the Ang Lee version. Then they screwed up again in the Incredible Hulk by making him too lean. It's like the 3 Bears - he wasn't just right until the Avengers movies - a nice middle ground between Stayed Puft Marshmallow Hulk and 0% Bodyfat Hulk. Too big, too small, and finally, juuuust right.

This and the whole comic panelling of movie scenes - when making a comic book into a movie, it's not paying homage by splitting scenes like this. It's annoying people by forcing them to divide attention and insulting to the ones with TV screens under 29 inches. I do have to give credit to the Incredible Hulk for one thing though - the animation still wasn't quite there - they didn't even attempt to model hulk's face after Norton's like they did in the other 2 incarnations - but every scene with the Hulk in it, especially near the end, looked taken straight out of an Alex Ross painting.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Honest Trailers always cracks me up.

OT; I didn't like the shade of green they chose for him, those mutant dogs, or the ratio of Hulk to non-Hulk in the movie.

 

[Euryptus]

You wouldn't like me when I'm Ang Lee.

This pun deserves more love