Oh boy, I am dead tired today. I am playing to watch this interesting looking Soviet movie from the 1930s. But I just can't keep my eyes open.
Okay let's turn over to Netflix and find some easy going entertainment. Why what's this! Ang Lee's Hulk movie!
I haven't seen this bizarre weird little film since it came out.
I'm a little excited to see it. I can't remember the last time I said that about a comic book movie most of the modern ones are very formulaic. They're all technically good but they're just uninteresting.
I can't separate one from the other. But the 2003 Hulk movie.
Oh that's a different story.
This film had so many strange and awkward events that little chunks of it just stick out in my mind. Or at least I think they stuck out in my mind.
Now I'm kind of afraid that I'm going to watch the film and discover that there wasn't anything interesting in it and that it was all just figments of the past. Well we shall see.
Well the movie has just as many weird Parts as I remember.
However the film is not as awkward as I thought it was.
The foundational story is incredibly straightforward with that old romantic cliche of ''love conquers all''.
In this case it's the supposedly lovely Jennifer Connelly being able to come down Bruce Banner (played by Eric Bana*) character so that he stops being a raging hulking monster. It just doesn't mingle well with all the other weird things in the story.
But who cares about any of that. You don't watch the 2003 Hulk movie for a basic story. You watch it because you either want to see a bunch of really weird stuff involving lab experiments, a crazy man (played by Nick Nolte) and some surprisingly decent cinematography.
There's also a few halting Rampage scenes but they honestly just feel like filler in the movie. They're technically fine and there are some unique one off moments that are kind of entertaining. Like when the whole cast to escape out of an underground bunker or his first transformation when he's destroying his laboratory.
There's a scene where a couple of military helicopters are attacking the Hulk and he's jumping around and throwing stuff at them and having a big old fight.
And I started to think to myself; This Hulk movie with a little bit of tweaking could easily be turned into a King Kong flick.
You've got the big raging Beast, the military that doesn't know how to handle him. A love interests which is the only chunk of humanity within the monster and you have a kind of poetic death at the end.
Except King Kong climbed on the biggest baddest building in the entire city and then got shot down by aeroplanes where is the Hulk ended up dying in a big atomic explosion of psionic energy and a weird Cosmic force that was dwelling within his father. That was a weird sense to try and type out.
Can I talk about how much I like Nick Nolte in this film.
He plays David Banner the father of Bruce Banner and the guy who started genetic testing on various animals, than inevitably himself. All in the name of some scientific scheme.
I think he was supposed to be finding a cure for cancer or something but the movie doesn't make that part overly clear.
All it makes clear is that this guy is dedicated to his work and nothing else.
And at some point he goes completely cuckoo and tries to kill his own son in a fit of rage
I just love Nick Knowles performance in this film.
He's 1/2 Old creep and 1/2 psychopath. He keeps jumping around with the Jitters and when he inevitably gets his power at the end of the movie he just goes completely off the rails.
I want to see a film with Nick Nolte playing David Banner from this movie and Willem Dafoe Green Goblin from Sam Raimi's Spider-Man.
I want to see those two team up together and just trash the universe as they go around screaming at people.
It doesn't even have to be a movie about actual superheroes and villains. The two of them could just be mad homeless people thinking they have powers and harassing everyone around them down and 110th Street or wherever.
This has to be the least Sam Elliott that Sam Elliott has ever been in a movie. Usually when you see him pop up in a film you always has this air personality about him. A very particular personality that only Sam Elliott can have. But it almost feels removed from that in this film. You could have honestly we play somebody else and had the exact same outcome. Not that I'd want him replaced.
Conclusion: Is the movie good? Not really. It's riddled with problems and it's weird atmosphere and non-conventional story would turn a lot of people off. It's these very things that make me enjoy the film but I can realize a bad movie when I see it. If you just want to watch a Hulk movie where he smashes things up is a big green monster and maybe one of those other Hulk movies would be better Suited.
I kind of like this movie. It's so unconventional compared to most comic book movies that it stands out and I'm a big sucker for people trying to push more artsy cinematography into what's perceived to be a superhero mainstream movie. So you know make of it what you will. I like it, you don't have to like it, what do I care.
*I have never heard of this guy before. From what I can gather he was on The time-traveling Housewives but otherwise I've never come across them. I wonder if he got the job because of the name. Eric Bana Bruce Banner sounds pretty similar. I hope that's not the reason he got the job. That would be all horrible horrible reason.
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