Hulk, The

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

A movie likely to rally huge audiences who want to take another roller coaster ride. And though it may disappoint a few of them, it's also a film that gives you something to think and feel sad about. It smashes you -- gently.

Philadelphia Inquirer Karen Heller

A heady stew of psychological disorders and classic tragedies, borrowing from Shakespeare, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and the Greeks.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Hulk represents the most involving superhero motion picture since "Superman" soared skywards in 1978. By taking its time to develop characters and situations, Hulk does what so many action/adventure movies fail to do -- allow us to really feel for the protagonists.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Hits on all cylinders -- a smart blend of acting, direction, editing, design, costumes and effects.

Newsweek David Ansen

Where so many comic-book movies feel as disposable as Kleenex, the passionate, uncynical Hulk stamps itself into your memory. Lee’s movies are built to last.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

The result is perhaps the most elegantly shot, and certainly the most disturbing, of the recent fantasy films.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

No one has ever succeeded with anything approximating the sheer energetic brilliance of what Lee has managed here. For all intents and purposes, this is a comic-book movie in the very truest and most vibrant sense of the phrase.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Always energetic and sometimes cockamamie enough to be genuinely fun, Hulk is the blockbuster to beat this season.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

The Hulk has a split personality: Two-thirds come from director Ang Lee, one-third from '60s comic book creator Stan Lee.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Ang Lee has boldly taken the broad outlines of a comic book story and transformed them to his own purposes; this is a comic book movie for people who wouldn't be caught dead at a comic book movie.

Premiere Peter Debruge

Lee’s use of split-screens and dynamic transitions makes the process of actively interpreting his monstrous vision a fresh and unrivaled experience.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Lee's technique is impeccable, but he's chasing more inner demons than one creature feature can handle. No wonder the audience cheers when TV Hulk Lou Ferrigno shows up for a cameo. It's a reminder of a time when it was easier being green and a Hulk could just get pissed off and bust shit up.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

The Hulk is a beautiful movie, but it's unlikely to win points as a monster flick -- it's too elegant, too whimsical.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

The real star is the splendid computer-generated Hulk, though his King Kong-like story is compromised by the need to keep him around for the inevitable sequel.

Variety Todd McCarthy

This impeccably crafted piece of megabuck fantasy storytelling aims to pull off the tricky feat of significantly reworking the superhero format while still providing the expected tentpole-type entertainment thrills for the international masses.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Takes the form of a wounded behemoth, battling to negotiate a compromise between a strong artistic vision and franchise expectations. It doesn't fully succeed on either count, but its integrity and substance stand out like an oasis in a field of cotton candy.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Director Ang Lee displays enormous verve and flair. He creates ingenious transitions between scenes, deploying split-screens in a clever variation on comic book panels and, as ever, drawing coolly impassioned performances from the cast.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

I wanted more. I expected more. The filmmakers said it was going to be smart - really smart - like all of Lee's movies. Instead, it's big, dumb and fun.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Whereas the psychology is surreal and wonderfully fluid, the action is too real and surprisingly listless, displaying little of the kinetic zip, or the sheer lyricism, that Lee brought with such memorable effect to "Crouching Tiger."

Washington Post Desson Thomson

In the end, we don't know what we're watching, an art-house superhero film or a computer-generated "King Kong." By trying to please both sensibilities, the filmmakers have pleased neither.

Los Angeles Times Manohla Dargis

However nifty, Lee's Cubist gambit fails to capture the graphic tension that makes great comic-book art jump off the page and great pop movies jump off the screen with pow, zap and wow!

Dallas Observer Bill Gallo

Some Marvel fans and die-hard devotees of Lou Ferrigno, the bodybuilder who played The Hulk on television (and who does a brief walk-on here), may find Ang Lee's whole enterprise grandiose and, given its not-always-successful attempt to fuse brains and brawn, a little bit silly.

The New Yorker David Denby

Structurally a mess and unevenly made, but the first forty minutes or so are quite beautiful. [7 July 2003, p. 84]

Film Threat Clint Morris

Folks read comics for enjoyment, not to admire how well the pictures are drawn, and the same axiom can be directed here with audiences likely to admire the work that’s gone into this film -- rather than joyously enjoying the film itself.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

As this all plays out -- and basically segues into "King Kong" -- the movie wins its biggest gamble: its entirely computer-generated monster works.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

More thoughtful and pleasing to the eye than any blockbuster in recent memory, but its epic length comes without an epic reward. It's a slow ride to the same old place, nonstop action, accelerating in scale, culminating in the smirking promise of a sequel.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

The main problem with The Hulk, really, is that there isn't enough Hulk in it.

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

Nolte's exploding patriarch jacks up the story's antisocial wish fulfillment into a Nietzschean-anarchist's wet dream, but one can only vainly hope that the preordained sequel will head in that dastardly direction.

TV Guide Ken Fox

The entirely computer-generated Hulk is a surprisingly expressive creation — it certainly gives a better performance than Connelly — but the action is late in coming and feels like a long set-up for the inevitable sequel.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

To answer your first question: like a cross between Shrek, the Frankenstein monster, and a Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robot.

USA Today Mike Clark

There's a fine line between darkness and glumness, one that "Spider-Man" bounced off buildings to avoid. The Hulk lumbers across it.

Slate David Edelstein

Unlike your average comic-book blockbuster, The Hulk isn't a bad cartoon. It's a bad modern Greek tragedy. It's a swing at the moon that looks (and smells) like green cheese.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

A comic-book superhero has seldom squandered so much screen time being conflicted about his heritage and destiny -- and I don't mean conflicted in a sexy, Wolverine-y, ''X-Men'' way, either; a big-budget comic-book adaptation has rarely felt so humorless and intellectually defensive about its own pulpy roots.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

The movie's real locus of anger must have been the director, Ang Lee, once he realized what an epic clod his computer wizards had wrought.

Film Threat Mike Watt

Somewhere in the middle of The Hulk is a big, dumb, noisy movie trying desperately to get out.

Time Richard Schickel

Lee must have thought he could work a similar magic on this clunking, clanking machine. But despite a few witty wipes and split-screen tricks, he fails. Hulk is no better than hulking.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

This messy, disappointing, self-important and utterly humorless version of the Marvel comic book character may be the toughest flick with a green protagonist to sit through since "The Grinch."

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

Belabored, ostentatious, overlong behemoth.

Salon.com Charles Taylor

The Hulk goes on for two hours and 20 minutes and there's not a stirring or exciting moment in it...At last, a comic-book movie that National Public Radio listeners can be proud to take their kids to see.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

The movie is bulky and inarticulate, leaving behind a trail of wreckage and incoherence.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

In future Lee can best serve his versatility by never doing anything like this again.