- Studio: Universal Pictures
- Release Date: Jun 20, 2003
- Critic Score
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75Ang 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.
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88Hulk 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.
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38This 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."
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75Lee'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.
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50More 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.
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75Always energetic and sometimes cockamamie enough to be genuinely fun, Hulk is the blockbuster to beat this season.
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42A 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.
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50The 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.
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50To answer your first question: like a cross between Shrek, the Frankenstein monster, and a Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robot.
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40The 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.
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60In 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.
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78No 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.
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70The 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.
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50The main problem with The Hulk, really, is that there isn't enough Hulk in it.
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63I 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.
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75The Hulk has a split personality: Two-thirds come from director Ang Lee, one-third from '60s comic book creator Stan Lee.
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67Director 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.
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70Takes 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.
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63Whereas 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."
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70This 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.
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88A 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.
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58As this all plays out -- and basically segues into "King Kong" -- the movie wins its biggest gamble: its entirely computer-generated monster works.
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80Hits on all cylinders -- a smart blend of acting, direction, editing, design, costumes and effects.
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30Belabored, ostentatious, overlong behemoth.
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50There's a fine line between darkness and glumness, one that "Spider-Man" bounced off buildings to avoid. The Hulk lumbers across it.
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20The movie is bulky and inarticulate, leaving behind a trail of wreckage and incoherence.
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70The Hulk is a beautiful movie, but it's unlikely to win points as a monster flick -- it's too elegant, too whimsical.
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50Unlike 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.
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80Where so many comic-book movies feel as disposable as Kleenex, the passionate, uncynical Hulk stamps itself into your memory. Lees movies are built to last.
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50Nolte'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.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 57 out of 123
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Mixed: 13 out of 123
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Negative: 53 out of 123
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PaulL.2
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AaronF.9