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Incredible Hulk, The
Universal Pictures, Marvel Studios
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FILM:
MPAA RATING: PG-13 for sequences of intense action violence, some frightening sci-fi images, and brief suggestive content
Starring
Edward Norton,
Liv Tyler,
Tim Roth,
Tim Blake Nelson,
Ty Burrell,
and
William Hurt
The Incredible Hulk kicks off an all-new, explosive and action-packed epic of one of the most popular Super Heroes of all time. In the film, scientist Bruce Banner desperately hunts for a cure to the gamma radiation that poisoned his cells and unleashes the unbridled force of rage within him: The Hulk. Living in the shadows—cut off form a life he knew and the woman he loves, Betty Ross—Banner struggles to avoid the obsessive pursuit of his nemesis, General Thunderbolt Ross and the military machinery that seeks to capture him and brutally exploit his power. As all three grapple with the secrets that led to The Hulk’s creation, they are confronted with a monstrous new adversary known as the Abomination, whose destructive strength exceeds even The Hulk’s own. (Universal Studios)
| GENRE(S): |
Action
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Fantasy
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Sci-fi
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| WRITTEN BY: |
Stan Lee (Marvel comic book)
Jack Kirby (Marvel comic book)
Zak Penn
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| DIRECTED BY: |
Louis Leterrier
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| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: October 21, 2008
Theatrical: June 13, 2008
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
114 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA |
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
80
The Hollywood Reporter
Kirk Honeycutt
"Iron Man" has more wit and style, but Hulk is a neat thrill ride with an intelligent script by Zak Penn and smart, well-paced direction by the French director of "The Transporter" series, Louis Leterrier.
78
Austin Chronicle
Marc Savlov
Five years after Ang Lee attempted a stylistically and narratively daring reimagining of what a comic-book movie could be (an example that tanked disastrously at the box office), the big green gamma-guy returns to the screen in a purer, more unadulterated, vastly more entertaining form.
75
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
Embraces its identity as a sci-fi-summer-action-blockbuster extravaganza. Along the way, it actually comes close to finding the balance that Lee was looking for.
75
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
The Incredible Hulk is a more traditional superhero movie than its predecessor and should please those who want their not-so-jolly green giant served with helpings of action. This film provides less talk and more smashing.
75
Premiere
Eric Kohn
By handing the directorial reigns to Louis Leterrier, the Parisian filmmaker responsible for the breathless "Transporter" films, Universal reveals its desire to emphasize spectacle over story.
75
Charlotte Observer
Lawrence Toppman
Edward Norton's a more evocative actor than Eric Bana, and he supplies all the emotions required by Leterrier and writer Zak Penn.
75
Chicago Tribune
Michael Phillips
Until the last 20 minutes, which stumble around in an attempt to set up a sequel, The Incredible Hulk keeps slamming everything forward, satisfyingly.
75
TV Guide
Ken Fox
The dialogue is minimal but sharp, the pace swift and the action sequences suitably loud and brutal.
75
Baltimore Sun
Michael Sragow
Luckily, the new The Incredible Hulk is more like those 80-page special issues that comic-book publishers sold in the early 1960s for a quarter, packed with old, favorite story lines.
75
Portland Oregonian
Marc Mohan
Loses something when it depends on its computer-generated creatures to carry the story. The effects are a mile above the previous Hulk film, but there's still a certain awkwardness to some movements, and an odd lack of definition to the massive muscles that makes them seem like gelatinous sacks of meat.
70
New York Magazine
David Edelstein
The Incredible Hulk is weightless--as disposable as an Xbox game. It's also fairly entertaining: swift, playful without pitching into camp, and acted with high spirits.
70
Chicago Reader
Andrea Gronvall
There's enough adrenaline pulsating throughout this bang-up Marvel Comics adaptation to erase 2003's Hulk from memory (Ang who?).
70
Washington Post
Ann Hornaday
The result is a classic comic-book hero quest that, while not entirely novel, hews to its own rules and conventions with dignity and artfulness.
70
Variety
Todd McCarthy
A straightforward actioner that delivers the goods with no unnecessary frills or digressions.
67
Entertainment Weekly
Owen Gleiberman
The Incredible Hulk is just a luridly reductive and violent B movie -- one that clears a bar that hadn't been set very high.
67
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
William Arnold
It may be that the Hulk role was not made for sensitive method actors like Norton or Bana. When '70s TV-"Hulk" Lou Ferrigno made his obligatory cameo, a palpable wave of affection swept through the Seattle preview audience.
67
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Keith Phipps
The Hulk himself looks more steroidal than superheroic, as if the expressive beast from the first film had been replaced by a WWE star.
63
Boston Globe
Wesley Morris
There's a certain pleasure to be had in some of the physical blowouts.
63
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
By the time the Incredible Hulk had completed his hulk-on-hulk showdown with the Incredible Blonsky, I had been using my Timex with the illuminated dial way too often.
63
Miami Herald
Rene Rodriguez
Closer in spirit and tone to the comic books that spawned it.
63
New York Post
Lou Lumenick
Like its monstrous hero, The Incredible Hulk gets the job done with minimal artistry and a lot of noise.
63
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
The final confrontation between the Hulk and Blonsky, now the roaring Abomination, is like the clash of Downey and Bridges in "Iron Man," only not as exciting.
63
Philadelphia Inquirer
Steven Rea
Don't run off before the credits start to roll, though: The Incredible Hulk ends with a jokey cameo by a certain movie star with his own newfound superhero franchise.
63
USA Today
Claudia Puig
This Hulk is more viscerally angry and packs a bigger wallop than Ang Lee's talkier, more introspective version. But it's hardly the best superhero movie around. "Iron Man" was wittier and more fun.
60
Empire
Simon Crook
A franchise rebooted with efficiency, energy and sporadic invention, although Hulk 2.0 hardly smashes it out of the park.
60
Village Voice
Robert Wilonsky
Cheers to lower expectations, then, because The Incredible Hulk is The Pretty Good Hulk. All things considered, of course.
60
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
The result is solid and efficient, if unadventurous, illustrating both the lure and the limitations of comic book extravaganzas.
60
The New Yorker
David Denby
It's nothing we haven't seen done better before (by Paul Greengrass in the recent "Bourne Ultimatum," for instance), but it's good enough as kinetic entertainment.
60
Film Threat
Zack Haddad
In the end, don't go see this if you are looking for an intellectual film. If you're into seeing some fun, mindless action in a faithful Marvel comic adaptation for a couple hours, then go see the Hulk smash some stuff.
58
Christian Science Monitor
Peter Rainer
Do we really need another Hulk movie? I was one of the few critics who actually liked Ang Lee's 2003 "Hulk," but it didn't exactly ring the cash registers or clamor for a continuation.
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Liam Lacey
Playing characters familiar to the fans, we have William Hurt as a blustering general, Tim Blake Nelson as a kooky scientist and Tim Roth as an evil soldier who morphs into a monster. All of them seem to be directing themselves.
50
Slate
Dana Stevens
Why remake a crappy movie five years later if it's only going to be marginally less crappy?
50
The New York Times
A.O. Scott
A middling superhero movie! I wish I could say that was incredible.
50
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
Once again, though, the film is defined by the strengths and weaknesses of the source material. While Bruce is working on anger management, you may find yourself working on boredom management, and matching his rate of success.
50
Salon.com
Stephanie Zacharek
The Incredible Hulk suggests only that we've bottomed out on special effects: They're not necessarily getting better -- they're just getting bigger. Technically, Leterrier's Hulk is as realistic-looking as a rampaging green giant could be. But that doesn't make him credible.
50
Time
Richard Schickel
One has to admit that enormous moviemaking skill goes into the creation of pictures like The Incredible Hulk. The sheer craft directors such as Leterrier lavish on them is awesome to me. I can't imagine how they orchestrate -- or even remember -- all the little pieces of film they require to build their big set pieces. That thought, however, is nearly always followed by this question: Why do they bother?
50
Newsweek
David Ansen
For me, there's a problem with The Hulk, always has been, though it hasn't seemed to bother the tale's legions of fans. When the sensitive, physically unprepossessing Banner/Norton turns into the gargantuan, muscle-bound, growling Hulk, there's a total disconnect.
40
New York Daily News
Joe Neumaier
Roth and Hurt glower semi-engagingly, and while Norton's scrawniness works, he seems intellectually disengaged, despite his helping to craft Zak Penn's script.
 The average user rating for this movie is 7.8 (out of 10) based on 179 User Votes
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