10 Years of the MCU: A Retrospective Part 2 - The Incredible Hulk

As we gear up for the impending release of Avengers: Infinity War which is billed as the culmination of everything built up for the last decade, I'm going to revisit as much of the Marvel Cinematic Universe as I possibly can over the next month. That entails rewatching all 18 movies released to date, all of the one-shots, and at least the pilot episode of every TV show released on ABC, Netflix, and Hulu so far. So, without further ado, let's jump into it!

Every major film franchise has a black sheep. An installment that, for one reason or another, does not gel with the rest of the family of films. Star Wars has Star Wars: The Clone Wars, James Bond has Licence to Kill, Godzilla has the 1998 American movie, and so on and so forth. For many reasons, The Incredible Hulk is the black sheep of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It is the only solo MCU movie not to have a sequel either released or currently in planning, the only MCU movie to be a box office disappointment, and the only MCU movie to recast its lead actor for later appearances. The events of this film are barely mentioned in the rest of the canon aside from a one-liner here and an Easter egg there, and no actor from this film showed up in any other MCU movie until William Hurt reprised his role as General Ross in Captain America: Civil War almost eight years later.

So what went wrong? Why is this the forgotten MCU movie? Why did this one incarnation of the Hulk not click with audiences like every other character in the MCU has, including the next incarnation of the Hulk?

Five years after Ang Lee's, uh, less than stellar stab at the Hulk character, Marvel Studios opted to totally reboot the cinematic saga of the green giant of rage in hopes of making a more profitable adaptation of the character. This was a fairly risky move at the time; only Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins had proven to be a successful comic book movie reboot. However, Kevin Feige, who served as an executive producer on 2003's Hulk, was less than satisfied with the final film and wanted his newly christened Marvel Studios to take a crack at the character. All plans for a sequel to Ang Lee's film were scrapped in 2006, and a new adaptation began production which promised to give fans what they wanted: more smashing, less thinking about why they're smashing. However, before we analyze what went wrong with this film, let's focus on what went right. Being positive is always fun.

Edward Norton gives a great, layered performance as Bruce Banner, far superior to Eric Bana's permanently-constipated portrayal. Norton notoriously has a hand in every screenplay he's attached to (this would ultimately lead to him quitting The Avengers), and it's obvious he tweaked with the material he was originally given here. Norton is totally game to show the heavy physical and mental toll becoming the Hulk has on him, all of the best parts of the film deal with the desperation Banner goes through to get this monster out of his body. It is an honest shame he never came back to create chemistry with other MCU stars like Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth or Chris Evans.

All of the scenes with the Hulk are also a vast improvement over what we saw in Ang Lee's Hulk. Here, we get the real sense that this Hulk is a monster and not just some big green rubbery blob. This Hulk has mass, he wreaks havoc, but he still has that human edge that makes us feel for him without going too overboard. This makes the final fight with the Abomination all the more thrilling because, like any good monster movie with a good monster and a bad monster (and I would definitely call The Incredible Hulk the MCU's take on a monster movie), we should want to root on the good monster. The movie allows us to do this with the one-two punch of Edward Norton's conflicted portrayal and small moments where we manage to see Hulk's humanity.

Don't worry, Betty. The lightning is just reminding Hulk of that time he fought his dad.

That being said, this is where the movie's main fault also lies. This is a film that isn't quite sure what it wants to be. While director Louis Leterrier relishes in the destruction sequences, giving us several sweeping slow-motion shots and uninterrupted takes of carnage; the other side of the movie wants to be an examination of how this monster is tearing an innocent scientist apart without going too deep like the last version did. And honestly, that might be the film's biggest issue. It wants to have its cake and eat it too for lack of a better metaphor. It doesn't want to bore its audience with psychological examinations of the Hulk's effects on Bruce Banner, but it also wants to have some real depth to it. Like Hulk and Banner, this movie is torn between two personas except that doesn't quite work to its advantage.

Leterrier is far from a bad action director (the foot chase through Rocinha Favela is exciting and makes fantastic use of its locale), but he has always been weak when it comes to drama and it shows big time here. Many scenes where we could get really deep into Banner's dilemma or the desperation of Ross to catch him are abruptly cut short, as if the movie is in a rush to get to the next Hulk transformation or the next chase sequence. The movie never takes enough time to breath, zooming through moments of potential character growth, and what moments are allowed to last work once again thanks to Norton's rewrites and his performance.

Unlike Iron Man before it, the film also isn't quite as interested in its supporting cast. Liv Tyler's Betty Ross exists only to softly whisper "Bruce" every few minutes, Tim Roth's Emil Blonsky had potential but his transformation into a power-hungry madman isn't allowed to grow naturally, and Tim Blake Nelson's Samuel Sterns isn't given enough screentime to make much of an impact, so when we discover he's been experimenting with Banner's blood, it's a twist that comes out of nowhere. The only supporting character given time to shine is General Ross, which is probably why he was the one asked to come back for Civil War.

The weird thing is, when I'm actively watching The Incredible Hulk, I'm enjoying myself. I enjoy the numerous nods to the famous TV series, I find myself invested in Banner's crisis, I marvel at some of the amazing SPFX (and cringe at some of the not great SPFX), and I find myself wondering what could have been if we kept Norton. But once the movie ends, and the same thing happened when I first saw it in June of 2008, I find myself picking the film's flaws apart. I wouldn't go so far as to call it the weakest MCU film because, unlike lesser entries like Doctor Strange or Thor, it does have a unique personality. It sticks out in just the right ways, but it's understandable to see why this was the MCU film that not so many people wanted to see (it's the only MCU film to gross less than $300 million worldwide, and only grossed $2 million more domestically than Hulk without factoring in 5 years of ticket price inflation).

We would finally nail the balance of how to get a good Hulk four years later in The Avengers, albeit with a new actor at the helm. Still, this film is an interesting examination into the early years of Marvel Studios. They hadn't quite perfected their formula yet, and were still small enough that they were concerned about how to reboot a character to make it as different as possible to avoid backlash. While we'll likely never get a sequel to this film, it's still worth revisiting this one just to see how much they've grown since then. In order to appreciate their successes, sometimes we have to look at their misses. And we'll be looking at another one of their films widely considered to be a miss next time, and I'll be talking about why I don't think it's as bad as everyone thinks it is.

Next time: Iron Man 2