Well, The Hulk is playing at the cheap theater now, so I figured for $3 I'd give it a shot. Since I kinda figured it had a pretty good chance of sucking, my expectations were pretty low.
I was actually pleasantly surprised; I actually enjoyed it. First off, about the effects: they ranged from sucky, extremely laughably sucky, fair, and pretty decent. The first time Bruce changes into the Hulk in the lab was just awful, but the outdoor stuff was mostly good. The gamma dog thingies mostly looked crappy, but I did get a kick out of the scenes where he travelled in the old comic book standard of jumping miles at a time, and I liked the scene where Hulk trashed the tanks.
I was also surprised to see the expressiveness they managed to give the CG Hulk. Some shots were indeed horrendous, but often the Hulk character managed some, er, subtly in his roars and grimaces.
Nolte was brilliant as the dishevelled madman, although that's pretty much what he looks like all the time. The dude looks like he'd be right at home living in a washer/dryer box somewhere. His portrayal was very sinister and convincing. Likewise, I always like Sam Elliot, and he was great as well. Even tho I initially that Bana was a little milquetoast to be Banner, I warmed to his character as the movie went on.
And of course, if they gave an Oscar out just for being a hottie, Jennifer Connelly would have a shelf full of 'em.
Marvel is on a serious roll here; a couple more like this and the cheesy flops of the past will be completely forgotten. Although the new Punisher looks like they phoned that one in.
However, it was funny that Hulk was like that old series, "The A-team." You know how they'd fire like 500,000 rounds of ammo per week and no one ever got hit? Well no matter what the Hulk smashes or throws, we always see the soldiers stagger out of the wreckage. The one bozo that does get killed blows himself up.
Anyway, a lot better than I expected. Now I actually wish I'd have seen it at the nice theater. Oh, well. It might be a keeper on DVD.
