Marvel Studios’ battle for dominion over our leisure time continues to gather momentum with one of their most popular characters smashing back onto our screens. He’s big. He’s green. He has issues… Well, he sort of has issues. Ok, so most people hated Ang Lee’s Hulk. It was all actualisation and not enough obliteration. But I’m guessing Marvel took that to mean we don’t care why he’s angry, let’s see him wreck the gaff already. I wonder how Brokeback Mountain would have turned out if Marvel had optioned the novel?
Marvel’s strong casting practice is certainly evident here, and between this and Iron Man we’ve already seen some of Hollywood’s big hitters get into the spirit of things (watch out for crossover cameos too – it’s in their contract). But while Robert Downey Jr. spat pithy remarks at us like a disgruntled cobra, Edward Norton’s Bruce Banner has decidedly little to say, about anything. Let’s not forget schizoid amnesiacs with anger management problems are Norton’s speciality. But very little is required of him in this film other than to run his ass off for two hours. Marvel banked on a couple of monstrous CGI set pieces switching our brains off just enough not to realise that two things are missing from this film: the characters and the plot.
Harrison Ford ran for two hours straight in The Fugitive. But he also had tasks to perform that related to his back story, his potential doom or salvation, and the moment he occupied. Don’t get me wrong, if he’d turned green and started throwing buses at Tommy Lee Jones it would have been exciting as hell. And we might even have said, “what did you expect? He told you a million times he didn’t kill his wife.” So what makes Bruce Banner turn into the Hulk? Gamma poisoning and exercise. How about insomnia and contempt for the materialism of today’s society? A fun movie with lots of thrills, but more muscular storytelling was badly needed.
Eamonn Gray
