In Which We Remake You Into Hulkish Oblivion

Abomination

by Alex Carnevale

The Incredible Hulk

dir. Louis Leterrier

115 minutes

About halfway through Edward Norton's braindead The Incredible Hulk, you are pounded into submission. No more remakes, you say. They're the feature film version of 'Telephone.' The eighteenth version of the same movie only gets progressively worse and more insulting.

norton is so standing on a chair right now

The moment of recognition is this: Betty Ross (a bloated, probably smelly Liv Tyler) and Bruce Banner/Hulk (Edward Norton) hop into a cab in New York City, and are taken on a screaming tour of the Upper West Side by a cab driver. Afterwards, Ross berates the cabbie for nearly taking their lives. "I have some strategies to deal with that anger," Banner informs her. It doesn't get a laugh from an audience because it's the kind of punchline your Mom would make, but it belies a larger point.

The whole point of the Hulk was to take mild-mannered Bruce Banner, nerd, and to have him bust up dumb fools by turning into his engorged, green alter ego. Nothing and no one offends the latest Hulk. He barely gets mad.

I was probably the only one who felt the Ang Lee version was sufficient weird and overlong, but then I've never been a fan of the Hulk and appreciated a weirder, more artsy take. How could you not love this?

The 2003 Ang Lee directed Hulk film saw discussion of the character's appeal to Asian-Americans.The Taiwanese born Ang Lee commented on the "subcurrent of repression" that underscored the character of The Hulk, and how that mirrored his own experience: "Growing up, my artistic leanings were always repressed -- there was always pressure to do something 'useful,' like being a doctor."

Asian Hulk 2002 in San Francisco...it was so real first Hulk [sob]

Bruce Banner's most interesting trait - dorky scientist turns badass - was ruined when meathead Eric Bana was cast as him, and I'm afraid Norton, while shrimpy enough, has you asking yourself constantly, "Is that the dude who curb stomped that fellow in American History X?"

norton and partner shauna robertson

Norton's first big roles came from playing menacing killers in American History X, where he battled director Tony Kaye, and Primal Fear, where he lacked the clout to change a famous book ending to his own ends. You can see the nitpicker in him - too much of a douchebag to actually helm the movies himself, he instead devotes his time to 'artistic' cuts of his ousted director's footage.

norton with the director, whose balls he is holding in an all too familiar vice grip

This leaves little time to work on his acting, which is preeningly dreadful here.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWWzve8Z90s]

To be fair, The Incredible Hulk starts well enough. It omits the Hulk's origination story through some flashbackery, and jumps into the action. We find Banner poor and working in a factory in tenement-style Brazil. Because when you think Hulk, you think South America.

Still, on-the-run Hulk is a useful idea. A fugitive trying to prove himself storyline has a natural momentum to it. Unfortunately, there's no actual plot to speak of here. When an antidote seems in the offing, it's never quite explained what importance it might have. An antidote for a Hulk is a dumb idea anyway - the Hulk's anger suppressed, there's just Bruce Banner.

great set guys, did you just take the mad scientist set from hollow man or something?

A convivial cast might have lightened the humorless mood, but William Hurt contributes what I think is a word for word performance identical to Sam Elliott's in the original Hulk, with more consistent hair.

Tim Roth's participation only emphasizes the fact that the film is about what short people do when they have no reason to live.

"there's no easy way to say this, tim, but we decided to put you below betty ross' dad in the billing"

Like Ben Gale in Lost, Roth becomes an entertaining antihero simply because he's the only character with a clear desire for something that he can achieve.

Hulk wants whatever; he wants to be alone, in which case I don't know why he returns to the U.S. from Brazil. Super-soldier Roth wants to kill Hulk. When he doesn't manage the feat, you feel kinda sad. You can't even enjoy a revenge killing in the movies anymore.

arwen hangover

Without much going on, we're reduced to gazingly stuporifically at Liv Tyler, whose career as eye candy descends into a perilously ugly valley in Hulk.

Perhaps we're extra conscious of it because her mother was not only a glorious pinup but one of the most stunning rock and roll groupies ever to pose in Playboy, but Ms. Tyler looks like two Arwens smushed together.

liv's sooper hot mom bebe buell

It's not just the extra weight she's carrying - we could take a slightly heavy heroine after so many Keira Knightley health scares. It's more than she's twice the size of Banner, and so gargantuan in comparison to the villain Tim Roth that she seems like a more likely candidate to become Hulk's foe, The Abomination.

or

I'm going to post these both on Hot or Not and see who gets more action. I also want to make a Nerve Personals profile for the Abomination. Have spine - literally! You know what I'm saying.

Hulk's never been much of the romantic type. His chaste interest in Betsy Ross is a functional feature of the character. It's more exciting because he can't touch her. In Mark Millar's The Ultimates, which may eventually come to life as the Avengers movie teased in Hulk's final scene, Banner is locked in a plastic cage, reduced to a tautological life of trying to cure himself of his central defining feature.

usually i get something stuck up my anus, hulk, that is my way

The first film love interest for The Hulk was Jennifer Connelly. They should have simulcast that revolting scene from Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream during her screen time, that's how tortured this particular performance was. Liv falls short of this drastically low standard.

I mean, she had a baby in 2004, that's like a two-year bye week as we say in football. There's no reason for her lips to look like they're going to combust. The punchless, sexist script does't help. Despite playing a professor of biology, Liv is reduced to such lines as, "Do you feel like you when you're the Hulk?!??!" and "Do me."

The film's biggest disappointment is in the sex scene that should have been. Confined to a seedy hotel room after murdering a baker's dozen of army soldiers, Norton and Liv are reunited in close quarters. It's time for Hulk to finally get it on with the lady scientist who has helped ferret him to safety.

For the briefest of seconds, he's excited, we're excited, Liv's excited for the first time since her divorce, and we're excited for them. There might be happiness for Norton, and us. Then the monitor that alerts Norton to his rising heart rate begins to beep. Afraid of his green penis exploding her vagina, he stops the action before inserting his Hulk genetalia inside of her.

"I can't get excited," he says.

"Not even a little?" she asks.

Alex Carnevale is the editor of This Recording.

SAMPLE THIS MUSIC OR DIE TRYING

saussure would be proud

"Calvary Scars" - Deerhunter (mp3)

"Religion Instigates" - Discharge (mp3)

"Sure You Will" - Justice (mp3)

"Dare (Soulwax remix)" - Gorillaz (mp3)

"I Can't Make It On Time" - The Ramones (mp3)

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