Ang Lee's Hulk
I walked out of a screening of Hulk last night, surrounded by comic book geeks. One of them is a friend of mine, the owner of a local comic shop, and many of his employees were in attendance. Reactions were mixed. Some liked it a lot, but others were disappointed. "Too much cheesy dialogue." "Weird-ass direction." "Bad acting."
Someone obviously laced their popcorn with hallucinogens, because I don't think they saw the same movie I saw.
Hulk will be compared endlessly to Spider-Man, which is unfair: though both are elegant translations of their source material, and both were made by top-notch directors, Spider-Man is a more straightforward retelling of the original comics, while Hulk makes more modifications to tell an ambitiously dramatic story about the relationships between children and their fathers, and about the monsters who hide inside all of us. True, these same themes are explored in the Hulk comics, but this particular story is more obviously a "movie story," as opposed to one that could be told effectively in a graphic novel. Yes, the first hour is a bit slow and it takes an awfully long time for the Hulk to show up, but the payoff is worth the wait. This is not the simple story of a teenager who gains powers and must learn to use them responsibly; it is a more complicated tale, with a history that must be learned before the effects in the later lives of these characters can be fully appreciated.
At the same time, Hulk remains truer to the visual language of its comic book roots than did Spider-Man. Spider-Man did translate many shots directly from page to screen, but Hulk director Ang Lee makes generous use of split-screen effects to actually bring the feel of comic book panels to his film. For someone who has grown up reading comics, it is a breathtaking moment to witness a film in which the director not only understands the different visual dialects of film and comics, but marries the two to create something practically unseen before in any movie. This effect allows us to see two perspectives on the same moment (as opposed to simply two different locations, as in previous films), and also two different moments on screen at once. If this is "weird-ass direction," put me down in the "pro weird-ass" column.
How to explain the mixed reactions of the crowd of geeks with whom I saw Hulk? Two things: First, a lot of misplaced expectations. This is not a non-stop adrenaline ride, and anyone who expects that will find themselves half-satisifed. There are a few moments that will feel a bit too melodramatic if you allow yourself to become emotionally distanced from the characters. (This is nothing new: imagine my irritation at a screening of the Special Edition of The Empire Strikes Back. There were several teenagers who couldn't stop laughing at Luke Skywalker's histrionics when he discovers that Darth Vader is, indeed, his father.)
Secondly, I think movie audiences are simply spoiled. (I'm going to earn extra curmudgeon points with this one.) Now that we can put anything on screen, many people expect each (seemingly) effects-driven film to be bigger and louder than the previous one, which inevitably leads to disappointment when a director chooses a different path. Viewers are also beginning to take CGI effects for granted. I've been thinking a lot about this; if Hulk had shown up out of the blue fifteen years ago, jaws would have dropped and people would never have stopped proclaiming it as one of the greatest films of all time. The Hulk himself is nothing short of an actor, conjured out of thin air. (Watch in particular the scene when a character reaches out to touch the Hulk's face.) But because we have come to this technology in steps, it's easy to think of the Hulk as just another CGI critter.
Fortunately, this summer has made me (and, I hope, others like me) feel like a kid who discovers his brussel sprouts have been replaced by chocolate ice cream. Between Finding Nemo, The Matrix Reloaded, X-Men 2, and Hulk, this is quite possibly one of the best summer movie seasons in history, especially for those of us with a keen awareness of just how bad genre movies can be. And with Charlie's Angels 2 and Spy-Kids 3D just over the horizon, I don't see any reason that the fun has to stop here.
One last note: keep your eyes open at the beginning for the cameo of Lou Ferrigno (formerly TV's Hulk) and Stan Lee (the creator of Hulk and Marvel Comics' other seminal characters), walking together. Personally, I think Lee's creations, like J.R.R. Tolkien's, have simply been untranslatable to screen until now. When he saw this film he must have crapped his pants. All those years of dreck movies find atonement at last.
Someone obviously laced their popcorn with hallucinogens, because I don't think they saw the same movie I saw.
Hulk will be compared endlessly to Spider-Man, which is unfair: though both are elegant translations of their source material, and both were made by top-notch directors, Spider-Man is a more straightforward retelling of the original comics, while Hulk makes more modifications to tell an ambitiously dramatic story about the relationships between children and their fathers, and about the monsters who hide inside all of us. True, these same themes are explored in the Hulk comics, but this particular story is more obviously a "movie story," as opposed to one that could be told effectively in a graphic novel. Yes, the first hour is a bit slow and it takes an awfully long time for the Hulk to show up, but the payoff is worth the wait. This is not the simple story of a teenager who gains powers and must learn to use them responsibly; it is a more complicated tale, with a history that must be learned before the effects in the later lives of these characters can be fully appreciated.
At the same time, Hulk remains truer to the visual language of its comic book roots than did Spider-Man. Spider-Man did translate many shots directly from page to screen, but Hulk director Ang Lee makes generous use of split-screen effects to actually bring the feel of comic book panels to his film. For someone who has grown up reading comics, it is a breathtaking moment to witness a film in which the director not only understands the different visual dialects of film and comics, but marries the two to create something practically unseen before in any movie. This effect allows us to see two perspectives on the same moment (as opposed to simply two different locations, as in previous films), and also two different moments on screen at once. If this is "weird-ass direction," put me down in the "pro weird-ass" column.
How to explain the mixed reactions of the crowd of geeks with whom I saw Hulk? Two things: First, a lot of misplaced expectations. This is not a non-stop adrenaline ride, and anyone who expects that will find themselves half-satisifed. There are a few moments that will feel a bit too melodramatic if you allow yourself to become emotionally distanced from the characters. (This is nothing new: imagine my irritation at a screening of the Special Edition of The Empire Strikes Back. There were several teenagers who couldn't stop laughing at Luke Skywalker's histrionics when he discovers that Darth Vader is, indeed, his father.)
Secondly, I think movie audiences are simply spoiled. (I'm going to earn extra curmudgeon points with this one.) Now that we can put anything on screen, many people expect each (seemingly) effects-driven film to be bigger and louder than the previous one, which inevitably leads to disappointment when a director chooses a different path. Viewers are also beginning to take CGI effects for granted. I've been thinking a lot about this; if Hulk had shown up out of the blue fifteen years ago, jaws would have dropped and people would never have stopped proclaiming it as one of the greatest films of all time. The Hulk himself is nothing short of an actor, conjured out of thin air. (Watch in particular the scene when a character reaches out to touch the Hulk's face.) But because we have come to this technology in steps, it's easy to think of the Hulk as just another CGI critter.
Fortunately, this summer has made me (and, I hope, others like me) feel like a kid who discovers his brussel sprouts have been replaced by chocolate ice cream. Between Finding Nemo, The Matrix Reloaded, X-Men 2, and Hulk, this is quite possibly one of the best summer movie seasons in history, especially for those of us with a keen awareness of just how bad genre movies can be. And with Charlie's Angels 2 and Spy-Kids 3D just over the horizon, I don't see any reason that the fun has to stop here.
One last note: keep your eyes open at the beginning for the cameo of Lou Ferrigno (formerly TV's Hulk) and Stan Lee (the creator of Hulk and Marvel Comics' other seminal characters), walking together. Personally, I think Lee's creations, like J.R.R. Tolkien's, have simply been untranslatable to screen until now. When he saw this film he must have crapped his pants. All those years of dreck movies find atonement at last.
