Hulk (2003)

On this episode of Movie Smash!, we discuss 2003's Hulk directed by Ang Lee and starring Eric Bana, Jennifer Conelly and Sam Elliot. The film tells the tragic story of Bruce Banner after he suffers a tragic accident that transforms him into a raging green monster.

Hosts: Christopher Roberts and Jeremy Parmentier

Edited By: Christopher Roberts

Produced By: Off Panel Creations, LLC

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Yeah, he's on, he's been grounded for such an opinion.

(00:03):
We're not sure if it's the gamma radiation that turns him on.
I don't know what Ang Lee looks like.
They kept picking up the sound of these students pissing away.
It felt very much high school-closed to me.
You sound like you talk from personal experience.
That's all wonderful and exactly what I want.
Hello and welcome to Movie-
MOVE!
Hello and welcome to Movie Smash, the show where we dive headfirst into

(00:31):
comic book movies outside the MCU.
If you're new to the show, thanks for joining us.
If you've been here before, you know the drill.
Each episode, we're going to smash a movie who sourced materials from a
graphic novel or a comic.
Is it worth revisiting or should it be forgotten?
Let's find out.
This is Movie Smash.
I'm one of your hosts, Chris Roberts.
I'm the founder of Off Panel Creations.
With me today, I'm Jeremy Parmiteer.
I'm Jeremy Parmiteer, also the Retrovaniacs podcast and probably the creator of many

(00:54):
dad issues.
Which I think we're going to spend a lot of time on today.
Virgo Wolf isn't able to join us today, but he will back hopefully shortly.
Our movie today is 2003's Hulk, starring Eric Bana, Jennifer Connelly, and Sam Elliott,
directed by Ang Lee.
I don't understand this.
You were exposed to a dose of gamma radiation that should be lethal.

(01:16):
But you seem just fine.
Maybe there's something different in you.
How do you understand, Miss Ross?
My son is unique.
And because he is unique, the world will not tolerate his existence.

(01:40):
My bros.
I think the rage is triggering the transformations.
On top of that, we've been doing this for about a year now, Jeremy.
That's correct.
I think we need a cake with a candle on or something.
I think this movie is our cake.
Our logo is that kind of movie smash with that Hulk feel to it.

(02:02):
So it's finally time we cover a Hulk movie.
That is our cake.
Whether or not it's a good cake, we will find out.
So we've done what?
26 movies by this point?
25 movies by this point?
26.
Which one was your favorite so far to actually watch and enjoy?
Not just covering, but actually enjoy his movie?
Yeah.
I mean, there's lots of these movies that I had seen before.
It's hard not to say that Superman or Batman Returns were great movies.

(02:25):
They are.
But what was my favorite movie to watch for this podcast?
Specifically ones I may not have either liked or had seen before.
Looking back at these shows, Kingsman is the one I think I liked the most because I knew
nothing about it.
I expected nothing from it.
And I was pleasantly surprised with what it ended up being.
I don't really like that kind of 007 sort of feel.
But this is the one version of it that I've seen that I actually really enjoyed.

(02:47):
And I want to see more in that universe.
That was a fun movie.
And hopefully we get a chance to cover the second one for that series.
I don't think I saw it myself before we watched that one.
I like the discussion around it.
For me, though, I really enjoyed going back to Constantine.
I had not seen that movie in quite a while.
Keanu Reeves always does a good sort of action flick.
So I enjoyed going back and revisiting that sort of world, even though he wasn't the Constantine

(03:09):
I grew up with.
I think he did a pretty good job of it.
Yeah.
I know I hadn't really seen a lot of it.
I know I had seen pieces of it.
And I probably did see it while drinking at some point.
So I don't remember a lot of it.
But just because it was like a party that I would have seen it in.
But it was a very enjoyable episode as well.
Now, I know we're not on all the episodes.
We swap out guest hosts on occasion.
But what was your favorite episode to actually go back and listen to?

(03:32):
I mean, honestly, all the ones I'm not on.
And not because I don't think those were good movies or good discussions, but I wasn't in
them, right?
So it's like listening to anyone else's podcast.
And I get to hear the guests that come on.
All the ones with the guests have been actually quite fun.
I was a little concerned at first because I've had some some rough experiences with
guests in the past on other podcast episodes I've done.
But on this show, they've all worked out very well.
But yeah, so the ones I wasn't on were like the Crow was a fun listen and the Elite of

(03:56):
Battle Angel specifically because I was a huge fan of the anime and the movie actually,
because the movie is basically the same story as the anime and the manga.
So I enjoyed both of those a lot.
Yeah, those are those are fun episodes to sort of go over as well.
Me, since I edit these things, I listen to them probably three, four or five times.
So to me, they've all blurred together.
I really couldn't say which one my favorite to listen to.

(04:16):
I guess the ones where I had it had to edit the least were my favorite ones, I guess.
We like we've been doing this for a year now.
Anything from our discussions come out and sort of surprise you.
Our thoughts on the movies generally no, I don't think there's been any movies like discussion
that I was shocked by someone's stance on the movie.
Like no one no one was like, you know what sucks Superman?
Like no one.
You know, everyone said, yeah, sure.

(04:37):
I mean, he's got his action packed his new movies.
It's a little slow in parts, but that's that's just the truth, right?
That's OK.
It's more the side discussion, specifically ones that Fergal sets out.
I know it was only a couple of episodes ago, but when he said that Ludacris was a more
skilled actor than David Bowie, that's the one that still will shock me forever.
That's actually what I wrote down to.

(04:58):
I'm hoping because he's he's been gone for a couple of weeks now.
I'm hoping he has actually been sitting at home thinking about what he said.
And when he returns, he'll realize his mistake.
Yeah, he's he's on.
He's been grounded for such a such an opinion.
Exactly.
So let me jump in the movie for tonight.
How familiar are you with the Hulk as a character?
I think if I remember correctly, you are actually a big fan of the Hulk.

(05:21):
Yes, Hulk is my it's as a kid.
I liked the Hulk.
I didn't love the Hulk.
I just bet everyone knew the Hulk, right?
Especially as as when you're playing with toys or whatever, the Hulk is cool.
He's a giant, strong, super monster guy that can sometimes is a human, but at least in
the TV show that I was also very familiar with, the like 70s TV show, it's like, oh,

(05:41):
you know, Bruce Banner gets angry.
All of a sudden he becomes the Hulk and he's super strong and he can throw a car.
It's like I love the Hulk.
And I did read Hulk comics, but not like I did now up until maybe 2018, 2019.
I had sporadically been in and out of comics, you know, different periods when I worked
the comic store when I was a kid, but there was probably 10 or so years where I didn't
buy or read any comics.

(06:02):
And then I was trying to get my kids into comics just to have something else to do.
And there's a local store that's really good.
So I went there and they each had to pick out a comic and I picked up one of the episodes
of the or one of the issues of the Immortal Hulk.
And I was hooked and Hulk specifically drew me back in.
And despite the fact that after the Immortal Hulk, perhaps the next line was maybe the
worst Hulk I've ever read.
The current line is very good.

(06:22):
The current Incredible Hulk is actually going very well.
I'm enjoying it.
And even before this movie, I knew the Hulk before this episode.
I 100% knew the Hulk, a big fan.
So for me, looking back, I don't know my first memory of the Hulk.
I've known him as a character.
I've never read any of the comics or any of the really there any cartoons.
Maybe he did like a surprise appearance in Spider-Man and Friends or something.

(06:43):
But beyond that, I think he made show up the X-Men once, but I was really a big fan of
the Hulk in the sense of I just didn't follow him.
I wasn't heading against the Hulk.
Actually, weirdly enough, my earliest memory of anyone having a Hulk toy was a mutual friend
of ours who said these massive fists run around with them.
And you probably know what I'm talking about.
I do.
And he actually I just talked to this person and I told them about this podcast and they

(07:07):
listened to the last episode.
So maybe he's still listening.
Oh, maybe.
And hopefully he realizes who he is.
When was the first time you saw this movie?
So I never I thought I knew I had seen a lot of clips of this movie, but I had heard that
it wasn't good.
It was 2003 for me.
I mean, that's a I would have been in my mid 20s.
I wasn't rushing out to a ton of comic movies.

(07:27):
I did see some, but not all of them.
And no one else I knew was excited about this one.
So I didn't have a group of friends that wanted to go see the Hulk.
I just had not seen the whole thing.
I've seen lots of clips of it since.
We're going to talk about some of the effects and such that would make it where clips of
this would show up.
And so I had never seen it.
And so I always regarded it as not as good as the 2008 The Incredible Hulk, which I had

(07:47):
seen in the theaters I've seen many times since, and I really enjoyed.
So this is the first time I've seen this movie in full ever.
I'm very similar to that.
I thought I had seen this movie, but I had not.
2003, I was building a business at that point.
So I really was didn't have time to go to theater too often.
But I really thought I saw it.
But then looking back to some of the notes and so the history of this movie, the movie

(08:08):
was actually fully released by somebody who eventually went to jail before released this
thing early.
So I saw clips of this and all the all the hate that was coming out for this movie.
I probably just let it pass by.
It sounded like it was terrible.
I kept hearing things like it's Shrek, the Hulk.
So I just ignored it looking at it, thinking back about it now.
So I'm seeing the movie.

(08:29):
I thought I had seen this thing.
I was maybe the first 20 minutes I saw.
But yeah, this is my first full of full memory of seeing this entire movie for the comic
book history.
Do you have any lore for us?
Any background?
I mean, the Hulk has been around since the early 1960s.
It was created by Stanley and Jack Kirby.
That's a classic Marvel comic character.
The Hulk has had many different versions of himself, more or less.

(08:50):
It's always the same core story, which is Bruce Banner, who's a scientist, is irradiated
by a gamma ray bomb in an accident.
It causes him to, you know, his genes to splice or do whatever.
But now whenever he becomes angered, pressed, kind of emotionally distraught, he becomes
the Incredible Hulk, kind of this uncontrollable, depending on what version of the Hulk we're

(09:11):
talking about, giant, you know, monster of a man that sometimes Bruce may or may not
remember what he did.
So it's very hard to say yes, is there lore?
Sure.
There's been lots of different lore throughout the years for it.
There's been different versions of the Hulk.
There's Grey Hulk, Savage Hulk, Demon Hulk, Joe Fix it, where he dresses up like a mobster
and lives in Vegas.
There's been tons of Hulk lore.
But the classic story, you know, the same kind of character you'd see in the 78 TV show

(09:35):
or any time you think of the Hulk is Bruce Banner is a normal person, like a scientist.
When he gets upset, he becomes the Hulk and he's giant.
And you know, in different versions of the story, much like what they're doing now in
the MCU, the Hulk can control himself or kind of becomes this blend of both personalities
and is always shaped as the Hulk.
So in this case, it's the classic Hulk.
So for this movie, which classification of the Hulk would you say he is?

(09:58):
It's the classic Hulk.
But the origin of the Hulk is different.
It's not the same at all.
Quick spoiler warning, if this is your first time joining us, just a heads up.
We'll be discussing the plot and may discuss various elements of the story that might be
considered spoilers.
So consider yourself warned.
So Jeremy, why don't you walk us through this movie?
What happens?
Sure.
I mean, the biggest thing is it is Hulk's origin story.
This is the the birth of Hulk, right?

(10:20):
As far as the character goes, if you're going to going to make a movie series out of the
Hulk, this is the start.
And in this case, instead of having Bruce Banner be a scientist who is working on some
sort of military weapon and gets stuck with this gamma ray bomb, instead, he's a geneticist.
More importantly, his father, who you see in these flashbacks from the 60s, was a geneticist
working on some government program where I'm not really sure what they were doing with

(10:44):
some kind of like super healing or super serum, probably super serum because they keep going
back to that for all the Marvel things.
But you know, working with with different genetics from different animals, and he decides
to test it on himself.
And in the process of that, after he, you know, fills himself with this different genetic
material and messes with his own genes, he gets his wife pregnant and they have a baby
Bruce Banner.

(11:04):
Bruce kind of has his father's genes.
And you know, it's little you see little flashbacks of like, you know, he get he when he gets
hurt as a kid, you see his skin turn slightly green around the wound and it heals very fast,
like little things.
But he doesn't become the Hulk as a child.
He's got some kind of weird genes, but he doesn't know this.
And he also doesn't really know about his father because right after, like once Bruce

(11:25):
is four or so, I mean, you see David Banner get fired by the government, he decides out
of a fit of rage after he is fired to set up a reactor explosion at the lab he's working
on.
He kills Bruce's mother and he gets put in jail forever.
And Bruce is put into foster care.
So Bruce has blacked all this thing, all this memory out of him before he was four.
I'm sure it was very traumatic for him to see his mother get killed.

(11:46):
And so he somehow, though, ends up also working as an adult with another name in a genetics
lab with the daughter of the general who put his father in jail.
His father was, of course, that's Betty, Betty Ross from the comics.
She's always been kind of like the Hulk's girlfriend or wife, depending on, again, which
iteration of the Hulk you're reading.
And her father is General Thunderbolt Ross, who is, you know, he knows about his father.

(12:11):
He knows who he really is.
And in another accident in this new lab, Bruce gets into an accident with a gamma sphere.
So it's still more gamma radiation, but it's not a bomb.
It's like a generator or something.
He gets irradiated and it would kill anybody else.
But instead he actually starts healing.
He seems doing better.
But that is apparently kickstarted his genes.
And so now whenever he gets upset and the first time you see it happen, someone comes

(12:32):
and tries to shut the lab down, he turns into the Incredible Hulk.
So it's the classic Hulk.
He's a giant green version of the person who plays Bruce Banner, who's Eric Banner.
And he is the classic, almost savage Hulk.
He doesn't talk.
He doesn't seem to understand a lot other than things he likes and things he doesn't
like.
But it's not the talking friendly Hulk you'd see in the...

(12:55):
So how do you feel Eric Banner did as Bruce Banner?
I don't like Eric Banner as Bruce Banner.
I always like the Banner character to be a little more wimpy, a little more unassuming.
I know we're not talking about the sequel, but I think some of the other versions of
Bruce Banner, almost actually every version of Bruce Banner other than Eric Banner is
better than him.
He's not horrible.
It's not like he's completely out of character.

(13:16):
This isn't having Sylvester Stallone play Bruce Banner, right?
But it's still, he's a little too big, a little too buff, a little too handsome, if that makes
any sense, to be Bruce Banner.
But he does an okay job.
You need that his sort of...
So the contrast between the personalities is much greater is what you're saying.

(13:38):
And yes, and also Bruce is not forceful in the comics.
Bruce Banner is very mousy almost.
He's very unassuming.
He's very milk toast.
Obviously there's been times, again, depending on what you're reading, where he might not
be quite that much, but even on the ones where he tries to assert himself more, he still
comes across as like the nerdy guy who's now really upset, right?
So this Eric Banner instead seems like the guy on the football team who also happens

(14:02):
to be a scientist.
You want to be more of a Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde sort of dichotomy where very scrawny professor,
not too big.
And then so the contrast of the big bad guys, not bad guy, sort of Hulk, the lack of a better
word is more drastic, I guess.
Now that you say that, I can see that, I can see Eric Banner is not a really wimpy kind
of guy.

(14:23):
I mean, I personally thought he did a fine job, but there's only contrast I have is really
Ed Norden, which I thought, by the way, that Hulk movie, which we're not going to review,
I love that Hulk movie.
And we'll talk about it towards the end, I'm sure.
But again, Eric Banner is not a terrible Bruce Banner, but he's just not what I had in mind.
I think he does fine in the movie, I guess.

(14:44):
But I also don't think that the script for what Bruce was doing was very good.
So a lot of the science and a lot of what he was actually doing, I was very vague.
You might as well say, I'm doing science.
That's about as good as the science is in this movie.
How do you think it is compared to Ruffalo, the current Bruce Banner?
So I, and maybe, well, I don't really like Ruffalo as Bruce Banner.

(15:06):
I think the weird amalgamated current Hulk that is always green, but is definitely just
Ruffalo's voice and Ruffalo's character with some Hulk strength and stuff is fine.
And they did do that in the comics for a while where he's kind of smart Hulk or whatever.
I don't have a problem with that.
I just, again, I think I had the kind of the same problem I have with Ruffalo that I did
with Eric Banner, where I don't think he comes across as as mousy enough or trying to be

(15:29):
inconspicuous.
I think I don't think he does the same.
I think that he's Mark Ruffalo and he's trying to be funny.
And the script kind of calls for that for the stuff that he's been Bruce Banner in.
Like he's not the quiet, unassuming Bruce Banner.
So let's talk about the Hulk then.
Obviously, the Hulk character is all CGI.
He's not animatronics or anything like that.
How do you feel it compares to what you thought it would be?

(15:51):
Does he feel like the Hulk?
What he does is Hulk like for the classic kind of uncontrollable rage Hulk.
I think he does a good job.
You know, it's that it's the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde more than anything else.
Right.
It's once he becomes the Hulk, you can see that he's kind of out of control.
But then there's flashes of you can see Bruce reaching out through when he sees a reflection
of himself or after whatever he's he's done in rage or he sees Betty and kind of calms

(16:14):
down a little bit like that.
That's really good.
I think that the scenes, for example, where he fights against the military are all very
good when he runs when he jumps really fast across parts of the desert.
Yes, it's goofy, but it actually makes sense.
The Hulk does do that.
So those are all I think the Hulk itself does good things.
I think the CG on the Hulk, though, is pretty awful.
Yeah.
Supposedly, though, his face is supposed to be a combination of Eric Banner's face and

(16:38):
Ang Lee's face all rolled into one.
I don't know what Ang Lee looks like.
So but it does look like they took Eric Banner's face and then put it through whatever kind
of morph program to make him look giant and rounder and whatever.
But I think it looks bad.
I don't think he looked bad because my expectations were so low going to this movie for what I

(16:59):
thought he was supposed to be because I had heard that it was the Shrek just playing the
Hulk and he wasn't that bad.
So my expectation, I guess it all comes out of your expectations, you know, reality to
compare to where your expectations are, but for me, it was not that bad of a special effects.
I mean, it could be better.
It was 2003 special effects.
But I don't think it was great for 2003.
I think that's part of the problem.

(17:19):
Like we've talked about other things that looked bad, but you think about the time you're
like, but it makes sense.
You have the green screen on Superman or some of the effects that we're in, even some of
the cheaper movies, right?
Because this was actually a real budget movie.
This wasn't a five dollar film.
So I don't I just don't think that the face specifically I don't like.
But also there's just some shots, especially far farther action shots that look just a

(17:42):
little hokey.
But in the scheme of things, it's still totally viable.
It's just there's no point where you think the Hulk is not CG, which is a problem.
True.
Yeah.
Especially during the daylight scenes.
Yes.
That's the true that sort of the fact of any of these CGI characters.
Once daylight is involved, it's really hard to get that to look right.

(18:02):
So how did Jennifer Connelly do as Betsy Betty Ross?
Since you said she is from the comics.
Yeah, Betty Ross has been a staple of the storyline.
And in fact, it goes berserk later with her.
But let's go with the classic character of just being Bruce's love interest that also
happens to be the daughter of his his military foil.
But she's fine.
She does come across as she's supposed to be a scientist like he is.

(18:25):
She at least tied to that.
That's how he knows her.
And and she is kind of afraid of but also, you know, it is her father.
So she's afraid of him.
She does listen to him, but she also they're distant.
You can tell that she doesn't really they aren't close.
I like that relationship as well.
So I think she did OK.
One of the I think one of the guys who did a great job was Nick Nolte.

(18:46):
But how do you feel Nick Nolte does Bruce Banner's father?
In this movie, Nick Nolte is fine as Bruce Banner's father, although the scene at the
end where he's explaining everything essentially like his his the very end scene where he basically
gives a speech to the camera.
The exposition dump.
Yeah.
And it's also just it felt very much high school play to me where he just like faces

(19:06):
the audience and yells out.
I know he's supposed to be yelling at everybody on camera, but it just came across really
bad.
But otherwise, he did a good job.
However, the normal Bruce Banner's father is just an abusive father.
He is not in any way super just kind of a super asshole.
So and especially in some of the more recent Hulk comics, they really dove into that and
how it messed him up and why it made him kind of the way he is.

(19:28):
But in the movie, it's fine.
The story works.
I was kind of surprised that that's the art they took, but it's it's fine.
I don't follow the whole comic.
So but I didn't really think the Nick Bruce's father was supposed to be some sort of superpower
individual or any part really part of the story other than he's part of his background,
his history.
So it's interesting Nick Nolte play it.

(19:48):
Now, are you familiar with that picture of Nick Nolte where he looks crazy from a DUI
arrest he had years ago that floats the Internet?
It's because he had just come out the filming of this movie.
Well, that makes sense.
Why the hair looks like that.
I saw that fact.
I just maybe just maybe chuckled because you see that picture go around.
He looks insane.
And then you realize it's just the haircut he had for this movie.

(20:09):
I guess I don't really know much about Nick Nolte as an actor, but supposedly he tries
being a little crazy on set just to be left alone.
So so for this movie, he had an auction tank that he carried around with him and we just
huff auction every now and again, just to make people think that something's going on
with this guy.
So people wouldn't bother him at all.
However it works.

(20:29):
That's fine.
I don't know much about Nick Nolte either other than that picture.
So I mean, and movies he's been in, but like I don't know anything about it personally.
So that's funny.
So if you are having a rough day at the office, just bring an auction tank with you and act
like you really need it.
So did you see the cameo in this?
Lou Frigno was in this.
Oh, of course, Lou Frigno and Stanley in the same scene, leaving the lab early.

(20:50):
Lou Frigno being a security guard in this, but he is the classic Hulk on the 78 Hulk,
which I know you're set.
You know that.
But listening didn't know that, that's why it's a good cameo.
It was nice.
Just seeing the two of them walk by, I actually did a double take saying, Stanley, you're
looking for in all these movies, of course.
But Lou, you're like, yeah, that's a nice, nice callback.
I don't think he spoke at all during this movie.

(21:10):
Of course, he didn't really speak too much during his original appearance of the Hulk.
I'd say he never did.
But that version of the Hulk didn't speak, just like this version of the Hulk doesn't
really speak.
Other versions do.
Like the current MCU version speaks.
But yeah, this version doesn't speak.
And I think he said if he didn't say if he said anything, it was very like in passing
where he's like, yeah, I know, or something like that.
But yeah, it was he's in the movie for like three seconds.

(21:33):
So he doesn't have a lot to say.
I always feel that the Hulk as a character before I saw this movie is very much an action
character, you know, smashes stuff, breaks stuff.
But after watching it, it feels like it's more like a tragedy of this guy who can't
control his anger, who then sort of self-destructs his own life with this sort of embodiment
of it.
So let's talk about some of the scenes in this.

(21:54):
Let's start with the action scenes.
How did you feel about some of the various action scenes you saw in this movie, such
as like the desert fighting scene or the dog fighting scene?
The desert fighting scene where he fights against the tanks and is what I wanted.
That's what I want out of a Hulk movie.
Him fighting against, I mean, there's not other until the very end, other like super
villains for him to fight in this movie.

(22:15):
But I like that he fights against, you know, big tanks, things that a normal person would
never be able to do.
He rips the top off of a tank and then uses it as a weapon towards another thing.
That's all wonderful and exactly what I want.
Yeah.
He fights some fighter jets and some helicopters and climbs the San Francisco bridge, Golden
Gate Bridge.
It was fun watching him just beat the crap out of stuff.

(22:36):
I think there's even a part where he bends, he does the classic bending of the tank cannon
into the tank itself.
Yeah.
So there was a dog fight.
Now remember, it's like Hulk dogs or Gamma dogs.
Yeah, mutant dogs of some sort that his father had bred.
Now that's a heavily CGI scene.
How did you feel about that scene?

(22:56):
It's also dark.
That fight is dark, so it works.
It doesn't seem as goofy as some of the other scenes.
Like the desert fight, while it was fun, is a good example of you never believe that Hulk
is not just a CG thing on the screen.
The dog fight, I mean, again, you still know they're all CG things on the screen, but because
he's also fighting against things that are heavily CG, it was more believable to me,
even though it's all way goofier.

(23:17):
Now, this movie tells the story of the...
This is an origin story, right?
This is where Hulk comes from, but a lot of superhero movies just tell that story, and
then we fast forward to today, and that's what happens.
This story does it as a series of flashbacks, sort of tells you information as you need
to know it.
Did they work for you?
I was surprised that they didn't go with the classic story, right?

(23:39):
None of this, him as a baby with his father's weird genes and any of that stuff, that was
not part of the original story.
They've done a bunch of retcons and doing flashbacks in the comics where there's more
information on his father and everything else, but this specific story was not what I expected.
Instead of having just the first scene being...

(24:00):
Not the first scene, instead of having the origin just being that he's in the lab and
that gamma thing explodes on him, they have all this backstory.
I didn't think it was necessary.
I did like the tie-in with his father, only because his father has been much more of a
part of the story in the last few iterations of Hulk, but it's fine.
I don't think it's needed.
It's one of the things I like about the sequel is that they do cover this very quickly and

(24:24):
then they move on with the story.
I think instead the first two-thirds of this movie really is getting to the point where
you understand where the Hulk came from.
But yeah, the Hulk doesn't show up till about 45 minutes into this.
Right.
And the movie doesn't even start with the Hulk doing something and then there's a flashback,
right?
It starts with just stuff happening.
There is a flashback, but not a flashback from a Hulk event.

(24:46):
You've alluded to Nick Nolte, the final villain of this movie, because you would think Ross
would be the villain, but he really kind of isn't.
He's just somebody trying to do his job.
He makes some bad choices about it, but he's trying to do his job.
The real villain or suppose villain or the final combat is Nick Nolte.
I know you said that Nick Nolte's character isn't that in the comics.

(25:08):
No.
Is there a villain that sort of meld with him at all or is that a complete...
It's kind of a melding of there's an Absorbent Man who's been in Hulk comics.
He can absorb.
He'll do the thing where he grabbed a...
His father grabs a wire and bites it open and then he's able to suck the electricity
in and become charged.
There are characters that do that.

(25:29):
There's one specifically called Absorbing Man who does nothing but that.
So he's kind of a melding of that.
There are other characters, I'm sure, that do similar things.
But no, his father doesn't have any superpowers.
His father is just a jerk.
They explain it as he has the same power that Bruce Banner has, but he can't keep that power.
His skills won't keep the charge.
He won't be able to continue to be the Hulk where apparently he already knows somehow

(25:52):
that Bruce is just always going to be the Hulk.
It's not a thing where he was going to eventually lose that power.
You will over time learn how to control that, I guess, but you are always going to have
the ability to turn to this giant green thing.
He doesn't.
He has to soak in the energy or the gamma or whatever and become a giant monster and
then it fades out.
They don't really do a good job explaining what delineates the two of them, besides the

(26:12):
fact that one's father, one's son.
There's the medical nanobots that Bruce is exposed to, but they never say that does anything.
We're not sure if it's the gamma radiation that turns him on or if it's these nanobots
working with the gamma radiation.
It's a mix of that and his father's genes were 100% modified, where Bruce's genes were

(26:33):
the result of his father's modified genes blending with his mother's natural genes.
Maybe it's a more organic version of the same genes that his father has for the purpose
of absorbing energy and becoming a super monster.
Yes, they don't explain cut and dry why it happens.
Things happen, including these nanobots, including that gamma accident, that make it so that

(26:54):
now he is the Hulk.
Does it really explain why?
No.
Maybe that's kind of good because then it's impossible to say why.
It's impossible to make it happen again.
That's been one of the things in this movie, what drives the plot forward is now that they've
captured the Hulk at one point, they're going to figure out why he's the Hulk and make a
bunch of other people Hulks as weapons or whatever.
That's their goals.

(27:15):
They want to get samples of his blood and everything else.
Maybe that's good that they don't explain exactly what happened so that you can't make
it happen again.
It kind of helps show that no one really quite knows how this happened, but as a result,
the Hulk is now here.
Yeah.
I guess he has some of the science technology that he's aware of because he's able to turn
those dogs into the gamma dogs and control them.

(27:37):
I've always got a question of us, what level of science knowledge does this guy have?
I guess if they ever made a sequel, then they could go back and steal his notes because
they know where he lives.
In what's clearly an evil genius' house, by the way.
It's this old abandoned looking house covered with gates with wire on the top.

(27:58):
In the middle of a neighborhood.
There's actually a part of the original screenplay that was cut from it because he makes a comment.
I remember the first time you were introduced to him and he says, no, the old janitor's
dead.
She asks where he is.
There's a cut scene where he kills that janitor by bringing him to his house and having his
dogs eat him.
Yeah.

(28:19):
I mean, you don't need that.
I think it was already assumed that he killed the janitor.
I didn't have any question in my mind that that's what occurred.
So just realistically, this is a military funded lab, at least in some way, shape or
form.
Maybe it's a military contractor, but it's still like a military lab that they're working
at that Bruce is working at with Betty.

(28:39):
They hire this new janitor who happens to be this guy who not only is previously jailed
for fooling with military labs, but also is clearly like he's there for a reason.
He looks like an insane person.
In real life, anything that's remotely tied to having to get a clearance to even access
the building, you would not have hired that person.

(29:01):
They would have been able to very clearly determine, maybe don't hire this guy.
You sound like you talk from personal experience.
Although I no longer have one, but I used to have one.
That means anyone can get one.
So maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe any crazy person can get it.
I remember being interviewed for that one.
Actually, it's funny.
Their lab is at Berkeley University, I believe it is.

(29:22):
During the filming of that scene, they had to cancel filming for about two hours because
some college students started peeing near set and Moose supported John's nearby, just
continuously peed into them.
They kept picking at the sound of these students pissing away.
They had to cut filming until they found them because the students kept running away and
coming back because they thought it was funny.

(29:42):
And 20 years later, it's pretty funny.
So if you're listening to the show and you're one of those students, please let us know.
I'd love to find out more of the story.
So this movie takes place about, it's just over two hours long.
Did it feel like it was two hours long?
Yes.
Other movies we've done, I didn't think felt this slow.
The movie takes a long time to ramp up to when the Hulk appears.
And then even after he comes in the first time, there's a long period again where you're

(30:05):
not quite sure.
Like, does he know that he became the Hulk?
Does he really have any control over it?
Like there's a lot of in between unnecessary time in between Hulk.
And I'm not saying that because I only need to see a guy smashing things, but just you
don't need the time to build up what's happening.
It is unnecessary.
This movie could have been cut by 20 minutes easily, most of which dealing with General

(30:27):
Ross.
And I think you could have made this fly a little faster.
Yeah.
Ang Lee in an interview was saying how he was trying, the movie is more about Bruce Banner
than the Hulk and is more about the tragedy of Bruce Banner.
That's what he was trying to get across.
And obviously at the time, the public didn't quite like that.
And I can see that the movie did feel long.
I had to do it in three different sessions, watch one part, had to go do some work, come

(30:48):
back, do it again.
I probably could sit through the whole thing if I had to, but I chose not to because it
is a pretty long movie.
And it gets to a point where you do check, at least me, I check the clock to be like,
how much time do I have left for this thing?
And in Ang Lee's defense, I think the character Hulk does need to have that kind of tragic
storyline.

(31:09):
The Hulk is a great supporting character.
We put the Hulk in the Avengers movies.
You can have him show up and smash things and that's great and everyone cheers.
But a whole movie of that is not enough.
The character of the Hulk really does have a big part of it being Bruce Banner and how
this has ruined his life.
I think the sequel does a good job of kind of without dwelling on that, you feel bad for
Bruce Banner the whole time.

(31:30):
And I think this movie doesn't quite nail that as well as it needs to.
But I think that is an important part of the story.
Given your other podcast, RetroVaniax, there is a tie in video game for this.
Have you played it?
So there's actually a tie in video game that's directly tied to this game for Game Boy Advance
or some other games.
It's a pretty standard platform game that happens to be Hulk.

(31:50):
There's a game that came out after this that actually I think a lot of the desert scene
where he's fighting the tanks, imagine a game based on that.
It's a game called Hulk Ultimate Destruction and it's amazing.
If you like open world superhero games, you like the Spider-Man games that have come out
for PS4 and PS5, but wish it was about the Hulk.
That's the game you want to find.
It's on PlayStation 2, GameCube, and I think original Xbox.

(32:12):
It is wonderful and they've not remastered it.
They've not put out another game like it with the Hulk and it's super good.
But it's all things like that tank scene, right?
You fight against a bunch of tanks and then you can get abilities to take two cars and
smash them together and make them big metal fists for the Hulk for a minute and then after
a few hits and then he storms off.
But he does that super jump like he does this movie.
He does a lot of stuff.
But it's not really a tie in to this movie, but I did notice that during that whole scene

(32:35):
from the desert fight scene on to where he's running away back to San Francisco or whatever,
that reminded me a lot of all the animation and the kind of moves you get in that whole
game.
So does it suffer from the issues that the Superman games have where basically you're
invincible and you just destroy things or is there actually a level of risk to it?
Well, it is.

(32:55):
Well, I even think the Superman games, even though, yes, you're invincible, there's still
things that kill you in those games.
So like the Superman N64 game is notorious because it gives you no time to do what you
need to do, right?
Maybe you're almost impervious, but you have six seconds to complete a goal and if you
don't do it, the level ends.
You're like, well, that's terrible.
So this also has, I mean, there's a lot of things fighting you.
Plus that game does have abomination and some other mutants you have to fight.

(33:17):
So like it has some danger to it, but it's just more the, in a way it's great because
you don't feel like you're necessarily in too much danger.
It's just, can I do enough damage before they call in enough heavy artillery that I am in
danger?
So there becomes like a strategy to it, but I really like it.
So it sounds like GTA V trying to make sure you don't get the five stars before you wipe
out.

(33:37):
Actually, very much like that.
And GTA without any stars, you're doing whatever you want and it's fun, but eventually more
and more law enforcement come in and then it's too dangerous.
And that's exactly what Hulk does.
This movie obviously is special effects.
Without special effects, this movie wouldn't exist.
How do you feel about how the Hulk is portrayed?
Again, I think, especially in the sun, it is very clearly a CG Hulk.

(34:01):
And I know that that seems silly to say out loud because what else would it be?
You're not going to have Lou Ferrigno painted green in this.
It's going to be a CG Hulk.
But every other version of the CG Hulk after this looks better.
And this just seems jarring.
And I'm not even comparing it to those other ones to say that why didn't they do that?
Because obviously it's a few years sooner.
But just to other things we saw at the time.
This is 2003.
We're not talking the early 90s.

(34:22):
We're not talking a movie that was made on a shoestring budget.
This should have had a better CG Hulk and I don't think it's very good.
But it's also not completely horrific.
It's not the worst thing you've ever seen, but it's just not great.
And again, I don't like the face.
I don't like, I understand what they were aiming for and that I don't know how I would
have done it better necessarily.
But the face looks really, really goofy.

(34:43):
Yeah.
I thought he looked okay in the dark scenes where you can't really see him too much.
But yeah, once he's out in the light, it's painfully obvious.
The one thing is he, unlike the Hulk in later movies, at least I believe, he changes sizes
throughout the movie.
He gets bigger.
The angrier the Hulk gets, the larger he gets.
That's not really.

(35:03):
Maybe that is what something one Hulk did at some point.
Because again, depending on who's writing it at the time and the different arcs they've
had, maybe there's been something like that.
But there's definitely been the angrier he gets, the stronger he gets.
That is pretty consistent with Hulk.
The classic green rage Hulk.
The angrier he is, the stronger he gets.
To the point where in one of the more recent storylines, which is, I call it Starship Hulk

(35:24):
because he basically goes to other planets.
In that version of it, the Banner has built some kind of system that will torture the
Hulk and the more he tortures him, the stronger he gets.
So it's almost like he's controlling the Hulk in a spaceship.
It's not good.
It is not a good story.
The current line is much better.
But that is consistent.
The angrier the Hulk gets, the stronger he is.

(35:44):
So in this movie, they did it as a literal, he is larger.
One of the things this movie does that's different than other movies is that comic panel transitions.
Movies have always had swipes and changing from one scene to the next, but this movie
has actual comic panels in it, so the same scene from different angles.
How did you feel that came across?

(36:06):
I didn't like the way it was implemented.
I think doing that, if you transition from scene to scene with that, it would be interesting.
You could use that to transition through time or whatever else so that you actually can
show almost like flipping a page or switching panels, something else.
Other movies have done that.
It's not new.
But instead, they have scenes that basically take place in moving panels on the screen.
So it's almost like you're watching a moving comic book, and I did not think it was necessary.

(36:30):
I mean, we're watching a movie on purpose.
We're not reading a comic.
It was too much of it.
If it was done as a transition or even as the intro, do the flashbacks that way.
But to do the current live action scenes that way was a little distracting.
Yeah.
He was saying how the purpose, obviously, is to make it feel more like a comic.

(36:50):
But they actually would film the same scenes from multiple angles.
So imagine you nail a scene that right one time.
You've got to do it four or five different times the correct way to get it to line up.
In fact, there's one of the scenes where Eric Banner transforms into the Hulk.
It's a very physical scene for him.
He had to get it right four different times for the various angles that they had.
Suppose he was just completely exhausted from that day of screening.

(37:12):
I do want to talk about the transformation into the Hulk.
That could be the worst effects in the movie, hands down.
And transformation scenes can be really good.
American Werewolf in London has an amazing transformation scenes.
A lot of horror movies have that kind of stuff.
This because it is such a CG shift.
The first time that he turns into the Hulk, the first few times, it's just Eric Banner,

(37:33):
but his face turns green a little bit.
And then it goes, it's a very long transformation.
It's not fast.
They do another one later.
In fact, all the transitions where he becomes from Hulk down to Banner, they have it off
in the distance.
So you can see it happen and it's totally viable.
It works well.
It looks good.
And it comes back and it's Eric Banner.
But the other direction, they have too much where like, even if they just zoomed in on
his arm and you saw his arm grow, that would be much preferable to watching really his

(37:56):
face and body all at the same time change.
It just doesn't look good.
Yeah.
The worst transformation is actually the one at the end where he goes from the Hulk to
Eric Banner during daylight.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
The very end.
The very end.
It looks like he's a balloon shrinking slowly over, you know, and going from a dark shade
of green to a light shade of green to his normal skin.
But it just, it looks wrong.

(38:19):
It feels like it just, it just, that's the only way I can say it just looks wrong.
I think you're right.
They had just zoomed in or done closeups where you don't have to see the whole scale of it.
It's probably more believable.
Yeah.
And almost every, I mean, even I just mentioned American War of Unleaded, that one, you don't
see a full body transformation necessarily.
It's piece by piece and it looks cool.
You can focus on practical effects.

(38:40):
You need some CG in there too, obviously, but you could have done something to make
that better.
And instead it's, it comes across as I'm sure at the time it was like, look how we did this
and it looks really good in the studio.
Maybe this is impressive.
We got it done.
But it, it is the most aged looking effect in the movie is the transformations.
I think they should have gone with the, since we just reviewed Daredevil recently, I think

(39:01):
they should go with the Daredevil transformation zooming on various parts of his body as he
puts on his uniform.
Yeah, that would have been fine.
Same year, though we did complain about the effects for that movie a little bit.
Yes.
It's different though, right?
I mean, there was some CG and there was other, but not like this.
This is, it felt like, I mean, you mentioned Trek, but it feels like.
Roger Rabbit, right?
Half the characters are live action and then there's this cartoon walking around.

(39:21):
It feels too close to that.
Let's sort of jump into sort of some production decisions that they made at the time.
So obviously Bruce Banner, main character, they always go through a couple different
people that they're thinking about.
Their original choice was actually Ed Norton.
Well, and as we'll find out in 2008, I think that's a great decision.
They should have gone with that.
I understand there's probably a reason they didn't, but I'm glad they went back to him.

(39:43):
Well Ed Norton actually turned it down.
He said the script was not good enough.
Well, he was also probably right.
The second one was Bill Crudup.
Oh, Billy Crudup.
Okay.
Billy Crudup.
Dr. Manhattan.
That was actually the next choice they were having right after Ed Norton.
How do you think, the one I actually want to get your opinion on these next couple,
Tom Cruise.
No, I think he would have the same, I would have the same problem with Tom Cruise that

(40:04):
I did with Eric Banner, which is that he's, well, first off, Tom Cruise also was way
too big of a star.
You kind of want somebody who is, you don't have to be completely unknown, but Tom Cruise
is like grade A plus plus star.
You're not going to have him be your wimpy Bruce Banner.
He's going to be Tom Cruise who happens to turn to the Hulk.
So I'm glad they didn't go that route.
How about Johnny Depp?

(40:26):
I think he could have done it.
I don't know if you've seen, what is it, The Seventh Sign?
I would love that movie.
I love that movie too.
He does pull off that kind of nerdy bookish character.
He could have done that.
I'm concerned because a lot of his other characters go that, that too Tim Burton-y route, right?
Where he's too unique and too characteristic, but he has done roles where he could be a
little more subdued.

(40:47):
So in 2003, I think he could have done it.
2023, probably not.
Yeah.
I think Johnny Depp really sort of, I think as you worked more and more with Tim Burton
went more in that sort of eccentric route for his characters.
Next up is Jeff Goldblum.
Oh, Jeff Goldblum.
Maybe.
Again, I think he's also a character though, like I love Jeff Goldblum, but he's always
Jeff Goldblum.

(41:07):
Yeah.
Like it's not Jeff Goldblum doing something else.
It's just Jeff Goldblum as Jeff Goldblum in your movie.
And I love that.
But do I think he'd been a good Bruce Banner?
I don't know.
I think it would end up where he's, he ends up being Seth Brundle who happens to turn
to the Hulk.
Now we also have David Duchovny.
Yeah, that could have worked.
He was coming off his X-Men fame at that point.
Yeah.
I think he could have done that.
And the one I thought was most interesting was actually they actually did test screening

(41:30):
with to see if it would work out was Steve Buscemi.
Yeah, actually I think he could have done an okay job.
And he does that very good, like kind of, he can do that kind of subdued character.
He does not look like the kind of person who would turn to the Hulk.
Now I think the CG version of his face in the Hulk would look incredible in a way that
probably isn't good, but I would have loved to see.
He definitely would create that sort of distance between Bruce Banner and the Hulk.

(41:54):
I mean, they'd be two very different looks.
And I think he'd be good at displaying the side of Bruce Banner that makes you feel bad
for him more than Eric Banner did.
And you would probably wonder why Betsy has anything for him or Betty, sorry.
Well maybe, except that again, even in the comics, it's one of those things like she's
with that guy, what a nerd.
Like it's, love has no boundaries, right?

(42:17):
So that all works.
And it makes it so it's like, yeah, this guy lucked out.
He ended up having this hot girlfriend, everything else, but then this happened and now his life
is kind of over.
He can't have this life he wanted.
That's kind of always in the background.
I mean, it seems kind of strange.
He's a nerdy guy who happens to find love, but he's got a rage problem.
All right, we all know people like that.
Some of them may be on the show.
But yeah, no, I think he could have done an okay job.

(42:38):
But I don't think Eric Banner was terrible compared to the other people he just listed.
But I think he was in the middle there.
Now originally when it came to directing this, the only other director they looked at was
a guy named Joe Johnson, who I was not familiar with.
So I looked him up.
He did October Sky and then went off to do Captain America Civil War.
I'm sorry, Captain America, yeah, the first Avenger.

(42:59):
Well, I mean, I guess he could have done this then.
He did the first Captain America.
Now the interesting thing was Ang Lee turned down Terminator 3, Rise of Machines, to direct
this movie.
Did he make a good choice?
I don't remember a thing about Terminator 3, so probably yes.
Yeah, there really wasn't much to Terminator 3.
So we're coming to sort of the end of this.
But when it comes to this movie, for both of us, we have not, we not see this movie

(43:22):
beforehand.
What was good about this movie?
What did you actually enjoy about it?
And what could they have done better?
The last third of this movie I enjoyed.
So once it becomes, the Hulk is now on the run from the military.
He's trying to go home.
They've kind of figured out what his goal is to be.
And it's this, them trying to catch him as he does his thing.
Loved it.
It's all action, but it still has a point.

(43:44):
It's not just the Hulk's destroying things mindlessly.
It's good.
I enjoyed that.
And it's better than I remember what this movie having the reputation for.
I think in general, the CG, like we mentioned, for the Hulk himself could be better.
The face is terrible, absolutely terrible for the Hulk.
But it's not, I mean, it's terrible while still looking like it was paid for.

(44:05):
It's not terrible as in they made it in a studio at their house and they just saw, we'll
make this work.
And it's a static face.
Like it has, it moves, it's fine.
But I just don't think that Banner's face stretched out as a good look for the Hulk.
I also think it's a little slow.
You mentioned the pacing does feel like there's long periods where nothing happens.
They could have really abridged the birth of Hulk by probably 20, 30 minutes.

(44:28):
And this movie still would have been just fine.
So for me, the movie, I liked what they were going for.
I liked the idea of being a real tragedy around Bruce Banner telling that story.
The issue I have really is, it's way too slow.
The other thing I actually like too, I like what they attempted with those comic panels,
but by about halfway through the movie, I was tired of it.

(44:48):
Yeah, it's too much of it.
I like the idea, but it's too much.
And they dial it up to like 11 by the end.
It just keeps happening over and over.
Like when he's breaking out of the facility, there's so many of those transitions.
Like I was done by that point with that.
The special effects, obviously, they've done the special effects on the Hulk's face or
the Hulk in general.
It could have been much better.
But I liked what they were going for.

(45:09):
I think it suffers what a lot of these origin stories suffer from is they're trying to tell
the story of his origin, but the enemy doesn't really feel like an enemy until always like
the end of the third act.
The big bad always comes in.
Like Ross is there, but he's not really the enemy.
I understand where Ross is coming from.
There's this threat.
He exists.

(45:29):
What should I do with it?
He makes some bad decisions.
But then his father is there, who's the secret big bad, but it's leading up to one big battle.
I don't feel like a contest between those two as the movie goes along.
No, I don't feel a contest between the two.
And you also, even during that fight, it's really not a fight.
It's almost like a secret reveal of this big enemy at the end.

(45:51):
And he essentially kills himself.
The Hulk doesn't do anything to really cause the fight to end.
It's kind of like his father gets what he wants more or less and turns out it's not
what he really wants and that's fine.
But it's his own lack of understanding of the situation is what kills him.

(46:11):
It's not that the Hulk and his father have this huge big Hulk fight.
That's what makes this movie not feel that way to me.
You don't have an enemy that feels consistent the way through.
Yes, you have the military as this constant foil, but there's nothing that feels like
the Hulk's really in danger.
If anything, it's like, is the Hulk going to destroy a bunch of stuff to get where he
wants to go?
He's not really in danger here.

(46:33):
The things that are going to hurt him are his own, he doesn't want to hurt Betty.
He doesn't want to hurt people.
He doesn't want to necessarily be a bad guy.
He's just an uncontrollable rage demon.
And so he's got to figure out how to make all these things work while not destroying
the world.
So there isn't this big enemy in this.
And what is tried to be that, I think is supposed to be his father and I don't think it works.

(46:53):
I think the 2008 version does a good job of making that military story underneath at work,
but you have Abomination, who is basically another Hulk, that you have to be this constant
foil.
You see his kind of growth throughout the movie to where he's going to be this thing
for Hulk to fight.
And it does have a giant Hulk versus Hulk fight at the end that is what you want.
So I think this movie just misses that a little bit by throwing his father as the bad guy

(47:17):
at the end.
I think it tries to do more emotionally, but I don't think it succeeds.
Well, as you were talking about, a word came to mind, agency.
The Hulk, Bruce Banner has no agency.
Everything's happening to him.
He's just reacting to all the bad stuff around him versus making decisions.
I think it wouldn't have been a better story if we see Bruce making terrible decisions
and the bad stuff happens.

(47:37):
So he has to learn from that.
This is he just surviving a bunch of bad stuff and he doesn't make a choice ever.
He's just along for the ride.
Exactly.
Which is why it feels so empty at the end of the day, which is why that combat at the
end of it is like, okay, just another bad thing for the Hulk to deal with.
There's nothing there.
Well, and again, there's nothing you can point out and say, oh yeah, that fight's cool because

(48:00):
the Hulk does this.
It's a bunch of cool looking cinematics, but it's just watching a video.
Yeah.
I think that really sort of touches upon what I think the biggest issue is for it.
I guess because we've had so many Hulks, so many Bruce Banners, and it's a short amount
of time between Eric Bana, Ed Noren, Mark Ruffalo, who do you think that does Bruce

(48:21):
Banner the best?
Well, you also forgot Bill Bixby, but we'll skip him.
I'm talking about the last two decades.
Actually, Bill Bixby, that was a 10 year anniversary when this movie came out from when he passed
away or something like that.
Yeah, he definitely was passed away before this came out.
I don't remember exactly how long it was.
So of those three, of Bana, Noren, and Ruffalo, I always liked the Noren version of this.

(48:43):
I know he was only in the one movie and he was apparently a dick, so they didn't bring
him back.
But I think his version of Bruce Banner has that, he knows that he's smart and he knows
what he will turn into and he doesn't want to be the Hulk.
He wants to stay off the radar.
He wants to do whatever it takes to not become the Hulk.
And so that movie has that kind of tragic feel to it.

(49:04):
I think he does a good job with it.
Where I think Eric Bana, you don't really feel that bad for him.
Yes, all these bad things happen to him, but he's just there.
And I don't necessarily like the Mark Ruffalo version of Bruce, although I do think the
Mark Ruffalo version of Hulk is fine.
But Mark Ruffalo isn't bad.
It's just more tongue in cheek MCU.
It doesn't feel like there's any seriousness to that.
Where Ed Norton felt like kind of a tragic figure.

(49:27):
So I like the Norton character, but I have to give Ruffalo credit that he's still been
in the MCU and I like him in when he shows up in things.
I like him in the Thor love and thunder and I like him in even the She-Hulk show that
came out.
Like I liked Mark Ruffalo's appearances in those.
So I don't dislike the Ruffalo character.
I just think Ed Norton was a better Bruce Banner.
Yeah, I think for a more serious portrayal, Ed Norton does a fantastic job.

(49:50):
He is more tragic and I feel like he does make actual decisions about, no, he doesn't
have like a counter for how many days it's been since he's had an outburst.
It's a whole presence of the thing.
He is actually trying to fight the Hulk or control the Hulk.
Mark Ruffalo at the end of the first Avengers movie is just like, I'm just angry all the
time.
That's how he controls it.
Taking the story in that current MCU Hulk where he's always the Hulk.

(50:14):
He's no longer ever Bruce.
He's always mixed.
But that's fine if that's the way they want to go, it probably makes more sense because
you're not going to have, at least as of right now, they don't have a standalone Hulk story.
He just comes as a character of the stories.
So fine, it works.
Yeah, he's more of a side character.
He's a supporting actor in those movies.
Well, and I think if you're going to use the Hulk that way, if you're going to use the

(50:35):
Hulk as this nuclear bomb, that's kind of his goal.
He comes in, he destroys a lot of stuff.
Sometimes Thanos can stop him, but that took a pseudo God to be able to take down the Hulk.
Normally he's supposed to be there to be like that.
Okay, he's angry, point him at something and he'll destroy it.
So I think that works fine as a side character, but as a whole show, that would be too much.
So should people go out and find this movie?

(50:57):
I didn't hate it.
So again, I came in with, I don't think my expectations were as low as yours, but they
were pretty low and I still enjoyed this movie.
It's not great, but it's not, I mean, I like the Hulk.
I think this is an okay version of a Hulk story.
It's just not as good as what comes after it.
Yeah.
This movie is currently on Tubi.
It's not even on Disney plus or anything like that.
Because obviously the distribution rights are still wonky.

(51:19):
I think Paramount, my owners might that, but I think God find it's not a bad movie by any
stretch of the imagination.
We have reviewed worse recently and this is so it's, it's a, it's interesting watch.
It's not a funny watch.
Like you're not going to go into a, have a bunch of good laughs.
Go into it as saying that it's 90, it's late 90s special effects and you'll probably enjoy

(51:40):
the special effects.
So lower your expectations around how it's going to look.
It's not bad.
Now, mind you don't accidentally click on the incredible bulk movie.
That is not the same thing.
Do not click on that movie.
It will come up on Tubi.
Amazing bulk.
I would recommend though, search out the amazing bulk trailer on YouTube.
You will not believe that it's a real movie and it's, it's arguably not a real movie,

(52:04):
but it is an hour plus long and you can find it on Tubi.
Yeah.
I think it technically qualifies as a movie for runtime purposes, but yeah, don't actually
click on that one.
So where would you give this thing a rating?
It gets one giant green thumb, three quarters up.
It's not a full thumbs up.
Again, I think the movies that come after, I think if we did the 2008 incredible Hulk,
it would be one massive thumb up, but this is still better than I expected.

(52:26):
So I'm going to give it a giant green three quarters thumb.
I'd probably give about a half a thumb.
It's we have recent in our recent history reviewing have had some stinkers.
Yeah.
I think maybe my, my sense of where I'm comparing things might be a little bit off.
So I'm sort of hesitant about giving it three quarters, but it feels like three quarters
because of what we've reviewed recently, but I would probably give it a half.

(52:47):
I can't, you can't go wrong with it.
I mean, you could put it on, enjoy it.
It's over two hours, so it'll take some time.
Actually, you might want to go see it just for that effect of how they transition between
the comic panels.
It was kind of interesting how they did it, but yeah, it gets very tiresome by the end
of the whole, by the whole thing.
But before we go, we do actually have some mail back for today.
Oh, that's never good.
Yeah.

(53:08):
It's kind of interesting actually came in after our whiteout episode.
It's from a KR.
It says I love the show, but you guys made a mistake.
And article holds a record for, for sustained wind speeds.
Wind speeds can reach up to 200 miles per hour.
70 mile per hour winds can lift a 200 pound person.
In addition, they found the as for the buried plane, they found war two planes under 200

(53:30):
feet of snow and ice in Greenland.
Okay.
Well, you know what?
I am okay to be wrong.
That means that that scene is believable.
It also means that the weather that we complained about that they wouldn't blow a guy away is
in fact believable.
So maybe I just have never been to Antarctica and I would have to make sure if I do go,
it's not during that kind of wind, but thank you for the correction.
That makes me feel better because otherwise I actually liked that movie somewhat and I

(53:52):
thought that was unbelievable.
So it just turns out that I am ignorant.
I think what we need to do is we just start a Patreon, just to send the two of us down
in Antarctica and experience the winds for ourselves.
Go fund me to take us to Antarctica.
So Jeremy, as we head out, where can people find you?
As always, you can find me here every two weeks, but otherwise I'm on RetroVaniacs
podcast.
You can find everything retrovaniacs at retrovania.net.

(54:13):
And for me, you can always find me at off panel creations where we're always over there
trying to build some piece of nerdy furniture.
Big thank you our listeners for spending some time with us today.
If you believe this is the best version of the Hulk or you've seen the amazing bulk and
you want to let us know about it, send us a note over at movie-smash.com and we'll see
you in a couple of weeks.

(54:35):
Thank you again for listening and I hope you enjoy the show.
This has been Movie Smash with Chris Roberts, Jeremy Parmentier and Fergal Amayo produced
by me, Chris Roberts, executive produced by Off Panel Creations, LLC.
Movie clips provided by their respective studios.
You can rate and review the show at Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
You might even find your review right on a future episode.
Got a question for us?

(54:55):
Visit us at movie-smash.com and send us a note.
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