Incredible Hulk
Blu-ray Edition
Directed by Louis Leterrier
Starring Edward Norton, Liv Tyler, Tim Roth, William Hurt
Universal Home Entertainment
Release date: October 21, 2008

I was never one to bad mouth Ang Lee’s Hulk film from a few years back, at least the first two thirds of it (I’m not a fan of the film’s ending), but I know a lot of people hated it, and I can understand that. So, with so much dislike going around, Marvel decided to pretend that the earlier film never happened, and create the second movie, The Incredible Hulk, in their plan to bring the grand Marvel Universe into theaters.

Breaking away from serious auteur Lee, Marvel went with director Louis Leterrier, most famous for directing Transporter 2, not exactly the most thought provoking of films. While this may not be as deep a character study as Lee’s film was, Leterrier does manage to make at least an interesting film. This is more of a nuts and bolts plot driven film, with the famous Dr. Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) on the run from General “Thunderbolt” Ross (William Hurt). However, Ross is unable to capture Banner, so he enlists the help of elite soldier Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth), but when Blonsky isn’t up to the task, he gets a little boost in the form of the super-soldier serum. But, of course that eventually goes horribly wrong, and Blonsky turns into the Abomination, leading to a great battle between the Hulk and the Abomination in the middle of Harlem. All the actors in the film do a decent job, although Liv Tyler is a bit of a letdown as Betty Ross, but Edward Norton is fantastic as Bruce Banner, and really brings a unique feel to it.

Now, if you’re looking for a movie to show off that high-end HD system you dropped a couple of grand on, here is the one you’re looking for. The look and sound are great, particularly the ending fight scene. Say what you will about the movie itself, but they did a good job with the effects and the sound. I’m not the biggest fan of the look for either the Hulk or the Abomination, but that’s mostly because I’m not sure if the technology is ready to bring faithful renditions of the characters to the screen. Still, they get the characters to move well, and the fights are easy to follow and not hyper-edited, which I enjoyed. This is definitely a film worth making the jump to Blu-ray for.

I do like a lot of the special features on this set. With the Blu-Ray edition, you get the always fun digital copy to put on your portable media player of choice. I’ve always liked this feature, since it saves the consumer from having to buy movies multiple times if they want to watch it on their iPods, as if to say “Hey, we’re not out to completely hose you this time.” Beyond that, you get the usual special effects featurettes, which at this point, if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. The feature commentary with Letterer and Roth, is fairly interesting, and they have some fun conversations, although I would have liked if some of the other actors had been involved, namely Norton, who I think would have added some interesting info, but it’s not a huge loss. There are enough deleted scenes on the disc that I’m kind of worried that it won’t be too long till we see the dreaded double dip “Director’s Cut” edition, so you can take it as a good thing or a bad thing. As for the much advertised alternate opening, to be honest, it’s kind of lame. If you want to see the Captain America cameo, your best bet is to read our story about it here, because you won’t catch it while watching, and that’s pretty much the only reason to watch it.

So, is this a great movie? No, it’s not great, but it’s a great fun movie. I mean, it’s got the Hulk and the Abomination throwing down in the middle of New York. How cool is that? The only real fault I have with it is that if Ang Lee’s Hulk was too intellectual, then this one swings too much the other way into stupid action movie territory. The big shame about this film is that it can’t live on its own; everything that is written about is in relation to the earlier film, which is a shame, because this is a nice fun film with some great action. Sure, it’s not as good as Iron Man or Dark Knight, but it’s still a solid film and is worth picking up. After watching it, I’m kind of hopeful we’ll get an actual sequel, and not a second reboot. Or at least a good spot in the Avengers film.