This
film is sort of the red-headed stepchild of the Avengers franchise. Not that it’s terrible – it’s not! – but it
feels divorced from the rest of the series.
With the exceptions of some super-soldier exposition and a brief cameo
from another Marvel heavy hitter, it’s not tied into the larger threads that
came together in The Avengers. When I first rewatched The Avengers after catching up on the other Phase 1 films, I was impressed
by how well the films connected to each other and The Avengers, even as each stood on its own. The
Incredible Hulk really isn’t like that.
A big
part of this, obviously, is that the film stars a different Hulk. Before Mark Ruffalo came along, we had Edward
Norton, who’s both a fine actor and a very different Bruce (I’ve already voice my love for Ruffalo’s.) Some of it’s the story and some of it’s the
performance, but Bruce isn’t as compelling for me in this film as he is in The Avengers. He seems more at loose ends, reactive rather
than proactive and out of control – not just of his anger, but of his life as a
whole.
Like
most Marvel movies, this film steps outside the usual superhero genre. Rather, it’s a fugitive piece – after a
quick, dialogue-free montage of the Hulk’s origin story, the film opens on
Bruce hiding out in Brazil. The military
is combing the globe for him, not to put him down as a giant rage monster, but
to weaponize his mutation and turn it into a standard-issue enhancement for
soldiers. Being a generally nonviolent,
non-murderous person when he isn’t green, Bruce isn’t keen on this idea, and
the film shows him mainly concerned with three things: keeping the Hulk out of the government’s
hands, searching for a cure, and angstily reconnecting with pre-Hulk
colleague/flame Dr. Betty Ross.
If I
hadn’t seen Ruffalo’s version (as penned by Joss Whedon,) I’d probably be fine
with this Bruce. There are parts I like –
his DIY scientific equipment while in hiding, and I think it’s cool that, even
fleeing for his life from soldiers with a vendetta, he still does everything in
his power to keep his heart rate from getting too high and unleashing the Hulk
on them. Still, he feels like a weaker character. In this movie, Bruce is so often ineffectual
in combating his circumstances, his pursuers, and his inner demons, and he’s a
little too bland to really root for. (It’s
entirely possible – and probably likely – that, had they kept Norton, he’d have
excelled just as much with the fantastic writing in The Avengers, and I’d be a lot more retroactively fannish right
now.)
Also, I’m
fairly ignorant of the comics, so I can’t speak to its faithfulness, but it bugs
me that Betty acts as a sort of Hulk whisperer.
It’s cheesy to see him raging and tossing Humvees around, then be so
gentle with her. It’s a little too “Peter
Jackson’s King Kong” for me; I prefer
to think of the Hulk as more like a werewolf.
Even if Bruce isn’t entirely absent when the Hulk takes over, he’s not
that “reachable” either – in the finale battle in The Avengers, after Bruce seems to have a better handle on the
Hulk, he still fights mostly solo rather than teaming up with the others. The only other Avenger you is him fighting
alongside is Thor, because the Hulk is volatile enough that you wouldn’t trust
him with someone as breakable as a human.
Warnings
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