User reviews

The first time I tried to watch it, I had to turn it off. It was that bad. Let me explain this to you; I don't EVER turn off movies or leave

before they are over. My motto is "Every movie has at least 1 thing about it that is good". I have gone to the local video store and rented everything in the old

release section, starting with the 'A's and making my way

alphabetically. And I never turned anything off before. Never. I have sat through crappy horror movies, boring dramas,

braindead action movies, sappy romances, and unfunny comedies. I have sat through bad porn. I have sat through bad gay porn, and I'm NOT GAY!! I have sat through the Star Wars Holiday Special. This is what it means when I say that the film was so bad that I

had to turn it off.

I gave it a second try, and managed to force my way through until

the end. The movie sucks. I was expecting a bad, cheesy action movie with mediocre special

effects. I was right, but it was also an incredibly long, drawn out,

slow paced, nonsensical piece of utter garbage. The dialogue not only is extremely poorly written, but the

characters talk at length about nothing. There's this one scene in the movie where Betty Ross goes to talk

to David Banner, presumably for a specific reason, and the scene

goes like this: She walks in and introduces herself. He rants, raves, and drools for something like 10 minutes. She walks back out again. What the HECK was the point of that!?

The casting was bad, the acting was good only in the sense that

they did what the director wanted. The CGI Hulk effects were

cartoonish and he looks somehow a bit Chinese.

The movie is bad. Not "so bad it's funny", not "purposefully bad to

make a point", not "low-budget bad", just BAD in the strictest

sense meaning evil, painful, and malevolent. I tried to make fun of

it as I watched it, as that is one way to get entertainment out of a

bad movie, but it was just too bad. My normally quick wit was

paralyzed by the sheer awfulness of this film.

I tried watching it again one time, just to see if it was as bad as i

remembered, but my eyeballs took such offense to the notion that I

might once again subject them to the pure and utter hell that is this

movie, that they popped out of my eye-sockets and tried to roll out

the front door. I crawled along the floor, bleeding out of my empty eye-sockets

and listening for their squishy rolling sounds. Eventually I caught

them, washed the dust and cat-hair off of them, and put them back

in. It took me several hours to do this, and I somehow got one of

them in backwards. But, all in all, it was far more enjoyable than sitting through this

pitiful excuse for a film a second time.

As the title suggests, The Hulk motion picture turned out to be loaded with plenty of excellent special effects, but the story needed a huge pick up. Sure Eric Bana, Jennifer Connley(sorry if I misspelled her last name.), and Nick Nolte make a great on-screen trio, but not even their excellent acting could make up for the slow paced story. Sadly, I don't think that a sequel will be possible, unless this movie really racks up good bucks. But all that aside, the fully digital Hulk really stuck out as the best part of the movie. The way he smashed up everything and anything, including the "Mutant French Poodle", was enough to keep me hooked. See the movie, but don't expect much.

If there was ever a wrong director for a movie, this is it. He takes this entire movie way too seriously. At least with Spiderman and X-Men the directors knew that when translating an unrealistic comic book to a movie with actual actors you must have some sense of humor (and they did it well). The actors in this movie are forced to deliver their lines with such seriousness in tone and expression that this in itself is almost humorous. This movie badly needs to lighten up.

Right from the start we are thrust full speed into a very slow paced movie. It takes around 45 minutes of tedious, unnecessary dialogs before we even get the change to glimpse the Hulk himself. And it seems that even the scenes with the Hulk are void of any true action. I did not mind the CGI, it's more of the character that bothered me. He is by no means raging, but rather seems quite passionate in many scenes. And the action sequences are merely a repetition of a massive amounts of Army machinery hopelessly shooting everything possible at a running green Gumby.

Jennifer Connelly's motive is never really explained or clear. She loves him, yet she seems to always be the reason he gets captured. The movie's dialog is made up entirely of characters either screaming or whispering, no one seems to understand the beauty of a normally spoken conversation.

The special effects are completely overdone. With the exception of maybe a few frames of this movie, which they probably forgot to cut, every camera shot of people speaking is zoomed into a head shot so close that the actors might as well be sitting in a room talking into a microphone with no scenery around them. Almost every time the scene changes it fades into the next scene using a fade effect you might find built into a consumer camcorder (yes, this is utterly overdone). The few scene changes that lack this effect are graced with flashy, completely pointless computer graphics rapidly flying through the screen.

The limited minutes in this movie that are not occupied by people talking through pages of pointless, dragged-out script are riddled with moving and multiplying camera angles. It usually shows the same picture at 3-5 different camera angles at once, and at some points ventures into displaying multiple scenes on the screen simultaneously. Is this an attempt to make the movie appear more comicbookish? They certainly fail to accomplish that goal. It does, however, become quite irritating and very dizzying to attempt to follow. It reminded me of those annoying pop-up windows you get on some Internet websites, only these windows kept moving.

With so much talking and dialog you would think a movie over two hours in length would include some character development. On the contrary, throughout the entire movie there is not a single character that you will care about. The plot is confusing, overdone and overly complex in many respects, and much longer than it had to be (and should have been).

If you have not seen this movie yet and still feel a need to put in the time, effort and money it requires, wait until it comes out on DVD. This way you could skip to the only two action sequences watch-worthy - the tanks in the dessert and the mutated dogs. To see this movie in a theater you will have to endure many slow, long, un-fulfilling dialogs that will test your ability to stay awake.

I don't even know what to say about this movie. Since I was a kid I LOVED the Incredible Hulk. It seemed that, after the Batman fiascoes that Warner Brothers put out, the movies were getting it right with superhero films such as "Spider-Man" and "X Men". So, when I found out they were making "The Hulk", I was REALLY excited. The teaser looked good: Basically the side of Banner's house exploding outward as a result of him turning into the Hulk.

Then I saw the REAL trailer.

Sweet Jesus, who made this movie? Who wrote the script? Who gave the damn thing the green light and, for the love of God, why did ANY of the actor's think it was a good idea? The beginning was nothing short of excruciating - The film CRAWLS!!! I mean, I know that building the background story and the suspense to see the Hulk is important, but this just seemed tangential. Who cares?

What makes things worse is that there is no pay-off for the viewer's patience. It is unbelievable and unforgivable that in 2003 a movie could come out with CGI so SHOCKINGLY bad. It is IMPOSSIBLE to take this movie seriously. You CANNOT suspend disbelief. Maybe I am being too harsh. Nick Nolte as a mug shot come to life is mildly amusing and I guess I am glad that Sam Elliot was finally able to make a movie that makes him proud of his work in "Roadhouse".

Look, I am sure that no one is even READING this scathing review. I just wrote it to make myself feel better... To try and exact some measure of revenge for this film taking 2+ hours of my precious life.

The Hulk is the story of Bruce Banner, a scientist who takes a blast of gamma radiation when saving a punk kid (Rick) who strays into a military testing area it is NOT a story about an abuse father. Ang Lee uses this movie as a vehicle to explore his fascination with father-son relationships. This is an appalling movie and whoever gave Lee licence to re-invent such a legendary comic book character should be given a lethal dose of gamma radiation, along with Ang Lee himself.

Wait for the DVD/Video release and skip to the scenes with The Hulk.

1/10.

This movie is horrendous and painfully boring to watch, it gives me a migraine to see it all the way through. The annoying comic book like split screen, especially will gives you a splitting headache. I can't believe it's rated on average any higher than 3 stars. The acting, directing, and script are a joke, such a shame that a great character like the hulk got the worst cinematic treatment of a comic book movie ever. Ang Lee's art house style of directing was probably fine for Crouching tiger, hidden dragon but in Hulk it really feels out of place.

Eric Bana is a fine actor in the other movies I've seen him in Troy and Chopper, but in this film whenever he was supposed to be enraged to the point of turning into the hulk, he seemed like a 3 year old play acting. Actually it's totally hilarious to see him gasping, groaning and struggling for breath, even the film itself makes a joke of it, when Nick Nolte mockingly imitates his childish whining and screaming towards the end.

A year on from the awful mess that was Spiderman, a new 'superhero' is transformed onto our screens with a big budget, CGI and a quality director. Everyones been talking about it and I was ready to see a decent film with some wicked computer effects. As the films not out in the UK till next friday (I saw an advance screening), I was looking forward to one of the biggest summer blockbusters of the year, and all I got in return was a numb bum. 2 hours and 15 minutes later, I walked out of the cinema without any good things to say about the film. The effects are dodgy to say the least, the Hulk's only in the film for about 15 minutes. The action sequences are dark, dis-jointed, poorly edited and as for the finale, well only Ang Lee knows what is going on!! Bana does a good job in a difficult role, Nick Nolte looks like he enjoyed himself but the other members of the cast are stale. The comic book style editing is a gimmic and it often leaves you wondering what Ang Lee is trying to tell us. Ok, the Hulk is massive and can probably kick some ass but he's never really given a chance. There's no 'baddy' as such so the story seems one sided and the running time is criminal. This film should of been a 100 minute, adrenalin rush instead I needed to be kicked every now and again so that I stayed awake! The story is dragged out and the first 45 minutes are empty. Although, the credit sequence at the start of the film is inventive, it doesnt give enough detail about the genetic engineering that provides the underlying core of the film. So, another year, another 'superhero' and another major dissapointment for the blockbuster hungry crowd. You can normally tell if a films any good by the reaction at the end of the film, everyone walked out in silence and went home! Nothing to say about a nothing film.

So many places to start, but nothing good to say about The NOT Incredible Hulk. Boring, Boring, Boring. Any more Boring and I would have thought that this was a DC movie and not a Marvel one. Tragically awful comes to mind. I haven't seen something this bad since that Anita Bryant concert. I'm not joking. This movie S U C K S. The only saving grace is when the dialogue stops and the RAMPAGE begins!

The plot is incoherent. The original concept featured a scientist bathed in gamma rays while saving a teenager from certain death, who then turns into a muscle monster! The "movie" takes more than the concept of liberty with the original plotline and produces precisely what you would expect of a bad Hulk comic book. I should say MORE than bad Hulk comic book to emphasise the frequency of bad Hulk stories. This rates as top worst all time. A pre-school attempt at a serious subject.

I think that to do this movie justice I would have to rate it as below both the Captain America and the Punisher movies of the late 80's early 90's. That's bad for those of you scoring at home.

I have better things to say about Daredevil and I really didn't like that movie.

The Hulk should have been a better movie. It should have been entertaining. There is more than enough story there to accomplish this. Instead a really awful and poorly executed family trauma story between a father and a son is substituted. There is also a recurring green mushroom cloud that indicates a nuclear explosion and yet is never explained into the story.

This movie should be a "how to screw up a good comic book idea when making a movie" course for any potential moviemaker.

I hope I'm being perfectly candid here;)

Plot if full of holes and plainly uninteresting. Character development is terrible,no sympathy for bruce or any of the protagonists. The internal struggle of Bruce is not adequately shown and the acting leaves a lot to be desired. Watching this movies is a waste of time. 1 out of 10

People will use the "soccer defense" for this movie. That is, they will say it only seems so unbelievably dull because we average rational human beings are not sophisticated enough to understand/appreciate the high culture involved. Baloney. Ang Lee did nothing but take a movie about a giant green monster and make it boring. An impressive feat, mind you, but not one anyone should pay money to go see. Don't give me any nonsense about how he wanted to make it more than just a typical smash em up movie. First of all, a movie about the Hulk SHOULD be a smash em up movie. Secondly, for the 70 insufferable minutes of backstory and character development we get before we even see a HINT of green, the characters wind up being paper thin! I mean, what do we really know about Bruce other than that he was adopted at a young age and he's a big moralist. Zippo. And I HATE when Directors try to be arty in something that is just NOT an art film, to show how avant garde they are. He used the "24" esque split-screen technique to give this movie a "comic book feel?" Hey, I've got an idea Ang. Why not use your DIRECTION to give it a comic book feel instead of playing camera games? And 2 hours and 18 minutes for a movie about the Hulk? Hey, Ang, get over yourself and learn to edit. Finally, what was all that business about his father? The way I remember it, Bruce Banner became the Hulk when he got caught in the blast rescuing Rick Jones from the Gamma Bomb he helped to create. Is this tedious new story all Ang's creation? If so, WHY?? Ick. Don't waste your time with this literal monstrosity. 0/10

With the one-two punch of the entertaining Bryan Singer-helmed X-Men films and Sam Raimi's brilliant Spider-Man take, it seemed like comic films had finally found their way. It really WAS possible to tell the deep, moving plot line that has entranced comic readers for decades while including the requisite explosions that have also entranced comic readers for decades. Naturally, when I saw the trailer for the Hulk, I was expecting Bruce Banner to get an equally good treatment. I mean, they brought in Ang Lee, meaning they wanted a more serious exploration into the Hulk's multiple personas, right? And the man knows his wire-fu, so the action sequences would be good too, right?

Wrong. The Hulk was one of the most painful theatrical experiences of my lifetime. It even managed to top Wild Wild West and The League of Extraordinary Gentleman for cinematic torture. Of course, that two hour run time of badness can do anyone in. At least those films were short enough to escape from. The Hulk is not only bad, it's long too. The more recent Batman Begins clocked in ten minutes longer than this and and it just zooms by while achieving everything the Hulk fails at. And that had the Memento guy helming it for crying out loud!

Let's get something straight - many in the media and the internet are under the impression that The Hulk is some grand artistic opus overlooked by dumb theater goers due to lack of explosions. They laud it's artistic vision, it's brilliant insight into Banner's head, and a bunch of other artsy crap. These elements ARE NOT IN THIS FILM. The movie I saw was so caught up in convincing the audience it was smart that I was just waiting for the "Oscar Moment" subtitles to pop up. Sadly, it's hoodwinked quite a few people into its vision. People who should know better. Hence why this review exists.

No, this film is a cinematic Seinfeld. This film is about nothing. On top of the title character not even appearing for the first third of the film - we learn absolutely nothing about Bruce Banner to make us care about him. He is a total blank slate. Eric Bana is a fine actor, but his Bruce is someone I never cared about. And there's plenty of angles they could have used to make Bruce intriguing, all of which Marvel Comics has gone in depth over(Grey Hulk anyone?). There's a lot to the Hulk character but Ang Lee never got it - he just liked making pretty pictures and vague plot points that amounted to nothing.

Then there's the conflict with his father. Namely - his creepy dad is trying to do...something. The film doesn't really tell you what. It does use that clever smokescreen of being vague so you supposedly need to analyze to find the plot, but no, deep analysis reveals dad is nothing but a creepy old guy with mutant poodles. At the end of the film, his showdown with Bruce is nothing but a giant metaphor for...nothing.

We get a lot of flashbacks, supposedly to establish conflict. They add nothing to the film except that Bruce's dad is Not A Good Person. We get shots into Bruce's head that are supposed to show an identity crisis. But since we never get anything resembling an identity from Bruce, there's no involvement in his crisis. And naturally, these scenes are way too long and go nowhere. That's not artistic vision - that's someone stumbling around trying to find something more to do with the concept than "Hulk smash!" There's nothing for the Hulk to define himself against - we are given a few vague sources of antagonism. The military sort of plays a role - nothing like a good cliché in our monster movie. But for a film that's supposed to be innovative in its presentation, how come the best they can up with for the military are nothing but tired clichés? It's as though they exist solely so someone can throw tanks at the Hulk.

Oh, sure, there's action sequences, but those are boring too. The only thing the film gets right is that helicopters are not giant tanks of nitroglycerin waiting to go off at the slightest touch. But we do get a thirty minute or so chase sequence through the desert where Hulk jumps...and jumps...and jumps...and winds up in San Francisco so he can...wind up right back where he started! Oh sure, he overturns some tanks and helicopters on the way, but we just had a thirty minute chase sequence go absolutely nowhere but boy did it buffer that artistic runtime.

Folks - do not be fooled. This film is not an unsung classic. It is undeserved of that praise. Bruce Banner's consciousness has been explored in depth in his comics since the 70's, and Ang Lee couldn't even get close to it in three hours. Even the TV series had a better shot at the character and he wasn't even named Bruce in that one. There are plenty of better three hour films out there, and plenty of better comic films out there.

Hulk is one of those movies you start watching and you think..."its gotta get better, its just gotta!" but it doesn't. It gets worse and worse and worse. The editing of this movie was extremely poor. The story was very hard to follow, and it just sucked. The CGI Hulk was very cool though i will say that, honestly, thats the only reason i watched it all the way through just to see The Hulk. But its hard to believe that a movie with pretty okay actors sucked so bad, but it did. 1\5

Bruce Banner (Eric Bana) is a geneticist who accidentally exposes himself to gamma radiation and receives the curse of turning into the Hulk (A ferocious green giant) during emotional stress. Betty (Jennifer Connelly) is the only person who can stop his anger and must find a way to save Bruce's life as well as the well-being of others.

Let me just start off by saying that this movie was horrible. It didn't start off incredibly bad. It started off somewhat interesting actually. I walked in to the theater with high expectations, so naturally I tried to enjoy the film but it was just too hard. As soon as the huge mutated dogs started to attack Jennifer Connelly and The Hulk comes and saves her, I was amazed at how much Ang Lee screwed up the blockbuster film. This movie had so much potential and failed to do anything more than confuse the audience. The effects were cheesy, the plot was stupid, and the writing was horrible. Everything about the movie was just bad, except the editing. This movie had surprisingly great editing but the rest of the movie was just so bad that it made my want to cry. The Hulk made Daredevil look like an Oscar nominee. Overall, this movie was incoherent, dull, and the ending leaves you with "What the hell just happened" look on your face.

I do not recommend this movie for anyone.

Adding to previous comments, this isn't just the worst Marvel movie ever made, this is without a shadow of a doubt, the worst MOVIE ever made. This is because of one simple fact, the movie is just SO damn boring! After the film ended I was left with a feeling of sadness at the loss of the last two and a half hours of my life, sigh. I saw Peter Jackson's attempt at making a horror movie in 'Bad Taste' when I was thirteen and I thought that was bad, Hulk now makes it seem worthy of an Oscar! I recommend that everyone steers well clear of this movie, there are a million better things you could be doing with your time, anything at all, even watching paint dry. Seriously.

This is the first film I've not only walked out of but demanded my money back. Incredibly bad. Not even funny bad. No depth, no science, no fun, no CGI - it happens in the dark, no engagement. Can't get into it because none of the logic works. Can't laugh at it because it's soooo serious and dull. Can't get excited because the green blur doesn't give any hooks. Absolutely the worst film I've ever seen. What I like: Alien3 is my favourite of the Aliens. Will Hay and Cagney superb. Fargo and Fight Club. And if you want anything big and green - Shrek.

I didn't have high expectations for this movie. As a regular movie-go-er, I usually like most movies I watch. Granted, I see enough that more than a handful aren't decent, and I've had some arguments with friends about how good movies were (yes, I like b-movies, so sue me.) With this said, I approached the Hulk expecting a fun, interesting movie, not necessarily good, but at least entertaining, within the realm of the rest of the super-hero movies that have come out lately, with much success.

Boy was I wrong. This was the first movie in a long while that bored me, and the first movie I can remember that actually made me want my money back. I thought the CGI would be the worst thing about this movie, but it was the best, and it wasn't all that great. Oh, I'm wrong... Sam Elliot was good, it was nice to see him in a "block-buster" picture, and Jennifer Connelly put in a good performance, but the rest of the movie was crap. How they got once superb actor Nick Nolte to play such an awful part is beyond me. The editing was atrocious, among the worst I've ever seen. The editor couldn't figure out how he wanted to get from one scene to the next. Wipes, dissolves, cuts were all used, and for a while it was more entertaining to count the number of different methods used than to actually watch the movie. But only for so long, because after a while you can't remember if you were on #63 or #72. The soundtrack was bland, not even coming close to the excellence achieved in Daredevil.

Don't bother wasting your time with this movie. If you must see it, wait till it's out on video, and see if you can con a friend into renting it, so you don't have to waste your money on it.

This movie sucked like a Hoover and that is an insult to the Hoover corporation.

I try to take at least one positive thing from every movie I see but "The Hulk" really had me challenged. The plot was boring, the acting was poor, the CGI was dreadful and the direction was non-existent. In short this movie lacked in areas I had never believed existed.

I realise that taste is an individual thing but I am at a loss as to how anyone could like this pile of rubbish. I saw this movie once only (on DVD, thank God I did not waste the money at the box office), and have been traumatised ever since.

"The Hulk" should be standard viewing for anyone looking to get into the movie making business as how NOT to go about making a movie.

Wait, I have it: I knew there was one positive thing I could take away from watching "The Hulk". At I did not die during the course of the movie.

Why did I hate this movie so much? Is it because I grew up surrounded by comic book geeks and have therefore absorbed comic knowledge through osmosis? Is it because I'm a military brat so I typically get a touch defensive when the military is portrayed as rabidly evil? Is it because I've worked in labs so I'm too familiar with science to enjoy the Hollywoodization of biology? -Ex. David Banner is shown running a PCR analysis in 1965, too bad Cary Mullis, who won the Nobel Prize for the technology, was not only a child, but was about thirty years away from publishing his finding!? Is it because I typically like Ang Lee movies so I had high expectations? Is it because I suffered through this mess because I kept thinking "This movie stinks, but Eric Bana's hot." I guess that's the punishment for being shallow.

The bottom line is the motivations of the characters are preposterous or unclear, the supposed troubled love affair between Betty and Bruce is never fully explored and there are huge plot holes. There's no real pay-off in the end, and you basically are left thinking "what the hell just happened?" I don't blame the actors-I typically enjoy Bana, Connelly and Elliot, they were stuck with stilted dialogue and erratic direction. I blame the producers for giving the job to Lee whose talents lie in smaller, more intimate stories. Bottom line: stay away, far, far away.