Hulk (2003) Review

The Hulk (2003)

The Hulk follows Dr. Bruce Banner, who, after an accident left him exposed to heavy amounts gamma radiation, is left wondering how he lived and what the emerging monster inside of him really is, and how it all connects to his father. 

Watching The Hulk as a kid, even then I knew there was something somewhat special about this iteration of Hulk, even if I only really cared about him raging out and smashing shit. What Ang Lee delivers is a heavily artistic, fascinatingly multilayered story that showcases the genuine weight and consequences of Banner's psychological trauma, and how that relates to the Hulk's boundless rage and power, really giving a weight and meaning to when Banner Hulks out. He’s a tortured entity, rage incarnate, that, at his core, isn’t Bruce Banner, but the Hulk itself, with his accident only speeding up the process of bringing his true self out. Throw in Danny Elfman’s deeply haunting score, that creates this pervasive sense of dread and trauma, that when mixed with it’s own images of unhappy childhood memories, strikes a serious chord with me considering those are still some of my earliest memories. 

Now, obviously, there’s a lot of flaws here as well, but thankfully, none of them lie in Banner. Hulk, for the time, looks actually incredibly well done, and even though he’s a bit hindered by the technology of the time, he still looks and feels like a photo-real, massive entity who is *there*. The gamma-dogs, while meant to probably be scary, do however look really weird and I honestly could’ve done without that whole sequence, which is a fault of much of this movie. The pacing is begrudgingly slow, making a sub-2 and a half hour film feel more like 3 and a half, taking their sweet time with the source material, and it’s only made slower with the comic book-y transitions that seemed neat at first, but just don’t mesh with the themes in the movie. 

We do however, get a great cast, starring Ang Lee, Josh Lucas, Sam Elliot, Nick Nolte, Jennifer Connelly, and Eric Bana. Bana, in my opinion, is still THE perfect Bruce Banner, capturing this conflicting sense of fear and rage that is so subtle but clearly based in deep childhood trauma, allowing his performance to really capture both sides of that Jekyll & Hyde-ian coin. The supporting acts from Connelly, Elliot, and Nolte are also fantastic, with Connelly conveying this heartfelt and genuine sense of belonging towards Bruce that never feels forced, just like two people that care for one another. 

The Hulk, directed by Ang Lee, is a deeply misunderstood film, as it, sure, contains all the usual elements of a superhero origin story, but it’s what lies beneath the surface, with the film acting as more of a character study on Banner, that really fleshes out all sides of him and the Hulk, even if the rest of the movie is a bit of a mess. 

5.9/10