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What happens when you hire a poet to direct a comic book action movie? Something like The Hulk happens—the most introspective and literary comic book movie to-date. Audiences expecting to turn off their brains and sit back for another blast of mere eye candy may stagger out of this 138-minute epic wondering what hit them.

Although the premise requires that audiences suffer through a lot of complicated gobbledygook spoken by angst-burdened scientists, Hulk is a rather simple story. The science talk is there to help us rationalize the idea that a handsome young Jeckyll--in this case, a brooding scientist named Bruce Banner (Eric Bana)--could, through some genetic manipulation and a big accident with radiation, develop into a big green Hyde. It's a blunder in the lab gives Banner an odd sort of allergy to anger. When his temper is tweaked, he goes all green, bulks up as if on high-speed steroids, and then start smashing things. And thus he spends his life hunted by those afraid of him (the U.S. Government), and tracked by those who want to carve out some of his DNA and use it as a military weapon (also the U.S. Government.) The only one who understands him enough to offer help is Banner's ex-girlfriend, Betty Ross (Jennifer Connelly), who discovers that her family and the Banners go way back, and that their destinies are entwined because of a grudge over something nasty that happened long ago.

It sounds like an unlikely project to begin with: “From the director of Sense and Sensibility and The Ice Storm, comes…  the story of a man who turns into an angry green-skinned monster when he gets angry!”

But Ang Lee’s films have always had something to do with repression, with desire stifled by social restriction (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) and passion finding creative expression (Eat, Drink, Man, Woman.) In The Ice Storm he took us to the early 70s, and showed the smiling carefree faces of “free love” culture, and then took us behind the surface to the world of pain and dysfunction. In Sense and Sensibility he gave us men and women filled with longing for each other, imprisoned by language and custom. Thus it is no surprise that The Hulk is more interested in the inner struggles of its characters than Spider-man, Daredevil, or even Tim Burton’s tormented Batman films.

What is surprising about the film is the way Lee inventively pays tribute to the story’s comic book sources. Instead of going for simplified imagery or an emphasis on primary colors, he simply turns the screen into a series of shifting panels that show us scenes from multiple perspectives. It’s a wonderful, dizzying style. (It’s a shame that film forgets about its best idea later in the film only to rediscover it at the finale.)

But that design is the only thing “comic” about the film. Hulk is the most naturalistic superhero flick since M. Night Shyamalan’s big screen comic-book Unbreakable.  Jennifer Connelly can feel free to shed tears as often as she wants; she's not in danger of ruining much makeup. (So she does tear up... often.) Many shots give unusual prominence to the environment in which the action is taking place. Several shots of an exciting chase through the desert are as breathtaking for the scenery as they are for the adrenalin-pumping action. Natural beauty is a preoccupation of Ang Lee’s that enriches all of his films.

His flair for literary storytelling and metaphoric imagery comes through as well. Lee’s blockbuster is more Beauty and the Beast than Bad Boys. His versions of Bruce Banner and Betty Ross recall King Kong and Fay Wray, and Banner’s angst over the sins of his father becomes almost Shakespearean. When the angry son finally confronts Tyrannical Dad, the culminating clash looks like something out of Greek mythology, gods smiting each other in the sky.

Lee asks us to take these characters very seriously…almost too seriously. It hurts the film. More humor would have helped us accept the film’s rather outrageous leaps in logic. But this is a film with a deeply furrowed brow, and that keeps it from being much fun. If you’re going to tell the story of Hulk with such sincerity, you’ve got to find some way to help us get through all that technobabble of “gamma rays” and “nanomeds” without rolling our eyes.

His cast digs deep to convince us of their turmoil. Fortunately, they are a talented bunch that do pretty well at convincing us of the extraordinary things happening to them ... for a while.

Bana turns the temperamental Bruce Banner into a troubled adult who is afraid to unearth frightful repressed memories. But those memories hold the secret of his monstrous transformations. His rampages are simply his damaged inner child taking over, which explains why Hulk often resembles a big puffy green toddler throwing a “terrible-two’s” tantrum. (It does NOT explain, however, how his green elastic pants still fit him after he shrinks back to normal size. That one’s still got me mystified.) Whenever he becomes a weapon of mass destruction, Bana’s eyes reflect both fear at what is happening to him and a wicked glint of exhilaration. Thus the story asks us to admit the thrill we all can know in wielding power over others, and then to consider the consequences of such power and the need for responsibility.

Since Betty Ross is the only one who knows how to reach past the Hulk's gruff green exterior to locate his “beautiful mind” and his “beautiful heart,” naturally she is played by Jennifer Connelly. Connelly's performance, a little too similar to the one that won her an Oscar, actually makes more sense in this fairy tale, whereas it made A Beautiful Mind too sentimental. Here she becomes a powerful metaphor of the way that love can quiet rage. When the military fires on Hulk, the monster just gets bigger and meaner. But when offered love and affection, of course, his temper cools and he returns from Angry Hulk to Weepy Hunk.

But Lee is interested in saying more than that. He makes a much bigger fuss about Bruce’s struggle to remember, and then accept, the secrets of his past. At the end of that walk down memory lane, Bruce finds that his manipulative, half-mad father. David Banner (Nick Nolte) was a scientist meddling in genetics until the military became uncomfortable with his progress. This led to a tragedy that made enemies of David and a cantankerous military general named "Thunderbolt" Ross (Sam Elliott.) It also left Bruce deeply wounded and destined to confront his father.

This plot thread lets Lee suggest that perhaps the good intentions of genetic engineers and manipulators of military force are not enough. They can leave a legacy of suffering for future generations if they do not respect certain limits. As Bruce bears up under the curse of his father’s sins, he trudges toward a final confrontation in which the lust for power and the momentum of rage threatens to consume them both.

At the same time, Betty has issues of her own. She’s trying to convince her own father, General Ross, to give up his grudge and help her save Bruce from his anger allergy. Sam Elliott turns in solid work, as always, trying hard to make what might have been a stock bad guy into a complicated, even likeable obstacle that blocks Banner’s path to healing.

Josh Lucas, on the other hand, has both feet firmly planted in the role of the Comic Book Villain. He's Major Talbot, a sinister officer who wants three things: Hulk’s DNA, Bruce’s research, and Betty’s love. He’s a triple threat, so audiences will not be disappointed when Hulk needs an easy target.

Everything necessary for spectacular drama is there. Unfortunately, the screenwriters never find the right tone to carry it off. Bana, Connelly, Elliott, and Nolte have to suffer through some laughably banal dialogue. Believe me, you will enjoy the film more if you focus on how it looks than on what the characters are saying.

Lee's visual storytelling does not let us down, even if the Hulk animation does. When Hulk finally does arrive in all his fury, you can’t take your eyes off him. Most of the time, that is because the special effects are awe-inspiring, but occasionally Hulk seems a bit undercooked, looking more like Shrek’s crazy uncle or the Jolly Green Giant.

The action scenes are all compelling and creative. Audiences will cheer as Hulk takes on pit bulls that look like they’re literally “from the pit” and then again as he takes on a troop of tanks in the desert. The most exciting effect comes when Lee once again indulges his love of heroes that can soar through the sky—Hulk’s mile-long leaps are exhilarating.

But these pleasures are only temporary. So many coincidences, so many questions, and so many implausible and strange choices have been made by the conclusion that you will probably not know or care very much about how it all works out. You'll be left to watch Nick Nolte in a bizarre, misplaced, melodramatic rant against the government. And then the film turns into a desperate array of special effects fireworks that lack any suspense or real excitement. That is because Hulk's final battle is not fought against the film's most dislikable villain...Major Talbot dropped out of the story earlier. Nor is it against the film's most formidable opponent...the government... even if they do play a part. No, Hulk's last stand is not the struggle of good versus evil that we have been waiting for. Instead it's a tragic, somber, ponderous wrestling match with family history. As if that isn't anticlimactic enough, the scene demands that we accept some rather outrageous superhuman behavior that completely spoiled my suspension of disbelief. I was more baffled and bewildered than blown away.

Nevertheless, I come away more grateful for the strengths that Lee gave the film than disappointed by its failures. I am overjoyed to see comic book movies going beyond the call of duty to challenge audiences and give them more to think about than the typical summer blockbuster. Ang Lee’s Hulk is not as confident, cohesive, and watertight as Bryan Singer’s X-Men films, but it does aim to go deeper and to offer echoes of age-old myths and fairy tales. I admire Lee for his ambition in trying things we haven't seen before, even if his attempts don't always work the way I'd hoped.
 

Jeffrey's Rating: B-
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