"Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage."
- C. S. Lewis
Thursday, June 19, 2003
MAN! I knew Ang Lee wouldn't screw this up!
Check out this Christianity Today review of The Hulk, which opens tomorrow.
The opening paragraph of the review has me salivating:
What happens when you hire a poet to direct a comic book action movie? You get The Hulk, 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.
Even the picture CT provided (and posted here above) looks a little better than the Hulk shots from the trailers.
Skepticism dwindling; hopes rising.
Review to come . . .
UPDATE:
Oh, me of little faith. Ang Lee's Hulk was phenomenal. Just flat-out amazing. Great drama, great pathos, great effects.
Let me just say that I am sorry I even had an inkling of doubt regarding something Ang Lee had his hand in. This film plunged the depths of human sorrow, soared through the sky literally and metaphorically, and is arguably the best comic book film ever made (that involves an already existing comic character). I think perhaps M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable is the best original comic book movie ever. But Hulk is certainly at the top of my list.
The editing and cinematography are great, very innovative. I've never seen composition like this before; it is that original. I always liked how Shyamalan made his film something you read as much as watch, with long tracking shots and panel-like scenes that had been meticulously storyboarded in comic book style. Lee, however, does one better and actually sets up shots in actual panels, sometimes showing different scenes at once, sometimes showing the same scene from different angles. There are split-screens, myriad "wipes" of different angles and shapes, and unique cuts involving set pieces like helicopter rotors, venetian blinds, and close-ups of various objects.
And I'm sure everyone wants to know how the green dude himself looked. I'll say this: as a self-avowed non-fan of CGI, he looked as good as any CGI I've ever seen. That is the highest compliment I can give. When the Hulk appears he takes the movie away and is just so compelling and riveting. Yes, I was always conscious that he was fake. But so was I when I saw TLOTR's Gollum, and that didn't keep me from loving those movies. (Incidentally, it seems the studio's claims about preview shots of the Hulk being unpolished may be true. He looks MUCH better than in commercials.) And the action sequences are breathtaking. Great stuff.
Just a side-note related to our moviegoing experience:
People, I know the Hulk looks like a cartoon. But please, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, don't bring your six-year-old children to the movie theater! They will be scarred for life. It is PG-13, for crying out loud!
Seriously, there were, like, nearly a hundred obviously under-10 kids in attendance. What are these parents thinking? What were they thinking their kids were thinking during scenes like the adolescent Bruce Banner watching his mother die or like the vicious mutant dogs attacking Hulk? This movie is too intense for your kindergartener. Get a babysitter, jack*sses.
Another note: Turn off your flippin' cell phones, morons! If I heard another stupid electronic jingle followed by some idiot's rude "Hello?" in the middle of the theater, I was going to go Hulk myself and rip their heads off. Arrgghhhh! Rod smash!
Trackbacks:
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Comments on "UPDATED POST: Hulk Hopes Justified!":
2. Jared
- 06/19/2003 1:23 pm CDT
Yeah, the CT reviewer (Jeffrey Overstreet, I think) mentions some over-the-top Nolte scenes. But I am encouraged by his overall praise of the movie. I think it is going to pleasantly surprise people expecting the worst.
I think people who are ho-hum anyway probably will still be ho-hum.
3. Jared
- 06/20/2003 6:07 pm CDT
Roger Ebert has an excellent review of the film on his site. You can read it at http://www.suntimes.com/output/ebert1/wkp-news-hulk20f.html
Just a tidbit: "Ang Lee has boldly taken the broad outlines of a comic book story and transformed them to his own purposes; this is a comic book movie for people who wouldn't be caught dead at a comic book movie."
He gave it 3 stars (out of 4).
4. Jared
- 06/20/2003 6:15 pm CDT
I didn't want the blog to run too long, so I didn't put these comments in my mini-review . . .
As expected, Ang Lee really adds some depth to the Hulk story. There is even a spiritual element involved I found very subtle but very fascinating.
Lee's Banner is a meek and mild man who has this beast within him. He does not like it and tries his best not to unleash it. But because of the sins of his father, it is his curse to bear.
I see Banner as symbolic of the average person without Christ. Of course, I am sure this is not what Lee intendend, but I do think he would agree that Banner could be symbolic of the unenlightened man or something.
All Banner wants is to be free from this curse. But it is in him, in his DNA even (a lot like sin). And the even bigger problem? Bruce at one point says to Betty Ross, "You know the scariest thing about this? When it starts to happen, when it starts to come over me and I start to lose control . . . I like it."
So like us, at war within ourselves. We want to be free of the beast within, but we sometimes cannot resist the temptation. Indeed, even find sin pleasurable.
To add another religious subtext, in one scene Betty and her dad are speaking about the Hulk:
Mr. Ross: One way or another, something must be done about him. He is his father's son. You know what that means.
Betty: What? That he's predestined to follow in his father's footsteps?
Mr. Ross: I was going to say "damned."
Good stuff.
5. Jared
- 06/21/2003 4:39 pm CDT
Jewel, if you're going to censor a word like jack*ss, couldn't you at least use an asterisk instead of an ampersand? I mean, it's an "a." It looks the same and, if anything, draws attention to the word.
Sorry if I offended anyone, by the way.
7. Rob T.
- 06/22/2003 8:39 am CDT
Jared, I'm with you on kids seeing movies they shouldn't. We had to leave Finding Nemo because Killian got scared and I felt bad for not checking on it first.
Re: Hulk. They showed a preview for it before Bruce Almighty last night (great, thanks Jared). Laura actually thought it looked good. Laura does not care forr comic book movies. I told her I would wait for your review because of the bad pub. Maybe now we have a reason for date night next weekend too!
8. Jared
- 06/22/2003 9:57 am CDT
Yeah, I think most critics are mixed on "The Hulk." It is more dark than a lot of people expected (like the hundred or so clueless parents who brought their children the other night) and not as "cartoony" as it appears in the previews. It's almost 3 hours long and Bruce and Betty actually have more screen time than the green guy himself, so it's not all crashing and smashing.
But the crashing and smashing is terrific! ;-)
There's a couple "child in jeopardy" scenes toward the beginning that are a little discomforting (particularly the one with the crying little girl) and the movie overall is pretty serious. I guess that turned off a lot of critics expecting to see another Spider-Man/X-Men type thing (in tone, anyway).
But I liked it (as did a few critics) and thought it was pretty dang good.
9. Jared
- 06/22/2003 3:01 pm CDT
The average rating at RottenTomatoes.com for "Hulk" is 61% Fresh. You can read one-sentence excerpts from over 120 reviews at http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/TheHulk-1123219/
(Each one-liner hotlinks to its respective review.)
Also, Nick Nolte looks like he went straight from his mugshot to the sound stage. At least in the previews.