My Favorite MCU Film

Well, we’re officially knee deep into summer blockbuster season, for better or for worse, and we’ve already gotten a new MCU film for the year. It’s been a couple of weeks since Captain America: Civil War came out and I understand that it’s been doing pretty well in the box offices. As my personal homage to this “cinematic event” I thought I would share with you my thoughts on my favorite MCU film. Now, I’ve seen all of the phase one films up to the first Avengers movie. I’ve seen all three Iron Man films as well. But this particular film still manages to maintain a special place in my heart. Let’s take a look at, possibly the most underrated MCU film ever, The Incredible Hulk.

In the distant year of 2008, Marvel comics made the, for the time, bold decision to try and weave their various film properties into a single universe. It had been done before, see Star Trek, but never for film, and never in the scope that Marvel envisioned. So, in that year, they released the first two of a series of interrelated films that would become known in later years as the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The film franchise currently spans 13 films with another four to be released by the end of next year. This is truly an ambitious undertaking. So why does Incredible Hulk stand out so much to me?

Let’s look at some of the other films in the franchise thus far. Ironman was a good first film. We were right in the middle of Nolan Batman and Ironman is about as close as you can get to that in the Marvel pantheon while still staying kid friendly. But, it was an origin story through and through. There’s the first Thor film. To be honest, both of those films have been such a snooze fest to me that I barely remember either of them. It’s not necessarily that they were bad films, but Thor is not my cup of tea as far as superheroes are concerned (reference Mary Sue). Captain America is slightly more memorable to me, mostly because I really like all things World War II, but again, it was an origin story and I find those to be pretty boring in high doses. And then there’s the old piece of resistance, Marvel’s The Avengers. Look, I know that everyone collectively lost their cookies over this movie, but it lacked a certain finesse in its storytelling elements and, quite frankly, cramming seven superheroes in one movie can be a little disorienting. It had some okay spectacle and there was some good humor, but I guess the Avengers just aren’t my style either. Always been more of an X-Men guy myself. I could go on, but that could take forever and I think we’ve established a decent cross section of data here. Besides, that covers phase one of the MCU so what makes Hulk different from the rest of these movies?

Sure, they’re all pretty good films in their own right, but they’re all origin stories. ALL. OF. THEM. The first Ironman we see how Tony Stark decided to become the titular character. Thor we see how Thor crosses over to our realm for the first time and falls for Natalie Portman (The most unbelievable aspect of that movie, by the way.) Captain America, same thing. Take the serum, fight the Nazis, get frozen and then suddenly it’s 2010. Even the Avengers film was kind of an origin film. Will they figure out how to work as a team in their ‘first major engagement together’? What I’m saying is, in three years, we got four origin story films. It took four films to finally lay the groundwork for all of these characters. Now, I know what you’re probably saying, “But that’s a lot of mythology to bring together!” Okay, I’ll concede that one. That is a ton of mythology to tie together, but it speaks to an epidemic in comic book films today. How many films have shown the origin story of Batman? Four. How many for Spider-Man? Three, perhaps four depending on what happens with the next film. Superman? Well, two for that one, but he’s an outlier here. The point is, even though it was still fresh at the time, we’ve seen so many origin story films by now that for the sake of this discussion, it needed to be brought up, but why?

Incredible Hulk did something seriously gutsy for a comic book film, it didn’t approach the film from the origin story point of view. The origin of the Hulk is covered, but it’s done so in flashbacks during the opening credits sequence. It did what no very few other superhero films have dared to do and assumed that the world collectively knew how the Hulk came to be. I wholeheartedly applaud this approach! We live in a world where these characters have literally become our pantheon of demigods and there are very few people living on this planet who don’t know the origins of these superheroes so wasting millions of dollars and months of people’s time is a little superfluous. Now having said all of that, there was a wee bit of an origin story going on in the film, it just wasn’t focused on the Hulk. Instead, it was focused on how Abomination came to be. I can give a little bit of a pass here because I think only diehard fans of the Hulk are really going to know who that character even is. I didn’t even realize that they’d lifted him straight out of the comics until I was researching this article.

That brings me to my next point. The writer did a wonderful job incorporating existing characters from the comic mythology. Betty Ross, the Abomination, Leader: all of these characters got great representation in the movie. And while we’re on the subject of representation, I thought that the nods to the 70s TV show were a really nice touch. The theme song got worked in there! Whenever I hear those somber notes, I feel like I can almost understand the agony that is the Hulk’s existence. The use of the green eyes in the spotlight was taken directly from the show and Lou Ferrigno makes a cameo. The writer knew that a lot of his audience were going to be familiar with the show and he did a great job integrating all of the good elements of that show into the film so that audiences would have some common ground with the universe that he’d created.

There’s a huge aspect of this movie that I feel gets dropped afterward with the Hulk’s subsequent appearances and it’s on that, at least in my mind, solidifies Ed Norton as the best Hulk of this millennium and that is that his performance is very dynamic. Chalk it up to the screenplay if you want, but Ed Norton’s portrayal gives some amazing depth to the character. There’s a struggle going on inside Banner’s mind between the logical and ordered Bruce Banner and the chaotic and deadly Hulk. There’s a desire to rid himself of this burder and we see that struggle and the side effects of that struggle. PTSD is extremely well represented in this film and it’s handled well. It’s an aspect that I feel is absent in other film portrayals of the character, and that’s too bad because it helps me as an audience member, connect to the character more.

Following that train of thought, I also enjoy the growth we get to see Bruce Banner got through in the movie. He starts as a man at odds with his existence. There’s this hidden piece of himself that he sees as a cancer and he’s trying to find a way to remove it, but by the end of the film, we see him embrace that side of himself as he learns to harness his abilities. He accepts that ridding himself of his mutation is just not an option and he starts to learn to integrate that aspect of his being into his life instead. Again, Norton’s performance really drives this home. Speaking of, one of the other aspects of Norton’s performance that I enjoy is how he approached the character in general. Mark Ruffalo is the mild-mannered, soft spoken genius Banner and that’s fine, but Norton is the plucky, bumbling and uncoordinated Banner that really captures the total package when I think of Bruce Banner as a character. Again, Norton’s performance is just more relatable and I like characters to which I can relate.

Let’s talk about Bruce and Betty real fast. I understand that Norton is kind of a pain to work with so I don’t know if the chemistry between the two was natural, or forced, but it was great! The body language that the two actors used towards one another, the tones of their voices all convey a warmth and a caring that goes beyond mere friendship. You really get the impression that these two are soulmates who want only to be together, and you feel the conflict as they come to accept the reality of their existence.

It all makes for a great story, which I’ve discussed a little, but not at length. I like the way this movie is structured. It takes its time and does things deliberately. There aren’t really any wasted frames in this film. Every scene, every line of dialog serves the story and they serve it well. I love that we get half way through the film before we even get to see the Hulk fully for the first time. The film treats it as an event and because of that, viewers are rewarded with a truly exciting moment to take with them. We get to work through a little bit of a mystery as the movie unfolds and we’re made to try and guess how things are going to play out and I like that aspect of things as well. In all, I could see where some might take the slower pace and call it plodding, but i’d call it methodical, deliberate and well executed.

Finally, and you knew that it was going to come up, let’s look that the Hulk for a minute. I’m not even going to do the 2003 film the courtesy of giving any thoughts, but I prefer the look of the 2008 Hulk over subsequent installments. The animation is done in such a way that I can tell that the animators were attempting to make the Hulk look more realistic in this movie. The Ruffalo Hulk looks way too cartoony for my tastes and it could almost be argued that it looks so cartoony that it almost makes the character look like a parody of himself. And since we’re on special effects, there were some really amazing ones in this movie. There’s great use of slow motion and bullet time, which are two effects techniques that tend to get abused more often than not. There’s great lighting and the scenery even manages to be interesting throughout. All-in-all, a total package there as far as I’m concerned.

Hopefully now you understand why I’m willing to make such bold claims concerning this movie. I know that I’m in a minority here and that most didn’t find it very good, but where most see a slow, plodding snoozefest, I see an intelligent, witty, and well executed film that stayed true to its roots and delivered a top notch viewing experience. I highly recommend that you dust this one off and give it another watch. I guarantee that you won’t be disappointed!