‘Hulk’ smash puny movies!

“Hulk” is the best comic book superhero movie since “Superman,” which is not surprising considering that they use similar approaches. “Superman” was great because it concentrated more on why the Man of Steel is a legend so important to popular culture and less on what he could do. “Hulk” works the same way. It has plenty of action, but it is more concerned with delving into the hows and whys of the Green Goliath—what makes him a sympathetic character, for example.

Dr. Bruce Krensler (Eric Bana) is a bio-technical scientist at a Berkeley laboratory, experimenting on DNA manipulation with his ex-girlfriend Betty Ross (Jennifer Connelly). One fateful day, the lab’s machinery breaks down and Bruce is blasted with gamma radiation. He is subsequently shaken, but he is in the best shape of his life, a strange outcome since everything else bombarded by gamma rays dies on contact. Unfortunately, what Bruce doesn’t know is that decades before, his real father, Dr. David Banner (Nick Nolte), experimented on his own genetic code in an effort to find the secret of cell regeneration, and passed his DNA onto his son. The radiation triggers long-harbored genes in the scientist, and now whenever Bruce becomes angry, he transforms into the irrational, muscle-bound Hulk, a green behemoth with the power to take out an army. Betty’s father, General Ross (Sam Elliott), takes it upon himself to destroy the beast by any means necessary. But, does the creature really mean harm?

Many moviegoers and comics fans alike voiced their disappointment when they saw the Hulk’s first computer-generated appearance in the trailer because it looked far too fake. However, the character made leaps and bounds in quality since then; the character blends in with the live-action actors quite well. However, while the Hulk’s appearances are a major crux of the film, what director Ang Lee focuses on is the character’s human side, an angle (intentionally) akin to Dr. Jekyll. Bruce Banner, played on a perfect note by Eric Bana, is a tortured character in the traditional sense, and often we enjoy the movie not for the well-choreographed action but for the well-wrought psychology.

One of the very few objections I have is the way the movie occasionally breaks off into split screen panels. Lee was going for a stealthy homage to the comic book medium, I guess, but in comics, you can stare at the panels for as long as you want, while on screen the images morph back and forth in an annoying fashion. What works in print does not always work on film. Still, it’s only a minor complaint in a sea of compliments.

“Hulk” succeeds because it is not bound by the source material. Anyone who has familiarity with the comics will immediately pick up on extreme differences. However, the film has a mind of its own, and an agenda of its own, a quality that divides the greats from tripe like “Daredevil.” The big green guy has a lot going for him, and seeing him in action has resulted in one of those few occasions where I ache to see a sequel.