Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The early days of modern cinema Marvel when there were no constant one-liners ala Tony Starkasm... Yes, Robert Downey Jr. is funny but soon enough, every damn superhero had to share in his constantly glib persona. Even the recent Star Wars movies use it. Lighten up all the lighting up already... Let's get back to basics...HULK, the first big screen solo effort, is underrated and pretty good in several ways, taking forty-two minutes until Eric Bana, as scientist Bruce Banner... with the inevitable rage built-in from birth... turns into what Sam Elliott's tough General calls "The Big Man." Taking so much time for the payoff might seem crazy to some, but even KING KONG waited forty-eight minutes to reveal that titular beast. The reason for this is... Suspense...Thankfully, until the long-drawn climax pitting the military verses a sunny desert leaping Hulk (backed by Danny Elfman's worst score), he's kept mostly in the dark, outside, or within softly-lit interiors: like the laboratory he breaks out of to start the ball rolling. While the side-characters, including ingenue Jennifer Connelly and smarmy villain Josh Lucas, aren't altogether fleshed-out, Bana plays Banner interestingly enough so the transformations matter. Also let it be noted that he and Mark Ruffalo (AVENGERS) share a slight swarthy resemblance to the only human to play the creature: the iconic Lou Ferrigno... Unlike this poorly received blockbuster's poorly received reboot, THE INCREDIBLE HULK, in which brooding and melancholy Edward Norton attempts to lean more towards the TV series that even includes The Lonely Man piano theme, there's a villain-behind-the-villain here, usurping the nefarious Military so not to be one-dimensional, common, and downright predictable...Enter the always-gruff Nick Nolte, raspier than ever as Bruce's mad-scientist father, David. That's right, David Banner... taken from Bill Bixby's television turn since the show's developer, Kenneth Johnson, found the original name's alliteration too corny. And sure, this HULK gets a bit sappy and melodramatic at times, especially during flashbacks. But it doesn't let enough of that same downtime stagnate (albeit overusing initially cool but eventually distracting multi-screens) to make one forget what/who the movie's really about: There's an omnipresent vibe that that Special Something is right around the corner. And it wasn't a joke back then. (cultfilmfreaks.com)

Movie Review: "Hulk" (2003)One of the best Science-Fiction-Action movies of an early 21st century, in where the balance between picture, sound and any additional digital effect got carefully considered under one of most accomplished screenplays in at that time young Marvel universe, where each green-lit motion picture meant something to take home with an emotion, a notion or at least an idea to dwell on as of reading a deeply thought-through novel on a father and son relationship breaking bad.The father doomed to underrating jobs to make a living, constantly connected to his safely brought up son; stolen after a domestic violence incident of screams, speed motions, banging doors and a beat to be extended visually in an atomic bomb explosion in a distant black side lab in a U.S. American desert, where science knows no limits and the results kept secret, hidden from the public; a movie like an hyper-stylized poem, where truth between human relations eventually break out to confront demons before death.Despite minor miscommunication on design choices in creating the on color green powering "Hulk" and producers denying a fully R-rated adults-only audience to engage the life-story of character Bruce Banner, who relentlessly must leave everything behind to embrace fate, defeating each opponent, which becomes the ultimate price of being alone, but not lonesome in this world, where the director masterfully prepared the breathing-through cast, color-enforced cinematography, a haunting musical score and a pitch-tight picture-twisting editorial.The filmmakers pay respect to the original comic book source material in never-again achieved picture editing, starting with the opening credit sequence sharing the classic charm of the Golden Age of Hollywood translated to the 21st century, entirely misunderstood by the time of its release in June 2003; "Hulk" becomes after 15 years out for consideration - available to watch on any digital device by now - a blue print for empathetic representation of character confrontations, where still the human condition remains the frontrunner of motion picture entertainment.© 2017 Felix Alexander Dausend (Cinemajesty Entertainment LLC)

This movie is fun to watch. I like the way when Bruce Banner transform into the hulk. I thought Eric Bana was good as playing Bruce Banner. It sucks that there's no sequel like I want to know if Bruce Banner is still alive in the film. I thought Edwad Norton as Bruce Banner is weird like I don't why I think that. The special feature of this movie remind me of Spider-Man (2002) because they have two disc like one for playing the movie and the other one for special feature. It's still a good film.

I first saw this when it first hit cinemas, and I've seen it several times since, either on DVD or shown on TV and each time I view it, I'm none the wiser on where this gets off on calling itself The Hulk. On reading some other reviews, apparently I'm supposed to fall in love with this as for a superhero movie, Ang Lee has attempted (and summarily succeeded I guess), to make this more cerebral and provide an alternate take on what The Hulk is supposed to be about. Personally I think that idea failed dismally. There's nothing cerebral about this, and if they wanted to make a more structured superhero movie then I'm all for it, but when it's done at the expense of the character itself, how am I supposed to enjoy it when all the life has been sucked out of it?There are more than enough reviews outlining the movie and what happens, but nevertheless - THIS IS NOT THE HULK. It's not the Incredible Hulk, Savage Hulk or even The Sensational She-Hulk! OK it may actually have the Hulk in it, as well as one of his long time adversaries, General "Thunderbolt" Ross, and Bruce Banner's girl, Betty Ross, but aside from the central characters, there is little else in this that resembles such an iconic figure. Putting all the same characters into an episode of The Young and The Restless, won't suddenly make that The Hulk either and so it is with this.I don't get the Nick Nolte character in this as Bruce's father, David Banner, nor do I get the bastardized origin story where the Hulk gene has been transferred to Bruce through conception, and the extra dose of Gamma radiation he ends up receiving at his lab is what finally tips the scales towards "anger equals Hulk". I get that this could've been yet another mindless, one dimensional and hollow superhero movie where the Hulk just smashes every "puny human" he comes across and is little more than a rage-a-holic, but there is no semblance in this that honours the characters' origins. The movie is way too long, has outdated CGI (even for 2003), and what in God's name was the deal with the Hulk dogs? David Banner experiments on his own dogs by exposing them to Gamma Radiation and sets them on The Hulk. Naturally The Hulk wins and the each dog explodes in a cloud of green smoke. I never got the significance of the entire scene and the effects were incredibly poor. The dogs looked fake, they weren't menacing and the scene just added unnecessary padding to an already overblown production. I would've preferred The Hulk to fight an actual villain from the comics, not this rubbish.David Banner then exposes himself to the same radiation and turns himself into a poor man's version of Absorbing Man where, as the name suggests, he can absorb whatever material he touches and then use that as a weapon. This power seems to be more of a side-effect to his experiment, rather than a deliberate result, and I had read that early drafts of this movie were supposed to have Absorbing Man as a villain, so I guess this was their way of ignoring the character completely, while still using his abilities. Next we get David Banner eating into a high power cable and in absorbing all the power, he becomes a high energy being reminiscent of a proper Hulk villain known as Zzzax, however Zzzax never had human origins and again this is another poor attempt to just ignore a good villain while still pilfering his powers and using them elsewhere. The ending is the most convoluted part of this whole misadventure where father and son are fighting each other under a lake. David Banner somehow manages to freeze the lake (maybe this is now his Hydro-man persona or something), thereby trapping the Hulk. The military blows up the lake, and they think he's dead, however he survives and he's absconded to South America to fight the rebels and give medical aid to local peasants.The 5.7 rating at the time of this review is, in my opinion, substantially generous. Regardless of how much money this made at the box office, the fact that it has been re- tooled or re-imagined twice with different actors indicates that ultimately the portrayal of the character failed to impress. Having said that, I certainly don't blame Eric Bana or his performance in this. I like him as an actor and he did his best with the material, but the 3 key points for ANY superhero movie to at least work with most audiences is - do justice to the character - don't screw up with the villains - and stay as close as you can to the source material. It's not advanced physics, it's a movie. How this managed to turn out so badly and yet have people defend it as being "cerebral" is an insult to over 50 years of Hulk comic history.