The Incredible Hulk

Ok, so there i was sitting in the theatre next to two of the biggest assholes i've ever met thinking "how could this POSSIBLY get any worse?" ... and that's when the movie began.

The Incredible Hulk is possibly the worst superhero adapted movie i've ever seen... no wait, that's not fair to spiderman 3, batman and robin or any number of garbage superhero movies i've seen in my life time... Well, suffice it to say, this movie was terrible. But, before i get into the story, let's start at the beginning.

The Incredible Hulk was created to make up for the box-office flop that was the first hulk movie (i believe this was called "the hulk" since marvel is known for originality). Marvel, not one to give up on a dead horse (*cough*spiderman 3!!!!!*cough*), immediately sought to remedy this failure with yet ANOTHER terrible movie. Of course, any other production company faced with one failure would call the series at that, but that's when marvel shines brightest (and yet, hollywood won't pick up my tv series). While those other "loser" production companies are losing out on lucrative movie deals, marvel sticks to its guns, no matter how bad an idea it may be (seriously, why are we, as a society, still paying money for this?).

I've always been a fan of dc comic stories over marvel myself. The stories are better and the superheroes (with the exception of superman) were just more believable. Marvel tends to take the view that an individuals superpowers should known no logical bounds. I mean, magneto, of x-men fame, has powers that seem to bring him unto a god... yet he's still defeatable by a guy with a metal skeleton and a guy who can shoot rainbows out of his eyes.

Now, i could go on all night about what's wrong with marvel, but seeing as this is a review on the incredible hulk, let's just stick to that...

The movie starts with a 5 minute montage to bring viewers up to speed on the story of the hulk (i guess the first movie was so bad they expect half their audience didn't see it).

Once we get through that we're given some light story building of what bruce banner's been doing in the meantime then get straight to the action. I'd really like to say there's more to the movie than that, but no... that's it. Bruce banner becomes the hulk within 20 minutes and spends the next 2 hours screaming his head off. Yeah, yeah, there's a few points he converts back to bruce banner (if for nothing else than to add some "comedy" to the situation) but quite literally, this movie is a 2 hour piece of continuous action.

Now maybe some of you are thinking "2 hours of non-stop action? How can this fail!" but let me explain something... it's called "aggregate demand". Imagine something good, like, say, beer (if you're a drinker) or pot (if you're not). The first hit is good. It relaxes you, removes the stresses you're feeling at the time and generally has a pleasant affect. Hell, even the second, third and forth might make you feel better than that still. But as any drinker knows, the fun is not proportional to the amount you put in yourself... eventually, after your nth beer, you're not having fun anymore. And the same goes for action in an action movie. Listening to the hulk scream and bellow at the top of his lungs is great and all, but after about 20 minutes, you just want it to end.

It's not that the hulk doesn't have good moments in it, it's just they're too few to justify the TWELVE FIFTY i shelled out for this horrible piece of crap. There's a part at the beginning where bruce banner tells a bully (in horrible portugeuse) that he "wouldn't like (him) when (he's)... hungry". Hillarious! And later on, bruce banner almost gets to home base with his girlfriend when he remembers that even hot, passionate sex can bring out the animal within... and we all know what happens then: "hulk smash!".

The problem with this movie is it just doesn't have enough of these charming one liners (believe me: i'm making this sound as entertaining as i possibly can). Instead, prepare to have your hearing damaged by the constant screaming the CGI hulk does from scene 1 to the end.

I can't stop people from going to see bad movies (violence just doesn't seem to work), but if you have to go see this movie, you may want to find another way to entertain yourself. Being a canadian (a torontonian to be precise) and this movie being filmed in toronto, i found it quite enjoyable to point out all the canadiana in the film. If you're familiar with toronto and canada, here's a little game you might want to try. Ranging from easy to difficult, see if you can find the following pieces of canadiana: UofT, zanzibar, sam the record man, swish chalet and a smarties vending machine. I promise you, it'll be the most fun you'll have while watching this particular movie.

Indiana jones and the overused cliche

So i broke my cardinal cheapness rule and went to a movie at the theatre. Tee movie? Indiana Jones 4: the kingdom of the crystal skull. If you have not seen it and don't want any spoilers, stop here. Otherwise, read on. Now, i'm a pretty big fan of the other two indiana jones movies (i will NEVER acknowledge "temple of doom"! NEVER!), but this one was... well... where do i begin?

***************SPOILERS BELOW****************

First of all, the action scenes were stupider, the plot cornier and by the time the giant UFO showed up i knew that somewhere george lucas and steven spielberg were laughing at me personally. "Giant UFO?" you say? Yes. Giant UFO. I'm NOT making this up.

As for the movie itself, the plot is basically indiana jones, now a 60 year old former military man and tenured professor, goes off on a wild adventure with his former colleague's adopted son which later turns out to be (unsurprisingly) his own son. They travel to the amazon rain forests in their quest to return the crystal skull of the title to its birthplace, all the while under the pursuit of the new villains: a rapier weilding ukranian and her muttly crew of wascally wussians who have so little reason to be doing what they're doing it's pathetic. To be fair, they did try to capture the feelings of the day, what with the "red specter" and mccarthyism, but the "i like ike" line was just so cringe worthy, you start to wish they just stuck with the unmotivateably evil communists.

Speaking of the villains, the main one, the rapier weilding ukranian, is so two dimensional. The most character development she gets is when the fbi overtly TELL indiana (who had just recently survived a nuclear blast, mind you) about who she is and where she comes from.

Turns out her only real motivation is a lust for... knowledge? In the end, her "crazy" quest for knowledge lands her in hot water and she dies from what i call a "knowledge overload" (see kids? A little knowledge CAN be a bad thing!), her last words even being "i want to know... everything" (wow, that's just so evil!).

The movie ends with indiana making up with and marrying marian (the girl from the very first movie and young henry jones' mother) all while her former husband, indiana's friend and colleague and jr's father applauds: "way to score with my wife of 20 years, indie! WOO!"

All in all, hollywood again lived up to their reputation and ruined a series for me on the third movie (re: i will never acknowledge "temple of doom"). The movie's probably worth watching if you were a fan of the originals (nothing i say will convince you otherwise anyway), but from indiana surviving a nuclear blast in a fridge to the lame villainesse death at the end to the UFOs, there's just not enough here to call it "classic indiana".