Critics' Pick (40)
for subcategories)
East (310)
North (1038)
South (99)
West (204)
for subcategories)
East (228)
North (391)
South (84)
West (299)
for subcategories)
East (371)
North (804)
South (117)
West (410)
Turns out Ang Lee and James Schamus, who tamed the Hulk into submission with a dreary, hulking take on Dr. Bruce Banner’s rather unjolly green giant in 2003, couldn’t keep a good monster down. Say this much for lowered expectations, then: The Incredible Hulk is a Pretty Good Hulk. All things considered, of course—it’s still a superhero movie, with all the attendant noise and nonsense. Having dispensed with the origin story in the first film, the Incredible Hulk is bourne again in this one. Bruce Banner’s on the run, he turns into the Hulk, he smashes some stuff, he meets up with gal pal Betty Ross (Liv Tyler) … rinse, lather, repeat. The franchise has bowed to the inevitable, with a villain lifted straight from the comic book’s yellowed pages—the Abomination, played here by Tim Roth as a more or less faithful take on his print predecessor. And Ed Norton, try as he might (with an almost heroic effort) to make the new-and-improved Bruce Banner as interesting as his towering, verdure-shaded beefcake within, doesn’t possess “Iron Man” Robert Downey Jr.’s casual radiance—which isn’t all that noticeable until Tony Stark shows up for a precious few moments of screen time here and reminds the audience of the all-too-obvious: Iron Man was just a superhero movie too, only it was one that almost couldn’t be bothered with the superhero part. — Robert Wilonsky


