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With Stan Lee’s X-Men (2000) and Spider-Man (2002) having enjoyed great successes at the box office, Universal selected Lee’s character of The Hulk as the next big franchise. The very talented Ang Lee was placed in the director’s chair and a formidable budget reported to be in the vicinity of $137 million was established. Alas, the film didn’t quite earn back its production costs at the American box office and worldwide the film earned a tad over $245 million. That may seem like a pile of cash, but it was apparently not quite good enough. The film was considered a disappointment. I was going to suggest that a good metric is that of all Stan Lee’s creations to have come to the big screen, The Hulk is the only one that has not received a sequel. (You’ve seen X-Men 2 and 3, and Spider-Man 2 and 3 and two Fantastic Fours.) It would take five years and an effort to reboot the franchise for The Incredible Hulk to be released.

As with all such first films based on comic book characters, Hulk starts at the beginning, providing ample backstory to explain how Bruce Banner (Eric Bana) came to be the furious antihero. Having never read the comic books from which the story was derived, I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the plotline. We’re whisked back to Bruce’s childhood. We learn that his father is a research biologist working for the military. He’s trying to devise a serum that would promote human regeneration, making soldiers’ debilitating combat wounds, maiming, and loss of limbs temporary inconveniences rather than permanent injuries. But he violates scientific protocol and experiments with his own body, modifying his genetic structure. And when he impregnates his loving wife, who badly wants a child, the offspring inherits the father’s genetic distortions.

Flash forward. Bruce has become a biological researcher working toward his PhD at a research university. His research partner is Betty Ross (Jennifer Connelly), someone with whom he’s had an unsuccessful relationship. She still cares deeply for him, but he has erected emotional barriers that get in the way. Even he doesn’t understand why. We’ll learn that he suffers from repressed memories that will become clear as the film progresses.

During a laboratory experiment, he’s exposed to what should have been a lethal dose of gamma radiation. Instead, it stimulates and activates the rogue, dormant genes he inherited from his father. The Hulk is now an armed bomb, waiting to explode in an unmasked fury that will transform him into an almost impregnable giant with an oddly colored complexion.

It’s not easy being mean. Hulk finds himself being pursued by the military under the command of Betty’s father, a four-star General played by Sam Elliott, the police, a military contractor led by the sleazy Talbot (Josh Lucas), hell bent on bottling Hulk’s destructive powers for an invincible army, and, much to Bruce’s surprise, a father he thought to be long dead (Nick Nolte). Betty, too, is in pursuit. She only had to look in Hulk’s eyes to recognize Bruce (ah, so Clark Kent’s glasses must be an effective disguise after all). After a slow start to establish the premise, the film races to an odd and somewhat inexplicable climax.

Jennifer Connelly, looking lovely, concerned, and a bit depressed, adds a credible note of emotional subtext to this comic book adventure. Sam Elliott is a dependable actor who projects authority, uncompromising intolerance for any Banner, and a decisiveness that seems more ego-driven than based on leadership skills. Nick Nolte looks disheveled and slightly mad; it’s as if the same make-up artist who worked on him for this film prepared him for that famous mug shot. He projects believable psychosis. Watch for the usual Stan Lee cameo, this time as a guard. Eric Bana has a thankless job, internalizing turmoil, suppressing feelings, being almost passive, until his inner demon takes over and he’s sent to his trailer. The Hulk takes over, and it’s exclusively CGI; although I admire the technology, I did not find the character believable.

I think this may be attributed primarily to a lack of motion capture as was done with Lord of the Rings, The Final Fantasy series, The Polar Express, and other films. The CGI character simply doesn’t seem very organic. The musculature seems unconvincing. The range of facial expressions is limited. And the artificiality of the character is enhanced in high definition. I really don’t understand; ILM was involved. Without a believable main character, the audience is deprived of an emotional connection. A second problem is with the storyline, which is very limited in its scope. After Hulk emerges from Bruce, it essentially becomes a chase flick.

This is a great pity, because I like Ang Lee’s clever direction, frequently evoking the comic book origins by placing multiple independent frames on the screen similar to frames on a comic book page. His transitions are equally clever, using the power of the computer to create unexpected wipes. However, all my carping must be tempered with a very important admission; when the closing credits rolled, I had no idea that I had just sat through a 138-minute film. So it’s clear that whatever flaws I might have been aware of, Ang Lee must have drawn me into the story deep enough to be unaware of the time. I must conclude that we’re left with a moderately entertaining film that may not dazzle but must have some ability to engage. I thank Jennifer Connelly; without her, the film could have been quite barren.

The Video: How Does The Disc Look?

This 1.85:1 high definition transfer may be the same as that used for the HD DVD; it’s a VC-1 compressed transfer that rarely exceeds 27 Mbps. Regardless, it looks pretty damn good. Hulk is quite sharp, with excellent small object detail and revealing finely grained textures. I was left with the impression that Ang Lee was composing for a small screen rather than large. Close-ups are very close indeed, with characters’ faces occupying the entire height of the screen, hair and neck most often out of frame. So skin textures, pores, and other details, like the fine, dark down that extends from just in front of Connelly’s ears to her jaw muscles, become extremely clear. Chroma is wonderful, with bright primary colors that are vivid and noise-free. Flesh tones are realistic and convincing. The subtle gradations and gradients of Hulk’s green flesh are conveyed faultlessly. I was impressed with the beauty of the Southwest and its burnt-orange landscapes, which Hulk leapt through like an unbelievably oversized flea. The video dynamic range is excellent. Whites are not crushed, but shadow detail is merely not bad; there is a bit of black crush. Alas, I noticed edge halos, particularly obvious surrounding the black outlines of Ang Lee’s frames. The rest of the presentation is more subtle; you have to look for the halos to see them.

The Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?

The DTS HD-Master 5.1 track is excellent. The surround channels come alive during the action sequences and become suitably quiescent during exposition or the dialog scenes. When they are active, expect pans and discrete sounds to envelop you, particularly if you enable EX decoding to create a more believable sound field. Satisfyingly deep bass pummels the senses during explosions and destructive outbursts. I enjoyed Danny Elfman’s score; it’s presented with pleasing fidelity across a broad soundstage enhanced with the surround channels. Sound effects have an impressive dynamic range. (I did notice, however, that the sound designers got their helicopter tracks confused, attributing the sound of a two-bladed craft to a five-bladed craft and vice-versa.) Dialog remains crystal clear throughout. This is a nice track that perfectly compliments the film.

The alternate languages are in Spanish, French, Japanese, German, Italian, and Castilian, all in presented in DTS 5.1. Optional subtitles are in English SDH, Spanish, French, Chinese, German, Italian, Castilian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Danish, Korean, Swedish, Finnish, Dutch, and Mandarin.

Supplements: What Goodies Are There?

The U-Control option offers a PiP series of vignettes. They are very short one- to two-minute snippets on the effects, behind-the-scenes jokery, and interview outtakes. Some are duplicative of content in the featurettes. A nice part about the chapter selection menu is that it highlights the locations of the PiP content, facilitating skipping the parts of the film you’ve already seen.

These extras, like so many found on high definition discs, were culled from a previous DVD release (and may be found on the HD DVD). We begin with a screen-specific audio commentary by director Ang Lee. With his imperfect English, this long film must have been a difficult commentary for him. I found his point of view particularly interesting since the commentary was recorded before the film’s reception at the box office became clear. This provided the opportunity for him to express his artistic intent unhindered by perceptions of acceptance. He hits the usual topics. And I enjoyed his sharing of anecdotes from the shoot, always preferable to listening to a director narrating the film or explaining character motivations that are intuitively obvious. He is known for emotional subtext and sensitivity, so when I first learned that he would be making a film based on a comic book character, I was skeptical. It’s in the commentary that it becomes clear that he did try to emphasize the emotional subtext in Hulk as well, emphasizing Bruce’s emotional and physical traumas of childhood, his emotional barriers, and Betty’s caring and frustrations. An enjoyable track.

Peter Bracke reviewed the DVD several years ago, so I thought I’d tap his thoughts for the standard definition, MPEG-2 compressed featurettes.

We begin with The Making of Hulk, about a twenty-four minute effort that’s organized into four chapters: Cast and Crew, Stunts & Physical Effects, ILM, and Music. It’s a better-than-average EPK. It’s clear that all these interviews were conducted during or right before the end of production since everyone talks in future tense. Elevating The Making of Hulk, however, is the fact that Lee hoped to combine "an indie sensibility with a major comic book movie" and, in assembling his team, wrung "deep philosophical discussions" out of them about why they wanted to do the movie. The ILM section is particularly interesting, as Lee, effects guru Dennis Muren, and the ILM team wanted to break barriers and create a CGI character you could “invest your emotions in” and that would finally blur the line between computer and reality. Apparently, all involved with the movie believe they succeeded. "He looks that real!" I would have to disagree.

A few more featurettes offer a bit more insight into various aspects of making Hulk. Most informative is The Dog Fight Scene (10 minutes), which breaks down the sequence, from pitch meeting through conceptualization to production and completing the effects. The Incredible Ang Lee is simply a 13-minute kiss- fest. The Evolution of the Hulk (16 minutes) is a great deal of fun. It’s a quick overview of the history of the character and his trip from page to screen, with reflections from various Marvel animators including Stan Lee. And The Unique Style of Editing Hulk (5 minutes) focuses on the film's “comic book panel” approach.

Last is an 8-minute montage of six deleted scenes. There is no explanation either in commentary or text for their deletion. No great shakes, but watch for Lou Ferrigno as a security guard.

The 138-minute film is organized into thirty-two chapters.

Final Thoughts

Other Stan Lee characters brought to the big screen seem livelier and more involving. I think we can attribute that to more emotionally involving main characters that don’t seem as artificial despite their comic book origins and abilities that could only spring from the imagination. Regardless, this moderate entertainment on BD looks great and sounds great and offers a reasonable selection of supplements pulled from previous releases. If you liked the film in standard resolution, you’re going to love it in high definition.