What Went Wrong with "The Incredible Hulk"

So, by now I’m sure you’ve seen the new Hulk Film, and either left the theater with a feeling of sheer excitement, a la about 2 in the afternoon on any given child’s Christmas Day. Or, option B, in which you left the theater with a feeling of emptiness and a longing for something more, much like I did. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed The Incredible Hulk as much as the next avid comic/movie buff, but the final fight scene left me with a complete lack of fulfillment, and I wasn’t sure why, until now.


In writing (though more commonly used in comedy) there is an element called a callback, in which a joke or plot point is set up and then referenced in future parts of the piece to get the audience to feel more intoned with the story, or in the case of comedy, to get as many laughs out of one joke. The closest thing you can relate a callback to in a more serious piece would be minor foreshadowing.


The film sets the audience up in the first 10 minutes with a callback in which Banner is teaching himself Portuguese on and learns the word for “hungry”. We then know he later uses this on a variation of the famous “Don’t make me angry” line. So already we know that Penn (or Norton) is aware of how a callback or foreshadowing works. This could have made this film, or at least the final fight sequence, a 10 out of 10 for me. What was so bad about the fight? I’ll tell you.


The final fight sequence, while certainly impressive, was barely Incredible. In almost every hero film’s big finish, we need to get a moment where our hero goes above and beyond what we’ve seen in the first 90 minutes, to overcome the “big boss” and do the impossible. And as most Hulk enthusiasts know, the angrier Hulk gets, the stronger Hulk gets. Instead, we get a bruised and battered Hulk that outmaneuvers his foe in what one could call almost a lucky takedown. Which is why I propose the next three options to you, the fans. And if actually I feel the fight sequence could have become truly Incredible.


A.) In the very beginning of the film, we see that Banner is learning Jujitsu as a technique to calm his heart rate, thus not Hulking out and killing everybody. This was referenced once in the alley in Brazil, where Bruce throws a few guys around, but ultimately gets his ass kicked. And in New York, when Betty flips out on the cab driver, a witty line about “teaching her some breathing techniques” was used. If in the fight, when Hulk was being pummeled into the brick wall, we were to cut to his stomach as he was doing the exercises we saw from the beginning of the flick, this would have been a more clever way to show that Hulk and Banner have learned to coexist, rather than throwing in the silly “Bett…ty?” line from Hulk.


B.) In one of Banner’s dreams/flashback, we are shown the beginning of the Gamma test that inevitably births our hero. A worried Betty Ross looks in to the test subject Banner and he to her. He then gives a subtle wink letting her know he would be OK. Back to the fight sequence, when Betty was in the chopper watching Hulk get his green ass handed to him, and then looks to her. Right here, if we were to get a subtle wink from the Hulk to Betty, not only would that serve the same purpose as Option A, but also reference a cute moment from earlier in the flick.


C.) Finally, right before his big fight, Banner is induced with an essential “cure” by Tim Blake Nelson, and again: the only time this is referenced is in one line when Banner is falling out of the chopper. I understand we are supposed to believe the cure never actually took effect, but if they were to use it as a way to explain why Hulk was loosing three-quarters of the fight, it would have worked better. Again, when Hulk is down and almost out against the brick wall, we could have simply gotten a zoom in to his blood cells (a la the beginning of the film, under the microscope) and see the gamma cells burst, killing the “cure” and becoming stronger, allowing Hulk to take out his foe with no problem.


While these are obviously none of the directions that the studios/director/writers went in, I feel like they could have made this film that much better, and probably put it on par with the ingenuity as its bigger brother, Iron Man. Though I suppose, there’s always the DVD.