Selflessly striving to save somebody, a young mild-mannered male research scientist Bruce Banner (played by Eric Bana) exposes himself in full view of a friendly female colleague in a freak accident which could be for any normal person a lethal dose of gamma radiation.
He survives, surprising beyond her wits the lone witness to the mishap.
Why?
How?
His own father, himself a scientist who strayed beyond ethical limits in search of superior strength and invulnerability, injected in his son while the latter was a toddler a serum altering his cellular chemistry.
The accident triggers something in his DNA, allowing him to stand the gammas as well as to morph when rage seizes him into a hulking green monster with anger management issues.
The brief sketch above may well serve as a fitting intro to an appreciation of Hulk, produced by Universal at an estimated $150 million, whose bootleg version reportedly made its way into the Internet two weeks before its world premiere.
This is a much-anticipated Ang Lee film which adds a welcome entry to the fine (as in brilliant, distinguished and some such similar superlative) filmogaphy of the 48-year old Taiwan-born director with impressive academic credentials in motion-picture production in the US (University of Illinois and NYU).
Most of his previous seven films completed in a l0-year span have been awarded prizes in various international competitions.
Foremost among them was Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, which garnered four Oscars including Best Foreign Film in the other year’s Academy Awards derby.
The new movie based on a Marvel Comics character made into a successful TV series in the early ’60s took 12 years to make.
During that time, it is said that advanced movie technology kept pace with the special needs of the film, highlighting through the use of computer generated imagery (CGI) how the male lead (Eric Bana, an Australian whose debut film Chopper auspiciously netted him an acting award) transforms into a creature that can "lift 5,000 lbs., jump three miles at a time, run 100 miles per hour and grow from nine feet, then to 15 feet tall ... an amazing being (with) a physique that would make a classic strong man appear anorexic" (as described in the movie’s promo literature).
The fight scenes progressing from engrossing encounters with a crowd of sharp-fanged monster beasts growling menacingly in the dark to an astounding array of helicopters and tanks may invariably shock and awe average audiences at the incredible prowess of the Hulk who makes mincemeat of his nemesis in CIG’s virtual reality.
Such however is deemed a mere background or sidelight of the film’s principal project which is to plumb the profundity of a psychological drama involving stressful family relationships and the search for the underpinnings of the deep-seated origins of such trauma.
Thus, an ordinary sci-fi opus rises to a high-level tale that contains elements inherent in a Greek or Shakespearean tragedy.
The main cast of characters – Eric Bana, Jennifer Connelly (Remember her Oscar-winning performance in A Beautiful Mind as wife of a mentally-disturbed Nobel economics laureate?), Sam Elliot, Josh Lucas and Nick Nolte – each delivered inspired performances contributing to a touching ensemble acting in enfleshing the roles conceptualized by James Schamus, a Columbia professor of film theory, history and criticism who has collaborated with Ang Lee on all of the latter’s films.
Photography (Frederick Elmes), production design (Rick Heinrcks), music (Danny Elfman), and visual effects (Dennis Muren) contribute immensely to the high production values of Hulk – most especially the compelling creativity of Ang Lee.
It is largely due to this awards-winning director’s adroit handling of the eight-reeler that The Hulk has evolved into a smooth film sans cloying saccharine effect even in tender moments when the longing look of the Hulk’s ladylove melts the rage of the monstrous hulk to revert to human form.