Action/Adventure, Drama and Science Fiction/Fantasy 2 hrs. 18 min.
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sci-fi action violence, some disturbing images and brief partial nudity.
Starring: Eric Bana, Jennifer Connelly, Nick Nolte, Sam Elliott, Josh Lucas
Directed by: Ang Lee
Written by: David Hayter and James Schamus
Producers: Gale Anne Hurd, Avi Arad, James Schamus, Larry Franco
Executive producers: Stan Lee, Kevin Feige
Distributor: Universal Pictures

In this adaptation of the long-running Marvel comic “The Incredible Hulk,” research scientist Dr. Bruce Banner’s (Eric Bana) failed experiments cause him to mutate into a monstrously powerful and savage green-skinned behemoth whenever he loses control of his emotions. Jennifer Connelly plays his love interest Betty Ross, Nick Nolte plays Bruce’s dangerous father, and Sam Elliott plays Betty’s father, the tough-as-nails General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross.

Written by David Hayter (“X-Men”) and Lee’s longtime collaborator James Schamus and set in modern-day Berkeley, Calif., “The Hulk’s” plot follows the misunderstood research scientist Dr. Bruce Banner and his angry alter-ego, both played by Eric Bana, as he is pursued by the military as well as threatening evil forces.

In a brilliant opening titles sequence (designed by yU+co), we see a maverick scientist experiment in genetic modification. Failures result, but he perseveres. Then the consequences of his own self-experimental research hits home, literally, when his wife has a baby. Whatever mutation he conjured up in that devil’s brew is passed on to his son. His boss, a military commander, tosses the scientist out of his own lab, but not before the scientist sabotages the lab and rushes home to relieve his son of the burden the boy carries without his knowledge.

Years later, scientist Bruce Banner (Eric Bana) follows unknowingly in his father’s footsteps as a researcher in genetic technology. He has repressed all memory of his first four years of life, believing that his parents died when he was an infant. Bruce is so emotionally cut off from others that it has undermined his relationship with girlfriend and fellow researcher Betty Ross (Jennifer Connelly).

Then their lab experiments attract the unwanted attention of Betty’s estranged father, Gen. Ross (Sam Elliott), and rival researcher Glenn Talbot (Josh Lucas). Someone else mysteriously lurks around the lab, the new night janitor David (Nick Nolte), who turns out to be Bruce’s father, recently released from prison.

A lab accident exposes Bruce to what should be a fatal dose of gamma radiation. But his dad’s mutating gene not only allows him to withstand the gammas, the combination serves to kick-start the “monster” within. Now when severely angered, the scrambled DNA turns Bruce into the Hulk. Unlike the old CBS series “The Incredible Hulk” (1977-82), in which Bill Bixby’s Bruce steps off camera in favor of bodybuilder Lou Ferrigno’s Hulk, Bruce’s alter ego here is a massive, green CGI creature that can withstand missiles, leap into the sky and shake up the entire U.S. military.

This character has already caused controversy, the major complaint from some moviegoers being that they have a hard time investing emotionally in a CGI-created character. But not only does this character conform to the Hulk from the Marvel Comics, this is a true-blue (make that green) superhero.

Desperate to understand these transformations, Bruce delves into his own origins. But he is in a race against the blowhard Gen. Ross and conniving Talbot, who seek power and money from the Hulk’s genetic makeup. Equally as puzzling, Bruce must admit that he rather enjoys his other self, knocking about people, cars, ferocious dogs and eventually flying aircraft. The climatic sequence when the Hulk escapes a desert lab and rampages all the way to San Francisco is event moviemaking at its best.

This is a long film that moves at lightning speed, egged on by Danny Elfman’s bold theatrical score and Tim Squyres’ fluid editing. For all the considerable contributions by designer Rick Heinrichs and cinematographer Frederick Elmes, though, “Hulk” takes its energy from character development and conflict.

Bana conveys the inner turmoil of a man at odds with his very essence. Connelly, too, gets torn in different directions, unable to trust any man in her life, from this normal guy who becomes a monster to her monstrous father who experiences occasional moments of tenderness. Finally, there is Nolte’s character, a new and interesting twist on the “mad scientist.” One sympathizes with his drive for knowledge only to see it corrode as logic deteriorates and the quest for “science” overrides all human concerns.

Making The HULK
It took 69 technical artists, 41 animators, 35 compositors, 10 muscle animators, nine CG modelers, eight supervisors, six skin painters, five motion capture wranglers and three art directors 18 months of painting 100 layers of skin, creating 1,165 muscle shapes and logging 2.5 million computer hours on six terrabytes of data to give birth to the centerpiece of Universal’s $150 million film “The Hulk.”

All that for a creature who can lift 5,000 pounds, swing tanks, jump onto helicopters, leap three miles in a single bound and run 100 miles per hour.

In addition, it was important for him to look as realistic as a 15-foot monster the color of salad can. The green was toned down, the skin pores and hairs were detailed, and arguments were had about what parts of the body would sweat most during fight scenes.

In the end, the Hulk is indeed big, mean and definitely green, but the computer-generated specimen is also a few parts Robert DeNiro, a tad Alec Guinness, a piece or two of Humphrey Bogart, the head of Elvis and a whole lot of director Lee.

Of course, the effects crew had actor Eric Bana, who stars as the Hulk’s alter ego, scientist Bruce Banner, as their go-to point from the beginning.

The results scared Bana.

“I saw the close-ups and thought, ‘Well, yeah, it does look like Bruce Banner.”