Nolte's something to see, though: muttering and ranting, he's a marked contrast to all the stiff-uppper-lippers who comprise the rest of the cast. You kind of get the sense the guy wandered onto the set from his last Sundance entry acting assignment - and didn't even bother to change his clothes. Too bad his lines are so dull.

When the monster finally shows, it's none too soon. Dennis Muran's CQI creation seems to go out of its way to look like it's not computer generated: at times, the Hulk has the herky-jerky movement of old stop motion animation. First big fight the green giant has is even framed like Willis O'Brian's King Kong. Set in a forest of towering trees, the fifteen-foot Hulk battles a trio of vicious mutant hounds (including - yeah, I know the breed is smart and can be a good hunter but still - a big poodle!) I totally forgot my tooth during that sequence.

The climactic extended chase through desert, city and ultimate battle with a movie version of the old Marvel villain Absorbing Man is plenty fun, too. One of the great bits that they've resurrected from the comics is the Hulk's ability to travel great distances by leaping really high (and, no, he doesn't balance deftly on the upper branches of trees!) Watching the creature bound from desert rock into desert canyon - or swing one tank against another, I was happily thinking this is what Jack Kirby saw when he was first visualizing this book. In those moments, I was almost totally willing to forgive the movie the time it took to get to 'em. Perhaps I even would've forgotten the movie's first half if I didn't have this damn scraped tongue.

The Hulk's not the worst of the new superhero movies: every once in a while Lee's pure visual sense enlivens even the drabbest set-up moments (he gets a lot of good foreboding imagery out of his desert setting, for instance) and, unlike Daredevil, you pretty much can figure out what going on in the action sequences (one big exception: an underwater fight between Hulk and a CGI Nolte). If it's not the unmitigated disaster some fans were predicting based on its rough cut Super Bowl tv promo, it's not the sublime art-'n'-genre blend that many of us were hoping for either. Years from now, I bet movie historians'll look at it as an interesting blip on the director's career.

Got an appointment to get my tooth refilled next week. Perhaps I'll be more tolerant when League of Extraordinary Gentlemen debuts. . .