The 2008 movie The Incredible Hulk is not a sequel to the 2003 film Hulk by Ang Lee. Instead it’s a reboot that launches a whole new back-story for the man who turns into a nine-foot green monster full of rage when he gets angry. This time Bruce Banner’s on the run after he becomes the Hulk during military experiments to create supersoldiers (which is the same experiment that created Captain America). Most people are familiar with the Hulk thanks to the TV show in the 1970s, and the opening sequence references that by telling the back-story in a few minutes rather than taking up a third of the film.
Ed Norton is very good as Bruce Banner and his tortured alter-ego The Hulk, Liv Tyler looks like Betty Ross stepped out of the comic for this film and is very convincing, and Tim Roth turns in another twisted performance, this time as Emil Blonsky and his monstrous alter-ego The Abomination. The movie pays homage to its past — look for Lou Ferrigno (who played the Hulk in the TV show as well as the voice of the Hulk in the movie) and Stan Lee (creator of the Hulk and a good portion of the Marvel Universe) in cameos as well as a TV scene from one of Bill Bixby’s (Banner in the TV show) shows.
The Incredible Hulk was the second Marvel movie to establish a shared universe by having Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark show up at the end of the film to talk about a team being set up that is mentioned at the end of the Iron Man film. Iron Man started it; Hulk was next; and Thor will continue the trend in 2010 along with Iron Man 2. 2011 is the big year — first we will see The First Avenger: Captain America and the year will culminate in the Avengers movie. Hopefully Marvel will get the rights back to its other franchises and we may yet see a Hulk/Wolverine showdown, or a Spider-Man/Human Torch team-up, but this is a good start for the shared continuity established in its comic inspirations.
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