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FILM COMMENT
July/August 2003
SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE
BY GEOFFREY O'BRIEN
The Incredible Hulk, as a comic book, was a model of narrative clarity. It
had the bracing simplicity of garage rock modified by a note of piercing
melancholy that evoked Smokey Robinson's "I've Got to Dance to Keep from
Crying." The Hulk himself, barreling through all snares and obstacles while
uttering a few characteristic monosyllables ("Hulk trust no one!"), was the
embodied spirit of comic books. But the flavor was in the sadness: when the
Hulk wasn't throwing his weight around against the likes of the Rhino or the
Behemoth, he was lost in contemplation of a solitude beyond redemption. . .
The beautiful monster, the wounded monster, the sad monster: this other
hidden Hulk is subliminally present if not always perceptible in the giant
green simulacrum of Ang Lee's Hulk--although there is unquestionably a
forlorn quality in those pogo-stick leaps across the arid wastelands.
You can read the complete version of this article in the July/August 2003 print edition of Film Comment.
© 2003 by Geoffrey O'Brien
