Monster Crap Inductee: Hulk (2003)

Monster Crap Inductee: Hulk
Puny Movie….
 

2003 

In 1962, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created a character on their Marvel comics that dealt with a mixture of Jekyll and Hyde with Frankenstein with a dash of radiation named The Hulk.

Later, he would go from being grey to being green and while it did not take at first (being cancelled after six issues originally), Lee would get letters from college students who loved the character and realized he had something so he brought Hulk back. Hulk is of course, Bruce Banner who is in love with Betsy Ross while working on an experiment for her father, General Ross. In an accident, he is struck by a blast of gamma energy and while in a state of emotion, the common meek and smart Banner becomes a monstrous giant who just goes around causing mayhem.

In 1978, CBS would create a series around the comic book character with a few changes (naming the character David Banner instead of Bruce Banner) called The Incredible Hulk starring Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno as both sides of the Banner/Hulk character.

The show would have 5 seasons and afterwards two made for TV movies so it was a hit. And for a decade, that is where it ended before after the success of both the animated series of X-Men and Spider-man, Fox commissioned two more series in Iron Man and The Hulk, which were not hits. Then a few more years after Blade, Spider-man, Fantastic Four, and The X-Men became a hit live action movies, someone decided we needed to make a live action Hulk movie….or that is what I would be saying if this Hulk movie wasn’t in development since the 90s.

You see in 1990, soon after the airing of the final Hulk TV movie, producers Avi Arad and Gale Hurd were in discussions to make a Hulk movie with later Hurd bringing in her husband Jonathan Hensleigh to also be a producer. In 1997, they hired Joe Johnston to be the director after the hit that was Jumanji, but that same year, he would drop out as director to do October Sky. Then Hensleigh became the director and they always had the idea of Hulk fighting three guys with insect DNA in them

That Went Nowhere And Hensleigh Was Out As Director

Ultimately, Michael France wrote scripts and even though studios liked his script, they still decided to have Michael Tolkin and David Hayter rewrite it.

Yes, The Same David Hayter Who Would Be The Voice Of Solid Snake

Their script had Hulk facing fellow scientists also caught in the blast who would become The Leader, Zzzax, and the Absorbing Man (all well known Hulk villains) and he would have to stop them when they turn evil. Then they needed a new director and for that, they decided to hire Ang Lee who the year before would make a hit film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

They were also able to hire him by also hiring his friend James Schamus and those two decided that script with Hulk facing well-known Hulk villains….was stupid so they tossed that script into the trash and made their own script because despite literally being a comic book movie, they wanted the movie to be more of a drama with The Hulk dealing with his abusive dad (which was in the comics, but they got cheeky and changed the dad’s name from Brian Banner to David Banner). Yeah, for some reason, everyone always likes the name David Banner over the actual names. They then went full bore into making this comic book drama, even after Schamus saw Spider-man (2002) and was “maybe the comic book fans won’t like what we are doing with The Hulk”.

To play Bruce Banner/The Hulk, they decided that they were going to CGI The Hulk and have Bruce Banner played by up and coming actor Eric Bana, after seeing him as Hoot in Black Hawk Down. For Betsy Ross, they would hire Jennifer Connelly, who had just won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in A Beautiful Mind. For General Ross, let’s hire a gruff guy who you could believe would be a hard ass so Sam Elliot, get your keister in here and take that role. Now they need a crazy guy to play Hulk’s dad who you would believe could be demented so since his heyday had long since passed him, we should get Nick Nolte in here because….

You Try Telling Me This Guy Would Not Be Perfect To Be A Crazy Mad Scientist Father

Of course as soon as I saw Sam Elliot’s name in this cast, I knew I was going to have to bring up his past with Monster Crap as I have inducted two movies with him.

He Was Pickett Smith In Frogs

And He Was Carter In Ghost Rider

We also have Daniel Dae Kim in this film and you would know him as

Major Ben Dammio (The Guy Who Turns Into A Mutant Jaguar) In The 2019 Hellboy Reboot

Paul Kim Jr. is in this film and he was in Jack Frost 2: Revenge Of The Killer Mutant Snowman

He Was The Closeted Photographer

Other Monster Crap alumni are Eva Burkley (pudding chef in How The Grinch Stole Christmas), Michael Papajohn (uncredited as an astronaut in Land Of The Lost), and David St. Pierre (who was a guy named Jonesy in Chupacabra Terror and in a gorilla suit in Congo).

With that out of the way, let’s get to the movie.  

We begin this movie

Universal…..My Archnemesis

Way Before The MCU

We then go to a drop of water which reveals a universe and changes to cells. Then we get a very quick title sequence.

We then see a jellyfish and someone stabbing it with a syringe. That same person (a young David Banner) then grabs a starfish and cuts an appendage off the creature.

He takes a piece of the insides that was on that appendage and puts it in a vial which he mixes together with the jellyfish liquid. He then sees papers and we see that he is doing an experiment with the hopes of achieving human regeneration.

By The Way, That’s What Young David Banner Looks Like

He then electrocutes a sea cucumber to get some secretions and injects a monkey with it. Then we see a paper said the monkey died because of the poison within six minutes. He then kills a lizard and dissects it so he can mix some of that into his experiments. He then injects another monkey with the new serum and this monkey is then gassed to death so he can look at those cells. We then find out that it is 1966.

David is trying to convince a younger Col. Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross of his experiments and he wants human testing, but of course…they refuse. After testing it on himself, David comes home and finds out from his wife Edith that she is pregnant.

We then cut to her giving birth to that baby and later when the baby is a toddler and the wife is outside talking with someone, he takes the pacifier and watches the baby cry. He realizes that the baby has his mutated DNA as well. The wife then is gardening and the baby takes an interest in the plants. When the boy turns 5, he gets a plush dinosaur for Christmas and we later see that David has also been experimenting on his son.

Piece Of Shit…

He goes back to his lab to look at the blood he drew from his son We then see the kid (who is Bruce Banner) gets hurt fighting with another kid and he doesn’t really seem to be crying as he gets a bandage on his head. Edith says that Bruce is like that. Back at the lab, Ross confronts him with a sample he found in his lab which had human blood and is upset that David ignored protocol. David said the colonel had no right snooping in his lab, Ross then tells Banner that it is government business since he is working for them and now he is off the project. Ross then knocks over the microscope which lands on samples and we see that David is not happy about that.

David then goes into a Gamma containment unit and sets up the machine to release the Gamma. Everyone has to evacuate including Edith and Bruce. David comes home and has a private conversation with Edith. Bruce then hears yelling and we open the door to cut to a new scene with an older Bruce with his now adoptive mother Mrs. Krenzler.

Krenzler thinks it is another nightmare, but Bruce now says he doesn’t remember. We then go forward to where Bruce is about to head to college, but Mrs. Krenzler would like to talk to him before he goes. Krenzler says that there is something inside him that will make him a great scientist one day. He hugs her and then we fast forward to years later and now Bruce is shaving.

And Thankfully Will No Longer Be Changing Actors

We then focus on Bruce’s eye and then we go to Bruce riding a bicycle to work at the Berkeley Nuclear Biotechnology Institute.

We then meet two cameos as security guards.

Hi, Stan Lee And Lou Ferrigno

Bruce then meets with a colleague of his named Harper

Bruce is told that he looks like a nerd with that bike helmet even among the other scientist and is then asked if he was wearing the helmet when his ex-girlfriend dumped him. Bruce tells Harper to present the samples and then we meet Bruce’s ex-girlfriend Betty Ross who wants to talk to Bruce.

Betty tells them that they have to make a presentation to the review board on Tuesday. They talk about their past and that Betty has a type which is emotionally distant men. They basically need to have a good test today or they will have a hard sell to continue their work. We then see them experiment with a frog and nanomeds.

A Frog That Would Rather Be Anywhere Else, Including Getting Ready To Be Killed For Frog Legs

They do the experiment and I will say this about this movie, they really want you to feel like to are watching a comic book with their edits. They then decide to hit the frog with Gamma radiation and the nanomeds start healing a cut that was on the frog. Unfortunately, then frog explodes.

While later drinking with Bruce, Betty jokes that maybe they have found a way to deal with a plague of frogs falling from the sky which, if you know the Book Of Exodus from the bible, might be a bit funny. Betty asks Bruce about his birth parents and Bruce believes that his parents are both dead and they died before he could remember them.

The next day, Betty is met by Glenn Talbot, who used to be an old friend of Betty’s.

Apparently, Glenn is still working with Betty’s father since the military is subcontracting with the company Glenn works for, named Atheon. Glenn wants to recruit Betty to work for Atheon as he likes her and Bruce’s work with nanomeds and thinks they could work well with the military. Bruce comes in just as Glenn is leaving and then we cut to an aide meeting with the now General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross.

Two Monster Crap Alumnus In The Same Scene. Don’t You Love To See It?

The aide sends Thunderbolt a report on the lab that Atheon is trying to acquire and he realizes that his daughter works at that lab.

Back at the lab at nighttime, Betty talks to the janitor who is new because a guy named Benny was usually working at it. This new guy tells her that Benny died. Bruce is in his office looking at some Kodak pictures of him and Betty back in the day when they were still dating. And in this memory, Betty talks about a dream she had about her dad when she was two years old at an ice cream shop and then dad has to leave her there because something came up where he worked. Oh and a big green mushroom cloud happens in the distance.

Then adult Bruce comes in to pick the two year old Betty up and gets mad so he starts to attack her. Bruce says that dream is terrible, but he says he would never hurt her. We then go back to now as Bruce leaves his office too. He then hears a dog making noise and then goes to see the dog.

He goes to pet the dog, but the dog makes it pretty clear that it does not want to be pet by him so Bruce leaves. We then see the dog is one of several dogs that belong to the janitor and he sneaks into the lab.

Yeah, For Most Of This Film Bruce Has The Last Name Of Krenzler Even Though We Know It Is Really Banner Because That Was Who Adopted Him

Bruce then rides his bike home and does more work at home. Bruce then has a nightmare about random scenes and wakes up. He again hears a dog whimpering so he looks out his window and it is a man with several dogs looking back at him.

Creepy….

He closes the blinds and then when he reopens the blinds, the man and his dog are gone. We then go to that man who is living in an ramshackle house with his dogs as he looks at a hair strand he stole from the lab. He researches the hair strand and we find out this janitor aka the man who has been stalking Bruce is actually David Banner, who is actually still alive despite Bruce believing him to be dead.

Nick Has Definitely Seen Better Days

We go to morning and Bruce walks into see Betty meeting with Glenn. After Betty leaves, Glenn tries to convince Bruce that he wants him and Betty’s work on nanomeds to be used as regeneration for soldiers. He says they can either work with him willingly or he does a hostile takeover of their work. Bruce says he doesn’t want to do that work so he declines Glenn’s offer. Glenn leaves and Bruce and Betty get ready for another experiment. Harper thinks the circuit in the machine might be fried so Bruce comes in to take a look at it. Harper accidentally starts the machine and Bruce puts a gasmask on Harper while Betty tries to stop the machine. Sadly, it is no good and Bruce gets a full unprotected blast of Gamma radiation.

Bruce then wakes up and asks Betty how is Harper, which Betty tells him Harper is fine and that Bruce saved him. Betty then says that Harper is probably not coming back to the lab for a while though as this may have mentally scarred him. Betty doesn’t understand how Bruce is still alive and Bruce chalks it up to the nanomeds working. Betty says that the nanomeds have killed everything else and wants to recheck Bruce, but Bruce says that the doctor already rechecked and then told him he wants to take what Bruce is taking. Bruce also reveals that he had a bad knee and now it is healed, which is weird as we never at any point even got a hint that Bruce had a bad knee. You know these small things matter, movie?

Betty doesn’t find any of this funny and she is very emotional about how Bruce was going to die and she was going to have to watch. Bruce then apologizes and then tells Betty that he is not going to explode. Bruce tells Betty to go home and get some rest as he will be getting some rest too. Bruce then has a dream about lizards, jellyfish, the frog exploding, moss, and a big green creature coming from the door.

Banner wakes up in the morning and David is there to greet him.

Morning, Sunshine

He tells Bruce that his real last name is not Krenzler and it is actually Banner. The dad reveals that he works here in the late shift so that it keeps him close to him. David tells Bruce that he has been in a terrible accident and Bruce may be wondering what makes him so different that he survived. He offers to help Bruce understand and Bruce tells him to leave and then David reveals that he is Bruce’s real dad, which Bruce doesn’t believe since he was told his real parents died in an accident. David says he was put away for 30 years because of the top secret experiments that he was doing. A phone rings and Bruce tries to answer it, but David stops him. David then says that there is something he needs to know about Betty and he wants to protect him from her. Bruce then yells at David to get out and David complies, but tells Bruce that they are going to have to watch that temper of his.

David goes back to his house and keeps working on his experiments and turns a mouse into a giant mutant. Bruce is out of the hospital and back with Betty as they draw blood and Betty reveals her father is coming to see her. At a restaurant, Betty and Thunderbolt meet.

Thunderbolt tells his daughter that he is here because of Glenn and needs to make some inquiries. He then talks about Bruce and wonders if she really knows about him. Betty wonders what he knows about Bruce and he says that he is not at liberty to discuss it. Betty feels that Thunderbolt is not here for her and she leaves. We then go to a montage of Bruce doing work. Bruce starts thinking about everything and getting upset when a phone rings and Betty leaves a message about her father suspecting Bruce of something. Bruce roars and suddenly hears monkeys making noise. Bruce just gets mad and transforms into The Hulk.

Looks Like He May Have Seen His Parents Banging.

The Hulk starts trashing his lab in a fit of anger. Of course all the chaos causes local security to call the police as they may need help to deal with whatever is going on. Hulk throws a giant ball that looks like a battery and it crushes a police car.

Look, I Can See The Cops Get Out Of There. They’re Okay….

Hulk then sees that David is hiding and watching the chaos.

Crap….My Stealth Skills Didn’t Work

Hulk then goes after David and David cannot believe what has happened to his son. Hulk then runs away in anger because he is so confused about what is going on. We then go to the next day and there is a knock at Bruce’s door. No response so Betty lets herself in and is looking for Bruce, but she finds the backdoor is open.

An Actual Backdoor….No Ass Backdoor, Get Your Head Out Of The Gutter.

Betty eventually finds Bruce sleeping in bed.

Bruce finally wakes up and he is hungry. Betty wonders what happened and tells him there was some sort of explosion at the lab. When Betty asks what happened last night, Bruce explains that he had the most vivid dream. She then asks if Bruce was at the lab and Bruce says he wasn’t. He then talks about the new janitor who said he was Bruce’s dad. Another knock at the door and it is Thunderbolt with some other guys in suits.

Guys….The Funeral Is A Few Doors Down

He is about to call Bruce Banner, but stops and calls him Bruce Krenzler. They of course reveal that Bruce’s wallet was found in the lab.

He has one of the guys in suits escort his daughter outside so he can have a talk with Bruce. Betty goes to drive off, but Thunderbolt stops his daughter and tells her that her friend in there may be caught up in some bad business. He says he will have Bruce cared for, but as of right now, Bruce is incommunicado for the next few days at least. He tells her that for her own good, she will stay away from here.

Betty goes home and asks about the new janitor. She then goes to find the new janitor and locates him to the ramshackle building. David lets her in and they talk about what Bruce told her about him. She then says that Bruce was apparently at the lab and so was David, and she wants to know what happened. She says her father is with the military and Thunderbolt believes Bruce is a threat to national security. David just messages his forehead like he is upset and tells her that she has brought down her father upon his head. He says she understands very little about what is going on and that her ignorance has become dangerous. He says that Bruce is unique and the world will not tolerate him. Basically, David says there is nothing he can do for Bruce and her. She leaves.

We then go back to Bruce’s house where Thunderbolt is interrogating Bruce about what happened. He also wants to know where David is. He says he had David locked away and he will have Bruce locked away if he feels like it. Bruce says he doesn’t remember and was always told that his father was dead. Thunderbolt yells that Bruce should not play with him as he was four years old….and he saw it. Bruce then asks what he saw. Thunderbolt says that Bruce was right there and he wonders how Bruce could forget something like that. I can tell you exactly how he could forget something like that: because he was FOUR YEARS OLD!!!! Most people can’t remember everything that happens when they were four years old off the top of their head (especially if they have been told differently by the person who raised him) and if something that traumatic happens, they might have repressed it so yeah, something like that could be forgotten 30 years later.

Bruce tells Thunderbolt to tell him what happened and Thunderbolt just says he is more screwed up than the general thought he would be. Thunderbolt then tells Bruce that until they get to the bottom of this, his lab has been declared top secret and he isn’t going to be able to get the security clearance to enter. He then becomes overprotective dad and says that if Bruce ever gets within a 1000 feet of his daughter again, he will put him away for his natural born life.

And That’s A Dad Who Really Means It

We go back to David who tells his dogs to “go get her and let nothing stand in your way”. Betty then goes to the cabin that Bruce and her were at when they dated. Bruce gets a call on his cell phone from David and also Glenn is here. He explains to Bruce that he experimented on himself and then those mutated genes passed on to Bruce, but there was a change that caused Bruce to be where he is. Dad wants to harvest it, but Bruce says he will do no such thing as he will isolate and take care of it himself. David then says that he is sure that his son and Betty would love to destroy it, but he would have to destroy a part of himself and David isn’t sure Bruce can do that. He also says that he is sending Betty a surprise visit from some four legged friends of his as he was able to get some of Bruce’s DNA and the tests he did with them were tremendous. David gets angry and hangs up. He is then confronted by Glenn.

He says that Bruce somehow got Ross to cut him out. Bruce says that Betty is in trouble, but Glenn doesn’t care. Glenn punches him and Bruce says the line “He is making him angry”. Bruce starts transforming and pushes Glenn off of him. Bruce then transforms into The Hulk as Glenn is horrified by what he sees.

Hulk throws Glenn out of the house and then escapes the agents. The agents try to shoot The Hulk, but bullets don’t hurt Hulk. We go back to Betty at the cabin and she hears noises. She goes outside to check.

Don’t Worry, It’s Just Hulk.

She is scared at first, but when she looks into Hulk’s eyes, she realizes it is Bruce. Hulk picks her up and places her on top of her car. More noises spring and it is David’s now mutated dogs.

And Hulk fights the dogs in probably what is probably the most remembered part of this movie. Betty tries to start the car as Hulk continues to fight the dogs. Betty starts the car, but then decides to not leave. The fight continues on top of trees, but they all fall off and on the way down, they knock down the tree. Hulk then smashes one of the dog and all you see is green blood all over the Hulk.

Thankfully This Is All CGI Because Any Animal Rights Group Would Have A Field Day With This Film

Hulk then kills another dog by busting it through Betty’s windshield.

Hulk then slams the final dog into the car and rips it in half.

HULK NO FRIEND TO PETA!!!!!

After such a grueling fight, Hulk stumbles away before falling to the ground. Hulk sees his reflection in the water and is sad.

After a while, Hulk turns back to Bruce and Betty consoles in while in her broken down SUV. He starts to get mad about what he does and puts his hands around Betty’s neck, but stops when he realizes what he is doing. Bruce is brought into the cabin by Betty and has a blanket placed over him since he is naked. She thinks it must be the nanomeds and the Gamma exposure. Bruce says it was more than that as the Gamma just released what was already there and that his father put into him. He explains that his father sent the crazy dogs as he wanted Bruce to change to save her. Betty then asks if there is anything he can remember when he was a kid. He said it was all like a dream.

The next day occurs and Bruce is in bed. Elsewhere, the aide gets a call and passes the call to Thunderbolt. It is Betty who says she needs his help for Bruce. She then fixes Bruce breakfast and she tells Bruce that she thinks anger activates the nanomeds. When Bruce says the nanomeds only react to trauma, Betty says it could also be emotional trauma too like repressed memories. Bruce says he was apparently supposed to remember something from when he was a child, but he doesn’t remember. Betty worries because while the time physical trauma may hurt is finite, but emotional trauma will always be there. Bruce says what scares him is that when he loses control, he likes it. Bruce hears noises so he goes outside to check and gets a tranquilizer dart.

Betty apologizes and says they are going to take Bruce somewhere safe. Bruce is taken to a secret base underground. We then see Betty talking with her dad and asking how long they are going to keep Bruce here, which Thunderbolt says rather bluntly for his whole life if he has to. Betty says Thunderbolt told her he can trust her and Thunderbolt says that as her father, she can trust him…..to do what is right, not what she thinks she wants. Betty tries to reason that Bruce is a human being, but Thunderbolt says that he is also something else. Thunderbolt also reveals he knows where Bruce comes from and while he may say he doesn’t know his father, he is working in the same field his father did. He says this is too big for her and Betty immediately says that she knows they are going to try to use Bruce as a weapon because otherwise, Bruce would be dead already. She wants to know what David did to him.

We then cut to SWAT teams busting into David’s ramshackle house and they don’t find David because David as the janitor is already at the closed down lab. He inhales the nanomeds and blasts himself with Gamma radiation.

Aw Man….That’s Some Good Shit

David Banner cut himself, but for some reason the blood stops flowing.

Huh….That’s Not How I’m Supposed To Bleed

His hand then gets sort of scaley.

David immediately puts his hand on the blue steel and is hand starts becoming steel.

I’m The Incredible Assimilating Man

A security guard comes in and tells David that he isn’t supposed to be here. David attacks and kills the guy with a shelf.

Bruce finally wakes up and Betty is there. He asks where he is and Betty tells him that he is home. He takes a walk with her outside and home of course is where the old base that got destroyed by the Gamma explosion at the beginning was. Bruce then goes into an empty house which turns out to be the one he used to live in with his parents as a baby. Bruce wants to immediately leave, but Betty asks him to please try and remember what happened. We think Bruce starts remembering, but he is able to stop himself so that whole scene was….completely pointless.

We go back to the lab and it is revealed that Betty no longer has access to Bruce since the NSA is going to turn over him to Atheon, Glenn’s company. Thunderbolt is pissed as Glenn went around him to get the claim of experimenting on Bruce. Thunderbolt reveals there are powerful people that are behind this because there will be plenty of money to be made with a weapon like The Hulk. Thunderbolt then talks about regretting that he never thought twice about Bruce when he locked up David for what he did. Thunderbolt tells Betty to go home and forget about all of this, including Bruce as he is Atheon property now. And Betty goes home.

We go back to Bruce who is washing his face when Glenn comes in with a bunch of casts and braces for his injured body.

Glenn tells Bruce that he needs his cells to trigger some chemical distress signals. Basically, he wants Banner to turn into Hulk again and then he wants to carve out a piece of him to experiment with and eventually he will make a fortune with it. Bruce calmly says he will never let him do so, which Glenn says he doesn’t have much of a choice and starts tasering him.

Glenn wants Bruce to get mad and reveals that once he turns green, guys will kill him and he will perform the autopsy. And if Bruce doesn’t get that angry, Glenn might accidentally kill him, but that will be fine by him. Bruce says neither will happen and Glenn just knocks him out. Bruce is then put into a sensory isolation chamber.

An Actual One Unlike The Fake One That Was Really An MRI In Darkness Falls

They try to jump start Bruce’s brainwaves and then we go to Betty heading home, but someone is waiting for her there.

Hello, David

Betty tells him that there are two guards outside and David says he knows it will be over for him just as soon it will be over for Bruce. David asks Betty to try and convince Thunderbolt that if he turns himself in, can he see his son one last time. Betty tells him that it is now out of her father’s hands and David understands as Thunderbolt is a puppet. David says he doesn’t blame Thunderbolt and Betty says David should only blame himself for what he did to his son. David then asks what did he do to his son. He says he did nothing to his son and instead tried to improve upon the limits in himself and go beyond God’s boundaries. Betty says that other people are beyond David’s boundaries and all he has given Bruce is fear. He accepts that he may have given Bruce fear and loneliness. He also goes back to his past and we see Bruce start remembering his past too. What happened was David tried to kill Bruce as a child because of what he had become, but Edith stopped him and he accidentally killed her.

The Blurs Are From The Film, Not Me.

Back at the base, Glenn is happy to see a reaction happening and Bruce starts turning into The Hulk. Glenn has him start extracting enzymes from Bruce but the drills aren’t able to get into his skin. Bruce is now completely The Hulk and what do you know, this puny chamber can’t hold Hulk at all.

HULK GOTTA TAKE A MASSIVE POO!!!!!!

Glenn then wants them to gas Hulk to sleep, but the gas does no good. Glenn then asks everyone to go after Hulk, but they can only use non-lethal weapons. Thunderbolt also finds out that Hulk has escaped. They try containment foam.

Thunderbolt wants this all shut down, but Glenn refuses to listen as he wants the money. As Hulk is contained, Glenn tries to get a sample with his drill of The Hulk.

Bruce breaks out of the containment foam before Glenn can get his sample. Glenn then tries to kill Bruce with a grenade bullet, but accidentally fires it backward and blows himself up.

Whoopsie…

Thunderbolt tries to have the entire facility locked down, but Hulk escapes. Thunderbolt then wants Hulk stopped even if it means blowing him to smithereens. They try shooting him first, but as we’ve shown previously, that does nothing.

Thunderbolt then says let Hulk out of the base so they can fight him out there. Hulk gets out and starts running and heads back to town. He then starts remembering more of what happened in the past of the authorities arresting David. That memory is stopped when jets fire missiles on him and blow up his childhood home.

Hulk jumps to the desert and tanks are waiting for him.

These tanks do nothing and Hulk deals with them.

Thunderbolt finally calls the president asking for a national command override, basically needing everything at his disposal to stop The Hulk. The president lets him have that override. Meanwhile Hulk starts jumping through the canyons.

I’m Flying Like An Eagle….To The Sea

Hulk stops and starts looking at nature, especially the plants. But several helicopters come.  

They fire at Hulk and Hulk takes care of them.

They blow up some nearby rocks to hopefully crush the Hulk and then have to return to base as they are low on fuel. Bad news for them is Hulk is fine.

A Little Tired, But Fine

Thunderbolt gets immediately told that The Hulk is still alive and is not happy. Thunderbolt then reveals that it seems that Hulk is returning to Berkley. Betty gets a phone call from her dad that basically tells her that Hulk is coming home to her. She is at the base and is asked to stay there. Hulk keeps doing his leaping and even makes it to the top of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Jet fighters try shooting The Hulk on top of the Golden Gate Bridge and one jet nearly crashes into a helicopter, but gets out of the way in the nick of time. The pilot of that jet loses control and is about to crash into the bridge, but Hulk makes sure he just goes under the bridge without crashing. Thunderbolt tells the pilot that since Hulk is on the back of your jet, they should take him high enough to be near the edge of the atmosphere. The plane does so, which causes Hulk to freeze a bit and eventually lets go of the plane do to the high air pressure. As Hulk is falling, he has a dream where Bruce is shaving and Hulk grabs him through the mirror.

Hulk then calls Bruce a puny human. We go back to the real world where Hulk falls into the sea. Thunderbolt isn’t convinced Hulk is dead so he has the jets still fire on Hulk while the giant is in the water. Betty sees all of this through windows because this base in San Francisco is close by. Betty calls her dad and Thunderbolt tells his daughter that he has no choice and has to destroy him. Betty says all he is doing is making Hulk stronger with his rage and Thunderbolt mentions that he is his daughter Hulk is after, so Betty says let her come to him. Hulk then busts out on the streets from underground.

I Knew I Should Have Turned Left In Albuquerque!!!

Hulk starts causing chaos in San Francisco which causes cars and pretty much anything else nearby to be destroyed. A helicopter arrives and Hulk is about to throw something to destroy the helicopter, but sees Betty in it so he stops. With Hulk calmed down, the copters leave and they try to get the regular cops and military ground troops to take Hulk in. Betty gets out of the helicopter and as she goes to Hulk, we see him start turning back into Bruce.

Betty consoles him and then we go to David, who is in jail somehow. Then we go to night at the San Francisco base and both Bruce and David are now under the watchful eye of Thunderbolt, Betty, and the military. David sits down across from Bruce and they talk.

By The Way, There Are Incinerators Next To Them So If Either Does Something, They Will Get Burned So Nicolas Cage Will Not Be Need To Ask “How’d It Get Burned?”

Basically, both said they should have killed the other one and Bruce says he wish he had killed him. Bruce talks about how he finally started to remember his mom. Bruce starts crying because he doesn’t even remember his own mother’s name and David apologizes for what he did. David tries to console his son, but Bruce doesn’t want anything from him and tells him that maybe once he was his father, but he isn’t now and never will be his father again. David then says he didn’t come here to see Bruce, but came to see the real son inside of him. He starts ridiculing Bruce, hoping to ignite some anger. He also reveals that he found a cure for himself and now his cells can absorb things, but they are unstable and he needs Bruce’s strength. Basically, he has a villain speech about how he gave Bruce power so he should give it back to him and how the military has caused their family harm so they should make them into nothing since they have the power to do so. Bruce said he would rather die than help his dad. He yells and David makes fun of his son’s anger.

David then decides to bite the electric wire controlling the incinerators.

Someone Get That Man A Snickers

Thunderbolt thinks it is time to put on the incinerators, but David starts absorbing the electricity before it gets to the actual incinerators.

He Also Starts Growing

Thunderbolt tries for another blast, but David took all the power. Bruce starts transforming into the Hulk to counter his father and Thunderbolt sends in troops to gun down the two monsters. David escapes through the skies and Hulk has to follow him. They fight in the skies and now the two are alone in Pear Lake. David now starts absorbing the rocks and the fight continues.

Hulk throws David into the lake and David now absorbs the water.

In the water, David wants his son to keep fighting because the more he does so, the more his father takes.  David then freezes the lake and The Hulk, while saying Hulk should sleep and let him take his power. Hulk then tells David to take it all because while David is more able to control his powers, Hulk’s powers are uncontrollable so David then begs his son to take the power back. Thunderbolt has the military drop a Gamma bomb on the two, which hits David and essentially kills him.

Then we go to one year later.

Betty is back doing research and has reconciled her relationship with her father, who watches over because there have been multiple Hulk sightings.

Meanwhile, Bruce is in a self-imposed exile as he is helping people in the Amazon Rainforest. Then some assholes show up, trying to take the medical supplies for themselves.

Bruce Then Warns Them That They Are Making Him Angry

And with a monstrous roar, the screen turns green and the movie ends. And with credits that make it look like you are reading from a comic book, you can tell this movie had some of the comic book aspects correct.

Sadly for them, this movie was considered a box office disappointment and Universal would try again with the now created Marvel Studios by making The Incredible Hulk in 2011, that film would also not do well and Universal ultimately gave Marvel Studios the rights to The Hulk character. The critics and fan response was rather mixed as some liked that it took a different, less comic book direction with the character while others felt they were ripped off.

As far as the cast goes, Eric Bana (who played Bruce/Hulk) did not become a big star after this, although he has become a somewhat decent leading man in independent films. Jennifer Connelly (who played Betty) also had the House Of Sand And Fog come out the same year as Hulk so it wasn’t too bad for her and she also is still able to do just fine just because she is Jennifer Connelly. You could say the same thing in the latter for Sam Elliot (who played Thunderbolt) and Nick Nolte (who played David), and the better news for Nick Nolte is he was able to kick his substance abuse and drinking issues, although now he really won’t admit they were real issues. The guy who has actually done the most after this film is Josh Lucas (who played Glenn), who would be in movies like Glory Road, Ford V. Ferrari, and The Lincoln Lawyer, while also being the voice in the Home Depot commercials. Daniel Dae Kim also did a lot after this when he was in the tv series Lost as Jin-Soo Kwan and he is also Ozai in the Avatar: The Last Airbender Netflix Live Action series. Ang Lee (the director) also did fine directing films like Brokeback Mountain and Life of Pi.

Sadly there has been some death since this movie came out. Stan Lee (who cameoed as a security guard) died 2018 at the age of 95 from a cardiac arrest along with respiratory failure and congestive heart failure. Geoffrey Scott (who played The President) passed away in 2021 at the age of 79 from Parkinson’s Disease.

Now for my final thoughts on this film. While not exactly horrible, it is completely forgettable outside of the dog fight scene, which happens halfway into the movie. I mean, if another fight scene is more memorable than the one between your protagonist and antagonist, you aren’t doing fight scenes right and this is from the guy who did Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The CGI is fine although dated by today’s standards and nobody really gives a performance that makes you care if you keep seeing them. Ultimately, you came to expect a comic book movie and you didn’t really get that here. The Incredible Hulk was a better film than this in my opinion and with everyone involved here, that is just a damn shame.

Now for my next induction and…

Hello, Turdlicker

Really? That’s the best you got?

They can’t all be winners.

So what do you have for me now?

Well, you are actually going to review the movie that you were close to reviewing this month before Hulk beat it out. It’s another 2000s film, it's also a film based on a comics (graphic novel) franchise and a film that would be Sean Connery’s last live action film. Prepare to deal with the mess that was…