by Steve Brennan

Created on: March 18, 2009

Ang Lee's 2003 stab at the Hulk is widely perceived as a failure, having garnered neither favourable reviews nor a particularly high box office return. There is no question that the movie is more sombre and psychologically pretentious than it needs to be, but it nevertheless distinguishes itself from your usual popcorn-munching big-bang summer blockbuster by having at its heart an earnest attempt to engross the audience in a genuine human drama while combining the best aspects of that most frequently bungled genre, the comic-book movie. Add in some superb cinematography, editing and action sequences, and Hulk, while not without its flaws, just about manages to be one of those increasingly rarefied things, an intelligent blockbuster.

The movie opens with a crackingly put-together title montage of genetic codes and frantically scribbled notes, which, we discover, are written by one David Banner, a military scientist with an appalling haircut and porn-star moustache, who is attempting to crack the secret of cellular regeneration in human beings by cutting up starfish. Being a movie scientist, he naturally injects himself with a spurious substance, and, following the birth of his son, Bruce, realises that "something" has been passed on to the poor little mite. The military, clearly unable to tolerate his in-no-way-regulation haircut, terminate his research and throw him in jail for the next 30-odd years, but not before some horrible as-yet-unspecified event has occurred between David and his wife, which the infant Bruce is unlucky enough to witness.

Flash forward 30 years, and Bruce (Eric Bana) has followed in his father's footsteps and become a scientist himself, and opted for a much better haircut. He works alongside his former girlfriend Betty Ross (Jennifer Connolly), who just happens to be the daughter of the man who terminated his father's research, General Ross (played by a granite-faced Sam Elliott). Bruce, however, is unaware of who his father actually was, and harbours deep, repressed memories. He is unable to open up emotionally, which has led to his break-up with Betty, and the two work together in a fragile and repressed atmosphere of sexual tension, as they research the possibilities of using microscopic "nanomed" robots to regenerate damaged organic material.

Unfortunately, the research is not going to according to plan, and they spend their days watching frogs explode, until Bruce is accidentally zapped by a freak emission of gamma rays and nanomeds.

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