My Year of Flops - Hulk

[abcdefz]

...over at The Onion.

It's a pretty fun series, and #100 is devoted to Hulk.

Excerpt:

"Hulk is perhaps the top-grossing film I’ve written about, having grossed a gaudy $62 million in its opening week. But the film’s box-office nose-dived once poisonous word of mouth spread. Hulk represented a staggeringly perverse case of bait-and-switch. The ads, poster, title, and fast food tie-ins promised dumb fun about a big green monster who goes around smashing things. Instead director Ang Lee and screenwriter James Schamus delivered a brooding, cerebral exploration of the plight of an existential nowhere man. Ang Lee screwed up a perfectly good smash-em-up comic book monster movie with his infernal 'art' and 'ideas.'"

 

[Green Scar]

"Hulk is perhaps the top-grossing film I’ve written about, having grossed a gaudy $62 million in its opening week. But the film’s box-office nose-dived once poisonous word of mouth spread. Hulk represented a staggeringly perverse case of bait-and-switch. The ads, poster, title, and fast food tie-ins promised dumb fun about a big green monster who goes around smashing things. Instead director Ang Lee and screenwriter James Schamus delivered a brooding, cerebral exploration of the plight of an existential nowhere man. Ang Lee screwed up a perfectly good smash-em-up comic book monster movie with his infernal 'art' and 'ideas.'"

so true.

 

[honest george]

I really enjoyed the Hulk, what I consider a classic Universal Monster movie.

 

[El Payaso]

...over at The Onion.

It's a pretty fun series, and #100 is devoted to Hulk.

Excerpt:

"Hulk is perhaps the top-grossing film I’ve written about, having grossed a gaudy $62 million in its opening week. But the film’s box-office nose-dived once poisonous word of mouth spread. Hulk represented a staggeringly perverse case of bait-and-switch. The ads, poster, title, and fast food tie-ins promised dumb fun about a big green monster who goes around smashing things. Instead director Ang Lee and screenwriter James Schamus delivered a brooding, cerebral exploration of the plight of an existential nowhere man. Ang Lee screwed up a perfectly good smash-em-up comic book monster movie with his infernal 'art' and 'ideas.'"

Yeah, Ang Lee gave us art and ideas instead of dumbness. How dissapointed this fella must be.

 

[merktown]

hes mean and green!!!

 

[Vaportrail]

I'll take art and ideas any day.
I love this film. If anyone else had done it, it'd be just another movie.

 

[November Rain]

It's really a reflection of soceity when intelligence doesn't prevail.

Ang attempted to widen the horizon of what was expected of a superhero film. Instead the marketing idiots neglected all this and decided to sell the world their own version of the film.

Even sheakspeare would fail to sell romeo and julliet if it only highlighted the fight scenes between the montague's and the capulets...

Now i'm not saying the marketing ruined the film but it certainly doesn't help when one goes into a film expecting one thing and gets another. It also doesn't help when the other marvel films that had come out (without the exception of blade) had a dumber tone about them.

ah well. I'm not surprised even when the majority of hulk fans on here fail to see him as a deep character and would rather entertain the fact that he is the strongest one there is.

psssshhh...

 

[Vaportrail]

Now i'm not saying the marketing ruined the film but it certainly doesn't help when one goes into a film expecting one thing and gets another. It also doesn't help when the other marvel films that had come out (without the exception of blade) had a dumber tone about them.

Blade was pretty dumb, as far as movies go.
This is the moment in the second one is when I gave up on the series.
Boondock Saints guy:"Aha! I'm a bad guy."
Blade: "Aha! I've known the whole time!"
[guy gets blown up]

Sigh.
I don't really see Spidey and Daredevil as stupid films. They're not necessarily deep, but they're not drivel.
That's what people expect of this character. Big guy = dumb guy. I'm wondering if that's why we only get one line of dialog out of the Hulk. Expectations.

Meh.

 

[November Rain]

well a large proportion of the spidey films are drivel, i would even say about 80% of the whole franchise. It's all throwaway or unecessary substance.

there's less in daredevil, especially the director's cut but still.

and i was referring to the original blade which took itself (and the audience took it) pretty seriously. There was no slapstick, similar to the hulk.

as for the one line of dialogue, It can be seen as either a good or a bad move, it depends on the type of hulk you wish to portray. The superior one, THe relatable one, the Hunted one, the funny one, the enraged one.

and that really comes down to the director and story that needed to be told. For Ang's, It worked although a few more lines wouldn't have been too bad. For someone like raimi, he probably would prefer a more vocal hulk because he is more slapstick but he could use that to his advantage.

I mean the most famous adaptation of him never had the hulk uttering a word but that didn't seem to affect the way the audience reacted to him.

 

[El Payaso]

It's really a reflection of soceity when intelligence doesn't prevail.

Ang attempted to widen the horizon of what was expected of a superhero film. Instead the marketing idiots neglected all this and decided to sell the world their own version of the film.

Even sheakspeare would fail to sell romeo and julliet if it only highlighted the fight scenes between the montague's and the capulets...

Now i'm not saying the marketing ruined the film but it certainly doesn't help when one goes into a film expecting one thing and gets another. It also doesn't help when the other marvel films that had come out (without the exception of blade) had a dumber tone about them.

ah well. I'm not surprised even when the majority of hulk fans on here fail to see him as a deep character and would rather entertain the fact that he is the strongest one there is.

psssshhh...

Very well said, Nov

 

[CHEZ]

Is there any possibility a HULK special edition dvd might come out this summer?
I know that might be a stretch, but stranger things have happened.

 

[Obi-Ron]

For someone like raimi, he probably would prefer a more vocal hulk because he is more slapstick but he could use that to his advantage.

Raimi would have given the Hulk Eric Bana's head for half the movie too.

 

[abcdefz]

Maybe you folks should've read the entire article. There's definitely some sarcasm going on the the opening paragraph, plus his final verdict is "Secret Success."

"Lee’s art-film/blockbuster mash-up is ultimately a lot like The Hulk himself—ostracized, misunderstood, scorned yet singular and strangely soulful, a strange beast too big and ridiculous for its own good."




I also thought the movie was really ambitious, and tackled some pretty chewy ideas. And a bunch of it worked. But it disintegrates into a total mess by the end, which makes Lee's noble pretensions look ludicrous.


If you think that movie is unassailable, you're out of your mind.