Speaker 1: Hello everybody, and welcome to a brand new episode of
Speaker 1: Second Take Cinema, coming at you from the Glorious Simplor
Speaker 1: Film's headquarters in sunny Southend on Sea. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jamie Evans, joined as always by Rory Jocelyn. Hello everybody,
Speaker 1: and today we are going back to the early days
Speaker 1: of the MCU as we give a second take to
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight The Incredible Hulk. The Incredible Hulk
Speaker 1: is a two thousand and eight superhero movie based on
Speaker 1: the Marvel Comics character. It is directed by Louis Leterrier
Speaker 1: from a screenplay by Zach Penn, starring Edward Norton, Livetyler,
Speaker 1: Tim Roth, William Hurt, Tim Blake Nelson, and Ty Burrell.
Speaker 1: It was made for a budget of one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty million dollars a gross two hundred and sixty four
Speaker 1: point seven million at the box office. This is only
Speaker 1: the second movie in the MCU, following Iron Man and
Speaker 1: If I just look at its reception quickly on Rotten Tomatoes,
Speaker 1: it has an average rating of sixty eight percent. The
Speaker 1: critics consensus reads, The Incredible Hulk may not be quite
Speaker 1: the smashing success that fans of Marvel's raging behemouth might
Speaker 1: hope for, but it offers more than enough big green
Speaker 1: action to make up for its occasionally puny narrative. Ha
Speaker 1: ha ha, aren't they so funny? Todd McCarthy. Todd McCarthy
Speaker 1: of Variety said what seemed in theory the least necessary
Speaker 1: revival of a big screen superhero emerges as a perfectly
Speaker 1: solid summer action fair In The Incredible Hulk, He emphasized,
Speaker 1: it's all par for the course. Cinematic demolition and destruction,
Speaker 1: staged efficiently and with a hint of enthusiasm, and penned
Speaker 1: with sporadic wit. Visuals lean towards the dark and murky,
Speaker 1: but editing by three actually six hands is fleet, and
Speaker 1: Craig Armstrong's ever present score is simultaneously bombastic and helpfully
Speaker 1: supportive of the action. Effects are in line with the
Speaker 1: picks generally pro but not inspired achievements. Renee Rodriguez of
Speaker 1: The Mihami Herald applauded the film. It does a lot
Speaker 1: of things Anglee's Hulk didn't. It's lighter and faster paced,
Speaker 1: it's funnier, and it embraces instead of ignoring the nineteen
Speaker 1: seventies TV series that feathered the characters that furthered the
Speaker 1: character's popularity. Mark Rana of The Seattle Times wrote, the
Speaker 1: relaunch of Marvel's Green Goliath is an improvement over Director
Speaker 1: Angle's ponderous two thousand and three Hulk in nearly every way,
Speaker 1: except that the actual Hulk still looks scarcely better than
Speaker 1: something from a video game, and he still barely talks.
Speaker 1: Roger Ebertt was not a fan of the film, stating
Speaker 1: the Incredible Hulk is no doubt an ideal version of
Speaker 1: the Hulk saga for those who found Anglee's Hulk two
Speaker 1: Talkie or Dear I Say too thoughtful, but not for me.
Speaker 1: It sidesteps the intriguing aspects of hulkdom and spends way
Speaker 1: too much time in dear I Say, noisy and mindless
Speaker 1: action sequences. Christy Lemmeray of The Associated Press found that
Speaker 1: the inevitable comparisons to Iron Man Marvel's Judios's first blockbuster
Speaker 1: this Summer serve as a glaring reminder of what this
Speaker 1: Hulk lacks wit and heart. Despite the presence of Edward Norton,
Speaker 1: an actor capable of going just as deep as Robert
Speaker 1: Downey Jr. We don't feel a strong sense of Bruce
Speaker 1: Banners inner conflict. Ao Scott of The New York Times
Speaker 1: opined the Adequate Hulk would have been a more suitable type.
Speaker 2: That's a good pun, but it does not match the film.
Speaker 2: There are some films not adequate.
Speaker 1: There are some big thumping fights and a few bright
Speaker 1: shards of pop culture wit, but for the most part,
Speaker 1: this movie seems content to aim for the generic mean.
Speaker 1: David Anson of Newsweek wrote, Leterrier has style, he's good
Speaker 1: with action, and he's eager to give the audience its
Speaker 1: money's worth of bone crunching battles. Still, once the movie
Speaker 1: leaves the atmospheric Brazilian setting, nothing in this Hulk sinks
Speaker 1: in deeply. Its familiar genre pleasures are all on the surface.
Speaker 1: The movie scene stealer is Tim Blake Nelson making a
Speaker 1: comically welcomeferred act appearance as the unethical but madly enthusias
Speaker 1: aastic scientist Samuel Sterns so I added The Incredible Hulk
Speaker 1: to our list because a we're just going through the
Speaker 1: early Marvel films anyway to see how they differed from
Speaker 1: the modern MCU fair, but ask.
Speaker 2: A quick question before you go on. Yeah, well, the
Speaker 2: fuck is Ang Lee's Hulk.
Speaker 1: That's the Eric Banner one from two thousand and three. Same,
Speaker 1: it came up between the two Spider Man movies. If
Speaker 1: you've never seen it, it's terrible.
Speaker 2: I mean this is terrible.
Speaker 1: Well it makes this look like gold. It's fucking awful. Really, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you think the CGI is bad in this one?
Speaker 1: The Hulk looks like the Scorpion King in the first one,
Speaker 1: and is a bit where he fights mutated rotweilers that
Speaker 1: also looked like the Scorpion King. And the main villain
Speaker 1: is Nick Nolte. Oh that's not villain Joyce, who fully
Speaker 1: is in the phase of doesn't care about acting anymore.
Speaker 1: At that point. He plays the absorbing Man, who can
Speaker 1: absorb anything he told so like. At one point he
Speaker 1: becomes an electric dude because he absorbs and basically, if
Speaker 1: I remember right, he tries to absorb the Hulk but
Speaker 1: can't handle the Rage Man and it makes him explode.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, there is somehow a Hulk movie that's worse
Speaker 2: than this.
Speaker 1: Yes, this isn't this is the improvement.
Speaker 2: Right, Okay, yeah, I will try and be kinder. I
Speaker 2: do have just quickly.
Speaker 1: The other reason I wanted to put this one in
Speaker 1: is As I said, this is only the second MCU moving.
Speaker 2: I thought this came before Iron Man because Iron Man
Speaker 2: is so much better than this.
Speaker 1: Basically, they came out the same summer, so they were
Speaker 1: both made at the same time.
Speaker 2: They got it right with.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. I wonder reason I want to talk about this
Speaker 1: one is and I'm only talking up to Endgame at
Speaker 1: this point because I'm not super familiar with the later
Speaker 1: MCU apart from a couple of the films, I generally
Speaker 1: regard this one as the worst one in the MCU,
Speaker 1: and I want I thought it'd be interesting to look
Speaker 1: at that and sort of talk about why did this
Speaker 1: not derail the entire MCU project because it could have done.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in my opinion, what was the one that came
Speaker 2: out after it? Because obviously, man, that was Ship as well.
Speaker 2: That's the one that was the one that I watched
Speaker 2: at the cinema, And I love Mickey Rawke Guilty Pleasure.
Speaker 1: I actually like Iron Mantu. I we might find differently
Speaker 1: when we watch it on mc on on STC, but
Speaker 1: my memory is Iron Mantu is my favorite. Iron Man really, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mainly I really really like Sam Rock. Well, so
Speaker 1: maybe I'm blinded by Sam Rock. Well, yeah, I I'm
Speaker 1: not blinded by there is that agregious and awful Elon
Speaker 1: Musk cameo in that movie I can't remember. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: because I watched it, wasn't a big deal of No.
Speaker 1: You know they go to the racetrack, don't they. Monica
Speaker 1: is a bit where Elon Musk's in it and start
Speaker 1: goes up to him and like congratulates him on Tesla, and.
Speaker 2: It's like, especially since he didn't make Tesla, yeah bought
Speaker 2: it and he's just terrible.
Speaker 1: But yeah, anyway, can we re edit the film so
Speaker 1: it's just Iron Man takes out Elon Musk.
Speaker 2: That would be a better film.
Speaker 1: Let Mickira keep whipping people.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, what he wants is his bird. I want
Speaker 2: my borrow, my borrow, my burrod.
Speaker 1: But you know, we we'll get you the fucking bird.
Speaker 1: Okay it's not okay, it's not your bird, but it's
Speaker 1: a bird.
Speaker 2: Look at the man's face. He's been through some shit.
Speaker 2: El Mousk hasn't give him some ground, you know.
Speaker 1: So, Rory, is this your first time ever seeing the
Speaker 1: incredible Hawk? I'm guessing so from what you said.
Speaker 2: Yes, i'd heard it was bad. I'd heard that the
Speaker 2: first Hulk movie was shit, and after watching it, I
Speaker 2: assumed this was that one. So I feel a little
Speaker 2: bit awkward now because I was like, yeah, clearly I'm
Speaker 2: in the same pain as everyone else at the first
Speaker 2: Hulk movie shit and they were talking about Hulk from
Speaker 2: two thousand and three.
Speaker 1: To be fair, I don't know anyone who thinks this one.
Speaker 2: Is great, right, Okay, good good. I don't want to
Speaker 2: be stepping on people's toes. Look, there are things I
Speaker 2: will praise in this film as we go through it,
Speaker 2: but overall this film is just I've said this before,
Speaker 2: so I'll keep it brief. Superhero movies aren't really my jam,
Speaker 2: and this falls into certainly by the second half. This
Speaker 2: falls very firmly into the main reason as to why
Speaker 2: I don't like them, same reason I hated Man of Steel,
Speaker 2: same reason that I turned off a little bit towards
Speaker 2: the end of Iron Man, though overall that film is
Speaker 2: much much better. Cgi people slamming into each other does
Speaker 2: nothing for me. There's no stakes, there's no point. It's
Speaker 2: just it's grabbing two action figures and slight slamming them
Speaker 2: up against each other constantly until you've decided, as the writer,
Speaker 2: or this one loses now, so you know I need
Speaker 2: to And so actually that starts as off quite nicely
Speaker 2: as to the story of this. I need to know
Speaker 2: the limitations of your character if you're doing because you
Speaker 2: can kind of avoid that in a like if I
Speaker 2: do a police drama, I know the limitations of the character.
Speaker 2: To an audience knows the limitations of the character because
Speaker 2: are either established that they're smart, or that they're street wise,
Speaker 2: or that they've got some trait that's positive. But overall
Speaker 2: they're human. So they're not gonna be going right now,
Speaker 2: I've solved this case. Time to fly to the next destination,
Speaker 2: you know, because that's not what a police drama will do.
Speaker 2: So you know the limitations. You know that if they
Speaker 2: get shot, they're probably gonna die. If they get stabbed,
Speaker 2: if they're in a fistfight, they have to live on
Speaker 2: their wits, et cetera, et cetera. With a superhero, certainly
Speaker 2: even something like the Hulk, but Superman has this problem
Speaker 2: as well. Just punch him, keep punching, keep punching, keep punching. Oh,
Speaker 2: nothing happened because They're essentially invincible, and the only way
Speaker 2: you can give that stakes is to go right. There
Speaker 2: is a limitation to this character, and the limitation is
Speaker 2: they are essentially invincible until this happens. Superman tried to
Speaker 2: introduce that with Kryptonite, though ironically it's not one of
Speaker 2: the reasons he's ever died in the comics. He's died
Speaker 2: about five times from other means, such as being crushed.
Speaker 2: I don't know how, but whatever. Uh yeah, so I
Speaker 2: need to know what the limitation is. The problem this
Speaker 2: film has, and it's something that when I mentioned it
Speaker 2: to you while watching it, you're like, oh, It's something
Speaker 2: I liked about the film is that they skip the
Speaker 2: entire backstory of Hulk. It's literally the film opens up
Speaker 2: to the opening credits, no dialogue, and it's just he's
Speaker 2: man in chair, man, get injection, man turned Hulk Man,
Speaker 2: punch woman in face, near enough, hurt some people who
Speaker 2: were scientists or soldiers. Anyway, Man feels sad man disappear,
Speaker 2: and then we get to the film where he's already
Speaker 2: like the whole story of what the Hulk is has
Speaker 2: already been and gone, and he's now living out in
Speaker 2: the middle of Mexico, No Brazil. He's now living out
Speaker 2: in the middle of Brazil in a packing plant, trying
Speaker 2: to hide away from the fact that he's the Hulk.
Speaker 2: The problem is, I understand from what you told me
Speaker 2: when you messaged me, which is I like that because
Speaker 2: we've already seen the story of the whole and now
Speaker 2: knowing that there's the two thousand and three one five
Speaker 2: years later going hey, here's the origin again, I get it.
Speaker 2: And for most people this probably won't be a big
Speaker 2: deal because I know there's a lot of comic book fans,
Speaker 2: but I don't know the limitations of your Hulk. So
Speaker 2: when the Hulk eventually comes out, it's just an invincible
Speaker 2: man slamming into things. And it's not even a real man.
Speaker 2: It's CG. I Man. So this intro is bad for
Speaker 2: me as someone who's not massively into comics. Whereas with
Speaker 2: Iron Man, I had less of a clue about Iron Man.
Speaker 2: Couldn't name you an iron Man before they made the
Speaker 2: Iron Man movie, I could name you a Hulk. He's
Speaker 2: in it. Lu Forigno, I could I know of the Hulk,
Speaker 2: did not. Iron Man is a nothing to me until
Speaker 2: all of a sudden they used him and made a
Speaker 2: massive deal out of him in the MCU. But I
Speaker 2: cared about him because, like, here's a flawed guyer. He's
Speaker 2: been kidnapped, he's only got his intelligence. He's on a
Speaker 2: basically on a timer because he's got his chest has
Speaker 2: been damaged, and he's got to build this supersuit and
Speaker 2: he has to you know, yes he's got a super suit,
Speaker 2: and yes you end up with two CGI men flying
Speaker 2: into each other in space, but you know what the
Speaker 2: limitations are. It's still a machine. It still has areas
Speaker 2: where it can go wrong. He's still got the limitation
Speaker 2: of the damage on his chest. So if you were
Speaker 2: to hit him in the chest quite squally, you probably
Speaker 2: do him quite a batter injustice. Yeah, I've just felt
Speaker 2: like you said a posh sounding word. It's probably not
Speaker 2: even a real word.
Speaker 1: No, it's not.
Speaker 2: Squarely is the word you're looking square?
Speaker 1: Get him squire of the chest.
Speaker 2: But yeah, basically you got the limitations to Tony Stark,
Speaker 2: and him as Iron Man was still Tony Stark. With
Speaker 2: the Hulk, you've got Bruce Banner as a normal man
Speaker 2: with limitations, and then you've got the Hulk, who is
Speaker 2: in vincer murdering monster, except he never hurts a single
Speaker 2: person who's not a villain in this film, and that.
Speaker 1: Is that is where I think we run into the problem. So,
Speaker 1: in all honesty, I'm not a big Hulk fan, as
Speaker 1: you know, I've said it before on the show. When
Speaker 1: I was a kid, I used to watch all the
Speaker 1: superhero cartoon shows. Yeah, I've never really liked the incredible Hulk.
Speaker 1: I never thought it was very interesting. I think the
Speaker 1: only way you can make this interesting but they wouldn't
Speaker 1: do it because I guess even then, the Marvel formula
Speaker 1: was starting to creep in even though we hadn't solidified
Speaker 1: it yet. The Marvel formula doesn't get solidified until Avengers,
Speaker 1: when Joss Whedon kind of solidifies it, and then that's
Speaker 1: the template that they follow for every Marvel film since
Speaker 1: we don't. But exactly what you said, like, the only
Speaker 1: way to take this character interesting is okay, Fine, you
Speaker 1: want to do a character who has no limits. They
Speaker 1: are an unstoppable wrecking machine. Fine, has the stakes has
Speaker 1: to be the danger he poses to everybody else.
Speaker 2: The collateral damage, that's the issue. Like he may do
Speaker 2: good things, but the collateral damage during it which we
Speaker 2: see on buildings, but buildings can be rebuilt. We have
Speaker 2: a human life, that's the interesting thing. Or you play
Speaker 2: the jaccul and Hyde element, which is I'm guessing the
Speaker 2: original influence for the Incredible Hulk, which is its JaQuel
Speaker 2: and Hyde, but with superheroes. And in this both forms
Speaker 2: of Banner, which is him as Bruce Banner and him
Speaker 2: as the Hulk, are good guys. They never hurt anyone
Speaker 2: in consequential. There is no real collateral damage outside of
Speaker 2: surface damage to buildings, and there is even to the
Speaker 2: point where he takes his ex girlfriend or current girlfriend
Speaker 2: ex girlfriend. I think at that point.
Speaker 1: Tyber El's current girlfriend, yes, she.
Speaker 2: Cheats the hell on him, but basically takes her safety
Speaker 2: from the military guys and then just looks after it.
Speaker 2: And it's like, oh, Then afterwards Bruce Banner goes, I
Speaker 2: don't recognize that guy. There's nothing of me in there,
Speaker 2: and it's like, but he's a good guy. He's clearly
Speaker 2: a good guy. Doesn't have any advantage or take advantage
Speaker 2: in any like sort of positive or negative way. He's
Speaker 2: just like you say, they go to sleep, I'll watch
Speaker 2: over you.
Speaker 1: There's a line later in the film once Abomination has
Speaker 1: started wrecking the city, where he says to General Ross,
Speaker 1: I'm Ross. General Ross says, are you telling me you
Speaker 1: can control it? And he says no, but maybe we
Speaker 1: can aim it. When he's justifying let in the Hulk
Speaker 1: go to fight the abomination. That would mean so much
Speaker 1: more if we'd have seen him actually wreckshit yes before,
Speaker 1: but there is no you are right, like, I'm not
Speaker 1: denying it. There's no weight to the Hulk hulking out
Speaker 1: because he only ever injures the bad guys.
Speaker 2: He's got to be so if you were to basically
Speaker 2: go right, we're gonna it has to be a situation
Speaker 2: basically where it's like, right, we need to let an
Speaker 2: animal loose in here, Let's send in a fucking silver
Speaker 2: back goerrilla against these soldiers. Right, they've got no real
Speaker 2: guns that can do any damage to it. We're gonna
Speaker 2: send in a silver back gorilla. Now, the silver back
Speaker 2: gouerrilla will probably take out the guys quite easily because
Speaker 2: it's bigger, it's more powerful than them. You can't aim it.
Speaker 2: It's so it's just a force of nature. The Hulk
Speaker 2: had to be that, but we know he's not because
Speaker 2: a of what he does with the girlfriend, where he's like, oh,
Speaker 2: I've got to protect this person, which is not what
Speaker 2: a silver Back would do in that scenario. And number
Speaker 2: two because of the fact that during the first battle
Speaker 2: he has with the remember the bit outside the university
Speaker 2: grounds and you've got the helicopter coming in and shit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the tanks with the sound weapons. That's it.
Speaker 2: When he's getting attacked with the sound weapons, the Hulk himself,
Speaker 2: not Bruce Banner, figures out how to defeat them because
Speaker 2: he's getting owned by the sound waves. He then gets
Speaker 2: the bits of metal, uses them as a barricade against
Speaker 2: the sound wave, and then throws the other one.
Speaker 1: I like that bit.
Speaker 2: That was clever. But the problem is is now he's
Speaker 2: not a force of nature. He's a reasonable he's a reasoning,
Speaker 2: thinking person. So but he's not the Hulk.
Speaker 1: Find that so you can you can either do there's
Speaker 1: multiple points where they drop the ball here, Yeah, because
Speaker 1: you've dropped the ball on the unstoppable killing force. Yep, Okay,
Speaker 1: you've gone with this option instead. Okay, this could still
Speaker 1: be interesting because now clearly there is some of Banner
Speaker 1: in the Hulk, and the implication of that is something
Speaker 1: that would be really fun to explore because it's like,
Speaker 1: oh so when you're a little cleanly tiny back. It's
Speaker 1: that argument about if you give a human being power,
Speaker 1: they inevitably turn evil. It's that you could have done
Speaker 1: something about it, but they don't tell you what they couldn't.
Speaker 1: And I know, obviously they couldn't have known this back
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight because they can't predict the future.
Speaker 1: They could have killed liv Tyler because Betty Ross never
Speaker 1: comes back in the MCU ever, she's she is Hulk's
Speaker 1: main loving aston because she's his Mary Jane in the
Speaker 1: in the comics, they could have killed her off. But
Speaker 1: I did actually watch a video earlier today that was
Speaker 1: talking about how the MCU got the Hulk completely wrong,
Speaker 1: not just the Holt, but Bruce Banner himself, which is
Speaker 1: and this had the whole MCU, and it had never
Speaker 1: occurred to me until I watched this. He never faces
Speaker 1: consequences for the entire franchise. Ever, there are never consequences
Speaker 1: to anything the Hulk does. The most you ever get
Speaker 1: is Mark Ruffalo looking sad for about two minutes, just
Speaker 1: being like, oh, you know, you wouldn't like it when
Speaker 1: when I let the other guy out, it's horrible and
Speaker 1: blah blah blah. And then next thing you know, he's
Speaker 1: fighting fucking Ultron or he's like, I'm always angry and
Speaker 1: fights the Jitari without Yeah, purely God, And it is
Speaker 1: funny in though Ragnarok, Hulk is in thought ragnar When
Speaker 1: Loki sees the Holk, he like shits himself and he's like,
Speaker 1: gotta get out of here. But that's what I mean. Though,
Speaker 1: they've turned to the Hulk, who should be one of
Speaker 1: your biggest pathos characters, and into the comedy sidekick of
Speaker 1: the MCU.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it should be a case of when he comes
Speaker 2: out and he's You're like, we need the Hulk to
Speaker 2: help us in a scenario, but you're doing it because
Speaker 2: you know you're gonna lose something by initiating that. You'll
Speaker 2: win the fight, but you're gonna lose something in the meantime.
Speaker 2: And we never lose anything with the Hulk.
Speaker 1: No. One thing I've seen from post end game MCU
Speaker 1: is she Hulk. Yes, And so at the end of endgame,
Speaker 1: the Hulk loses an arm. It doesn't get chopped off,
Speaker 1: but it like withers and shrivels because he he's the
Speaker 1: one who snaps the Infinity gems to bring everybody back
Speaker 1: because they're like, well, a human, a normal human can't
Speaker 1: do it, would kill them, but because he's hulked out,
Speaker 1: he can do it. And even him, the Hulk, it
Speaker 1: like withers his arm to like nothing, turns up in
Speaker 1: Sheehulk looking fine again, and there's a hand wavy line about, oh,
Speaker 1: I used your fresh Hulk cells to inject my arm,
Speaker 1: and now my arm's normal again. So there's no consequence
Speaker 1: that should be a big sacrifice that he, you know,
Speaker 1: gave his arm to bring the entire fucking half of
Speaker 1: the planet back. But it means nothing.
Speaker 2: No, because it's hand waved away.
Speaker 1: Because we're going to be fair the movie. And you
Speaker 1: could say this is for better or for worse. I'm
Speaker 1: sure there's comic book fans who would argue that this
Speaker 1: is a good thing, but I'm a movie fan, so
Speaker 1: it's not a good thing for me. They've ended up
Speaker 1: going into that comic book route of you can take
Speaker 1: the toys out of the box, play with them, do
Speaker 1: whatever you want in your movie, but at the end
Speaker 1: of your movie, the toys have to be back in
Speaker 1: the box ready for the next film. Yes, nothing can last, Yeah,
Speaker 1: no consequences. Yeah, and it's it's what's made the MCU
Speaker 1: lose all of its steam, which it visibly has post
Speaker 1: end game. You can see it in the box office performance.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, let's let's not go through it beat by bat.
Speaker 2: There's bits that I want to point out though.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to just talk about the Brazilian bit. Yes,
Speaker 1: please do, because I I do agree with that. I
Speaker 1: agree with ha ha ha ha. I agree with that
Speaker 1: critic who said the best part of the film is
Speaker 1: the Brazilian bit. It loses something after that bit. I
Speaker 1: think the cinematography degrades very visibly as well. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: cinematography is the location is very visually interesting, the cinematophy
Speaker 1: is good. And there's a couple of things like I
Speaker 1: did like that they skip through his origin story. I
Speaker 1: thought they did a very other than the fact he's British,
Speaker 1: which already clued you into the fact he was a villain,
Speaker 1: they very quickly tell you that Blonski is the villain
Speaker 1: of this film by having him shoot the dog for
Speaker 1: no reason. Yes, and I was just like, boom, villain.
Speaker 1: Love it that's very effective, though. I know you're Scott,
Speaker 1: So there's there's a there's number one.
Speaker 2: It's a good thing because I'm like, cool, Roth's the villain,
Speaker 2: got it great and good choice for a villain. Roth
Speaker 2: is a great villain in different films. The problem with
Speaker 2: it is it also made me hate Edward Norton because
Speaker 2: there's two dogs.
Speaker 1: He shoots.
Speaker 2: Oh, okay, Roth shoots a dog outside of the flat.
Speaker 2: That's how Norton wakes up and his dog is in
Speaker 2: the flat bark like barking because he knows it's gonna happen,
Speaker 2: Like he knows that there's negativity coming their way. So
Speaker 2: Norton funks off out the window leaves his dog to
Speaker 2: then also get shot.
Speaker 1: I missed, I missed the first one. Sorry, yeah, I was.
Speaker 2: Just like, fuck you, Yeah, you just left your dog
Speaker 2: to die? Sort of asshole? Are you?
Speaker 1: So?
Speaker 2: That that made me actually hate Bruce but Norton. Actually
Speaker 2: that's me naming the man rather than the character. It
Speaker 2: made me hate the Bruce Banner character because I'm like,
Speaker 2: you've now you've got a loyal pet. The one thing
Speaker 2: everyone knows about dogs is that they're loyal pets. And
Speaker 2: you've gone, hoh, it did the job. It woke you up,
Speaker 2: and then you're like, hey, you can fucking die. You
Speaker 2: mean nothing, has no sadness, has no mention of the dog.
Speaker 2: Later it's like, you're a cunt. I really don't like you.
Speaker 2: The other thing I want to mention as well is
Speaker 2: before that point is we get the stan Lee cameo
Speaker 2: quite early on, which is just get it out of
Speaker 2: the way, yeah, which I'm not. The problem I have
Speaker 2: with this is like the beginning, we skipped over the
Speaker 2: entire actual meaning of the film straight away to rush
Speaker 2: into this new story. When the stan Lee cameo comes up,
Speaker 2: he's drunk the kool aid that has Edward Norton's blood
Speaker 2: in it.
Speaker 1: It's like knockoff Mountain do, isn't it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so he drinks it goes oh my, drops
Speaker 2: the thing and the glass breaks on the floor. And
Speaker 2: then all that happens from that is a throwaway line later,
Speaker 2: which is there's a guy who's drunk the blood. We've
Speaker 2: dealt with that, now we have to know where it
Speaker 2: is just a stapping stone to mate. Yeah, It's used
Speaker 2: as a stapping stone for William Hurt to realize what
Speaker 2: country ed hiding. We find out throughout the course of
Speaker 2: this film, because he injects tim Roth with stuff. We
Speaker 2: find find out that just the touch of the blood
Speaker 2: on the guy's head later makes it start, so we
Speaker 2: know it's highly toxic. It can change anything.
Speaker 1: You want to Stanley the Hulk, Well, no, I just
Speaker 1: want to know what the fuck happened to him? I
Speaker 1: could grow the Stanley Hulk.
Speaker 2: Stanley that you know what, better film smash.
Speaker 1: I kind of expected that.
Speaker 2: To come back a little bit later in some way
Speaker 2: at least, like what was it? Did it kill him?
Speaker 2: Did he hulk out and have to get taken down?
Speaker 2: What was what was the narrative.
Speaker 1: That there's a throwaway line about radiation sickness, So I
Speaker 1: assume he dies. But you are right, everyone else who
Speaker 1: gets the blood mute. Unless you're supposed to just believe
Speaker 1: Will Stanleys so old that it just kills.
Speaker 2: Like that, there has to be a consequence to that
Speaker 2: action outside of because if it's just old man dies
Speaker 2: after drinking mountain dew because he's old man, how at
Speaker 2: what point with the minuere going to go, oh my god,
Speaker 2: it's the wholt blood well.
Speaker 1: Because they'd be like, people don't just randomly get radiation
Speaker 1: sickness in their own kitchen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but why would they've tested in for radiation sickness.
Speaker 1: Because the signs of radiation sickness has very visible symptoms.
Speaker 2: Not the way that it's showed in the film.
Speaker 1: Well, because it cuts away after ten seconds, they take
Speaker 1: a few days to materialize.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it didn't take them a few days to
Speaker 2: get the information, so you must have died instantly.
Speaker 1: We don't know how long it takes, it's just it
Speaker 1: just cuts. It could be days, it could be minutes,
Speaker 1: it could be second then another problem. But no. The
Speaker 1: chase through Brazil, the Brazilian streets, I really liked, and
Speaker 1: I have made a note here about how it makes
Speaker 1: this film feel. It feels so different from the later MCU.
Speaker 1: I can't tell you how many later MCU films I've
Speaker 1: seen where there's a chase sequence and it's all CGI.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, they're just running through green screen and it's.
Speaker 1: Not even the real people as the people are CGI,
Speaker 1: like fucking Agent Smith and the Matrix. Yeah, and this
Speaker 1: is actual real people running through real streets, repelling down
Speaker 1: real buildings, and it makes shit. The film benefits from
Speaker 1: its age in that sense. Yeah, definitely, because you go, oh,
Speaker 1: this is back when we actually made movies.
Speaker 2: There's a bit later on with General Ross where he's
Speaker 2: talking to tim Roth in like a garage likes garage
Speaker 2: might be the wrong word, but like a large military
Speaker 2: garage with all these HCV not AGVs, with all these
Speaker 2: large vehicle military vehicles in it. APC's I think they're called,
Speaker 2: and you can tell they're actual sets with actual props,
Speaker 2: and I was just like, they don't right, use any
Speaker 2: of those APCs or anything in this scene. But it's like, cool,
Speaker 2: we've got them. I can see they're real.
Speaker 1: There's a world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like I can get invested in with depth. Yeah,
Speaker 2: this only lasts for half the film.
Speaker 1: I have put it's around the twenty five minute mark.
Speaker 1: The film takes a notice dip in pacing, and in
Speaker 1: my interest, lean, yes, yes, definitely agree the CGI has aged.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna hold that against it necessarily because all
Speaker 1: CGI ages, although I seem to remember I've not seen
Speaker 1: it in a few years, but I think things like
Speaker 1: Jurassic Park still hold up.
Speaker 2: Essentially. In Jurassic Park, for the most part, the CGI
Speaker 2: was used to enhance practical effects whereas there was a
Speaker 2: couple of bits where you had CGI dinosaurs that do
Speaker 2: look a little ropee, but they're very brief. A lot
Speaker 2: of it was prop work, so it holds up still,
Speaker 2: and even then, because it was one of the first
Speaker 2: films to really kind of try and kaibash those together
Speaker 2: in a realistic fashion. On the sets where they were
Speaker 2: doing a full CGI dinosaur, they would still have an
Speaker 2: item there, like not just like a tennis ball, but
Speaker 2: like an actual robot dinosaur, so that they could light
Speaker 2: it and go right, this is how the lighting should
Speaker 2: look on the dinosaur itself, so they weren't having to
Speaker 2: guess or pretend what that should look like in post
Speaker 2: that that helped a lot by making the CG I
Speaker 2: feel part of the scene. Naturally, they don't seem to
Speaker 2: do that anymore. Yeah, they light everything for green screen
Speaker 2: and CGI, so everything's flat so that technically the CGI
Speaker 2: looks as realistic as the footage.
Speaker 1: But I hate to tell you. I'll tell you the
Speaker 1: reason why, and I hate to tell you this. It's
Speaker 1: because the general public don't care. Well, no, the general
Speaker 1: public do care, but they didn't realize they cared. So
Speaker 1: what I mean by that is the films where they
Speaker 1: did everything. CGI sold massively. Well, so of course the
Speaker 1: studio goes, will people vote with their wallets? We can
Speaker 1: get away. We're doing this and you are starting to
Speaker 1: see increased discourse online of people go in, I can't
Speaker 1: put my finger See we know why films are shipped now, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because we make films these. I see a lot of
Speaker 1: discourse of people go in, I can't put my finger
Speaker 1: on it. But films are not good anymore, and they
Speaker 1: can't I put their finger on one.
Speaker 2: They don't know. Yeah, I suppose it'd be like if
Speaker 2: I drive a car and there's something wrong with the car.
Speaker 2: I probably don't know what's wrong with the car, but
Speaker 2: I can feel that the car isn't operating properly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it could sit there and go, well, it
Speaker 1: feels like something's wrong with the one of something like that,
Speaker 1: they could probably analyze it by driving Surprised the word carburetor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I should know more because I watched a lot
Speaker 2: of top Gear and I own a motorbike. But surprisingly
Speaker 2: all of the mechanical words in my brain just disappeared.
Speaker 1: Fan a belt, Oh that's not a mechanical components coming
Speaker 1: to me naming parts of a car chassis chassis chassis,
Speaker 1: not chassis chassis, the chassis chassis, chassis chassis, the engine,
Speaker 1: the radiator, the steering column. Anyway, So Edward not an
Speaker 1: going back to America because he's been communicating with this
Speaker 1: mister Blue who will meet later on and Betty. Ross
Speaker 1: has moved on and is dating Tyberrell from Modern Family.
Speaker 2: Who is unfairly written out of the film halfway through.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well it turns out he betrayed Banner, didn't he
Speaker 1: did he? Yeah, there's a conversation between him and Ross
Speaker 1: where it so the way.
Speaker 2: I thought that conversation was just him telling Ross that
Speaker 2: he's a dick for abandoning his daughter or using his
Speaker 2: daughter as well.
Speaker 1: I could be wrong, but I'm sure I tuned out
Speaker 1: a lot through by this point because the film is
Speaker 1: I'm fairly certain that's how Ross finds him at the
Speaker 1: university is tyber There's a line where Tiberrell says, I
Speaker 1: don't know if I did the right thing actually, because
Speaker 1: that's it. Yes, Tiberrell has sold him out at the UNI,
Speaker 1: but didn't expect Ross to attack while live Tyler was there,
Speaker 1: and then he choose him out for you put your
Speaker 1: own daughter in danger and then yeah, he's gone, he's
Speaker 1: out of the movie, which is that's just done because
Speaker 1: then live Tyler's carry not lift Tyler.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Betty Ross, Yes, with Tyler. That's only done so
Speaker 2: that Betty Ross has to face no consequences for her cheating.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which technically she does not do because Edward not
Speaker 1: and Connor can't do it. She snogs him, she does,
Speaker 1: she does, she does snog him, Yes, and she's the
Speaker 1: one initiating.
Speaker 2: So it's clearly if he could perform, she would have.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to go into what would have happened
Speaker 2: had he hulked out halfway through, but believe.
Speaker 1: Me, there's fan fiction's on the internet about that. So
Speaker 1: you just let the internet worry about that, don't, don't. Yes,
Speaker 1: that is what devian art is for. So the big
Speaker 1: fight scene at UNI, there was bits of it I liked.
Speaker 1: There was bits of it I didn't. I liked the
Speaker 1: sound guns and the whole having to work out how
Speaker 1: to do him. It looks. It doesn't look great, but
Speaker 1: it looks better than I would expect.
Speaker 2: The helicopter, I looks it's weirdly ropey because it's a
Speaker 2: CGI helicopter, right, And as I was watching it, there's
Speaker 2: bits where like the Hult would turn around and there's
Speaker 2: a hulk and a helicopter and the helicopter looks worse
Speaker 2: than the whole and I'm like, guys, like one of
Speaker 2: those is clearly easier to manufacture.
Speaker 1: I know it's not great, but I kind of like
Speaker 1: the bit where he just boots Blonski into the tree
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, this was a good bit though,
Speaker 1: because I quite like the idea that, Like, I'm not
Speaker 1: a fan of this scene because again it's a lot
Speaker 1: of CGI, but the idea that tim Roth has been
Speaker 1: given some more powers, He's been given some of the
Speaker 1: bloods are trying to human himself and gave at first,
Speaker 1: he's been given the because that's one of our two
Speaker 1: links we get to. The main MCU shield gets mentioned,
Speaker 1: and they also they talk about the super Soldier program
Speaker 1: from World War Two, which is what makes Captain America
Speaker 1: and I think it's some of the Captain America serum
Speaker 1: they give him first.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, I wondered why he wasn't hulking out later.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the first thing they give him is the Captain
Speaker 1: Americans in which just makes you stronger and faster, and
Speaker 1: as we learn later in the MCU, it emphasizes whatever
Speaker 1: you already are, which is why Captain in America's a
Speaker 1: goody two shoes becomes a paragon of virtue. They give
Speaker 1: it to Blonski, who is power hungry, and he becomes
Speaker 1: more power hungry.
Speaker 2: Yes, okay, I thought they just gave him some more
Speaker 2: whole blood, but whatever, But either way, I like the
Speaker 2: fact that he got the extra power, and it also
Speaker 2: made him more cocky because it was just like, well,
Speaker 2: now I can match you toe for toe and then
Speaker 2: found out very quickly he could not.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he revives, though they do the traditional villain ie
Speaker 1: opening thing. Yeah he's in the hospital, benet into his
Speaker 1: face because his eyes are the score just got dud dump.
Speaker 2: But like the whole thing is they say, right, basically,
Speaker 2: his bones are a gristle at this point, like it's
Speaker 2: been just Hulk smashed so hard that his bones are nothing,
Speaker 2: but his bones are still holding his body together somehow,
Speaker 2: and then he makes a full recovery almost, which isn't
Speaker 2: really explained.
Speaker 1: That's so that's the serum.
Speaker 2: So the serum gave him healing as well, right, which.
Speaker 1: I think it does to Captain America as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the problem though, you need to know all
Speaker 2: of that, and I don't think Captain America will come
Speaker 2: out yet.
Speaker 1: No, that's the last one before the first Avengers film.
Speaker 2: Right, But Luthrigno, as I say, he's in this, he's
Speaker 2: a security guard at Carver University before this big fight.
Speaker 2: I like that moment, but again it's one of those
Speaker 2: things where if you don't know who louth Frigno is
Speaker 2: the scene, you're like, why is he shaking the hand
Speaker 2: of the security guard.
Speaker 1: And he gets another cameo as a security guard in
Speaker 1: the first Avengers movie.
Speaker 2: Oh does he I forgot that?
Speaker 1: Yea, unless I'm wrong. I fairly certainly has a cameo
Speaker 1: in the First Avengers, but I could be wrong. Here's
Speaker 1: another bit where they had the chance and they dropped
Speaker 1: the ball again. So we talked about where Hawk works
Speaker 1: out doing the thing with the sound guns and you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: there's a little bit of Edward Norton in him. You
Speaker 1: then get a scene I liked, but it goes nowhere
Speaker 1: where Edward Norton's having a shower and he gets a
Speaker 1: PTSD flashback to the guns, the gatling guns of the
Speaker 1: helicopter firing at him when he looks at the shower hair.
Speaker 1: So clearly he has some of Hulk's memories. Yes, and
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, nice to have a bit more
Speaker 1: about that, because they're they're hinting at this Jackal and
Speaker 1: Hyde thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if the Hult did something negative like that's the
Speaker 2: other problem, because the Hulk doesn't really do anything problematic.
Speaker 2: All we've got for those negative flashbacks are all the
Speaker 2: gatling guns were firing, Whereas if it had been he'd
Speaker 2: crushed an old woman to death by accident or by
Speaker 2: not or just by rage, that would have been the
Speaker 2: thing that flashed back to him. That would have had
Speaker 2: more impact because it'd be like, holy shit, of guild, someone.
Speaker 1: You probably could have had, and that the fans would
Speaker 1: not have liked this because it means you're killing a
Speaker 1: catch who stays around for ages in the comic books.
Speaker 1: But if he'd have killed General Ross, who I know
Speaker 1: comes back later in the MCU. But if you'd have
Speaker 1: killed General Ross, that would have furthered this storyline where
Speaker 1: you go, okay, so that's the Hulk, and I don't
Speaker 1: mean General Ross attacks him first, I mean, Hulk goes
Speaker 1: out of his way in the middle of that battle,
Speaker 1: because then the Hulk is carrying out the Banner's beef. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you're like, so it's not fully uncontrolled. No, it's
Speaker 1: an instinct thing.
Speaker 2: Maybe, Yeah, it's it's whatever his deepest desire would be
Speaker 2: to do. It will then enact. The other thing as
Speaker 2: well that I find interesting is if we're going for oh,
Speaker 2: the trauma of the memories from being the Hulk, His
Speaker 2: trauma was remembering the gatling gun, not destroying tim Roth's
Speaker 2: body with that massive boot kick into the tree. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he didn't give a shit about tim Roth.
Speaker 1: Can I just say as well? And this is a
Speaker 1: problem the MCU will have a fair few times. I
Speaker 1: personally do not feel the chemistry between Ed Norton and
Speaker 1: Liv Tyler. I really didn't care if they ended up
Speaker 1: together or not.
Speaker 2: I mean a lot of my notes here, like at
Speaker 2: forty five minutes in, I'm boring it feels like the
Speaker 2: wheels are spinning and waiting for something to happen. It's
Speaker 2: it's quite frequent, and I think a lot of it
Speaker 2: is because of it feels like this film was rewritten
Speaker 2: to try and make it more dramatic, but when they
Speaker 2: did that, they forgot because of the type of film
Speaker 2: it is, you really need someone to be bringing some
Speaker 2: form of cheese, which you don't really get until the
Speaker 2: latter half, like Tim Roth becomes that character kind of
Speaker 2: before he becomes a CGI monster man. I like the
Speaker 2: way he starts to turn. But General Ross is a guy,
Speaker 2: for example, who should be a lot more. He should
Speaker 2: be more like j Jonah Jamison or something from Spider Man.
Speaker 2: He needs to be more like that. William Hurt is
Speaker 2: playing him way too serious and the I'm sorry, it's
Speaker 2: a big cigar chewing, fucking military general. He should be
Speaker 2: played like the guy from Dr Strangelove. The guy is
Speaker 2: sort of around We're going to catch mother. And don't
Speaker 2: get me wrong, I love William Hurt. William Hurts a
Speaker 2: phenomenal actor, but he's doing this way too serious. If
Speaker 2: you think of J Jonah Jamison the bit where he's
Speaker 2: like gay picture as a Spider Man, but played it
Speaker 2: the way William Hurt plays this, it's not the same
Speaker 2: character and it's not as interesting.
Speaker 1: I know there was a big disagreement. I know there's
Speaker 1: a lot of disagreements in this between Edward Norton and
Speaker 1: the creative team about the direction of the film, and
Speaker 1: it sounds like, based on what that critic review said,
Speaker 1: six people edited this movie, which probably goes probably goes
Speaker 1: some way to explaining why the pacing is dog shit, yes,
Speaker 1: and all over the place. And you can tell I
Speaker 1: lost some interest here as well, because I actually don't
Speaker 1: have any more notes now until the final fight starts.
Speaker 1: I will say that Tim Blake Nelson turns up. They
Speaker 1: did single him out in one of the critic reviews.
Speaker 1: What did you think about Tim Blake. So he's the scientist,
Speaker 1: mister Blue Samuel sterns. He's doing a bit of an
Speaker 1: over the top thing, That's what I mean.
Speaker 2: He's like him and Tim Roth are the only one's
Speaker 2: doing any of that, and you needed a lot more
Speaker 2: of it. It's a little too little, too late. I
Speaker 2: didn't see anything stand out. But then he's still not
Speaker 2: meant to be quite because you told me he becomes
Speaker 2: a villain later that character. Yeah, so he's not quite
Speaker 2: fully in that mode.
Speaker 1: No, and that's what was with so you know you
Speaker 1: see saw his head start to morph it. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: he actually is the Hulk's arch and he's the Joker
Speaker 1: to the Hulk. He's called the Leader and he's got
Speaker 1: a huge Mars Attacks style.
Speaker 2: Brain, right, and that's what that was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, but they end up not bringing this character
Speaker 1: back until I've heard he comes back, not in a
Speaker 1: Hawk film. He's in and I've not seen this film yet.
Speaker 1: He's in the newest Captain America movie, the one that's
Speaker 1: got Anthony Mackie in it as Captain America. Yeah, they've
Speaker 1: got Tim Bake Nelson back again, but fifteen sixteen, seventeen
Speaker 1: years later, and not in a Hulk movie.
Speaker 2: It's because the Hawk became irrelevant outside of a gag
Speaker 2: throughout the whole MCU following this film. I've never seen
Speaker 2: him used in a way that's actually thematically interesting in
Speaker 2: any of the movies.
Speaker 1: He's in my opinion, he's best in the first Avengers movie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but even then he's mostly a tagline. He's mostly a punchline. Well,
Speaker 1: to be fair, in that one is the only one
Speaker 1: where he's a credible threats. The thing where they're on
Speaker 1: that you've seen the first amount, when they're on the
Speaker 1: what it's called the Helly Carrier, the ones probably the
Speaker 1: only scene in that film where you have any real tension.
Speaker 1: Is the scene where he hulks out and that he's
Speaker 1: attacking Black Widow, and it's shot like a horror movie
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, with lots of shadow and shit,
Speaker 1: and that feels tense because you get everyone's trying to
Speaker 1: calm him down, except Tony, who has a little ship
Speaker 1: head and he's like deliberately like he shocks him at
Speaker 1: one point, done it and he's like, what, I just
Speaker 1: want to see what it looks like when you hook out,
Speaker 1: And you're like, well, you know that fits with Tony's
Speaker 1: character because he doesn't take anything seriously up to this point,
Speaker 1: and it fits when you've got the Hulk feels uncontrollable.
Speaker 1: Once you get to Age of Ultron, he starts feeling
Speaker 1: too controlled. Yes, because they even they bring in a
Speaker 1: thing where Black Widow can get him to un hulk out.
Speaker 1: She has a rhyme that she says and she holds
Speaker 1: a hand out to him and she says this rhyme
Speaker 1: and it makes the Hulk get all sleepy and revert
Speaker 1: back to Banner.
Speaker 2: So one of the things that I thought about this
Speaker 2: that something that is probably you know, a limitation of me.
Speaker 2: I guess I really hate CGI men slamming into each other,
Speaker 2: which is all you and now you're now going to
Speaker 2: get from this film. I thought there was a better
Speaker 2: way to do this practically. When I discussed it with you,
Speaker 2: you said you can't really do that nowadays because people
Speaker 2: expect CGI, Studios will expect to use CGI, and nobody
Speaker 2: wants to see you know what you're going to do
Speaker 2: with getting a man big enough. But for me, my
Speaker 2: thought was, you get a normal person to play Bruce Banner,
Speaker 2: you then get a much bigger person to be the Hulk,
Speaker 2: kind of like they used to do with Luthreigno, though
Speaker 2: you didn't quite work out there Luthreigno series is the
Speaker 2: reason you wouldn't do it this way, except I would
Speaker 2: change how you play it because a lot of cinematic
Speaker 2: techniques have come out since then. So you'd get big
Speaker 2: guys like get the Big Show or something from WW
Speaker 2: Painting Green and have him as the Hulk.
Speaker 1: When the whole Batista.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then what you do is all of your
Speaker 2: stuntmen for those scenes are actually shorter actors, so when
Speaker 2: they're in a shot together it looks more imposing. But
Speaker 2: what you then do to supplement. That is, when you
Speaker 2: need to have, say, another character who doesn't like a
Speaker 2: main character, you can't ensure that you hire any very
Speaker 2: short characters for all of your actors, for all your characters,
Speaker 2: you use the Lord of the Rings techniques. Yeah, where
Speaker 2: you force this perspective where as far as the camera sees,
Speaker 2: these two people are in the same shot together and
Speaker 2: one is huge and one is very small. But it's
Speaker 2: a trick of the camera.
Speaker 1: And studios won't stand for it. Now. Yeah, we can
Speaker 1: even see it with Lord of the Rings. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: New Line cinema are very accommodating of Peter Jackson. By
Speaker 1: the time he does the hobbit, it's not the same
Speaker 1: New Line cinema and they are not as accommodating. No CGI. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's sad and it sucks because I don't get me wrong,
Speaker 1: I one hundred. If practical effects can be used, will
Speaker 1: always choose practical. I am a big fan of CGI.
Speaker 1: Should be used to enhance, not to create. As you know,
Speaker 1: we've talked about that a million times.
Speaker 2: But even if the CGI is slightly cheaper than doing
Speaker 2: the practical, the practical is still the best option. Not
Speaker 2: just because I personally prefer it, but actually, in a
Speaker 2: long run, when it comes to your editing, et cetera,
Speaker 2: you don't have to worry about editing around CGI. It's
Speaker 2: all in the frame. And when it comes to restoring
Speaker 2: your footage for later releases, which might not be as
Speaker 2: big a deal now, but certainly when you're looking at
Speaker 2: doing DVD, Blu ray or whatever home video releases they
Speaker 2: used to do. But actually with streaming it still matters.
Speaker 2: If you were to then do go right, we're going
Speaker 2: to do an eight K release of this film, you
Speaker 2: can't really without going back and redoing all the CGI.
Speaker 2: But with the film negative stuff, stuff that you've actually shot,
Speaker 2: practically just go rescan the negative. It's still not cheap
Speaker 2: and not easy, but it's a lot cheaper and a
Speaker 2: lot easier than redoing all your CGI. In that effect,
Speaker 2: your film is more timeless therefore will actually make you
Speaker 2: more money long term as a company then it will
Speaker 2: do using the CGI. But they don't think long term, unfortunately,
Speaker 2: it's just what can we get the box office? Literally,
Speaker 2: nothing else matters, and.
Speaker 1: It's one of the reasons we've got the story issues
Speaker 1: we've talked about as well. Yes, Betty Ross never comes back.
Speaker 1: The leader never comes back in a Hulk movie. The
Speaker 1: reason we have these story issues is because they're only
Speaker 1: ever thinking short term, Yeah, what what? And this is
Speaker 1: a problem I've got with author, It's a problem I've
Speaker 1: got with fucking doctor who lately is doctor who has
Speaker 1: become just about that. How do we how do we
Speaker 1: get memes from this episode? What can we put in
Speaker 1: it that will make the internet go crazy for a
Speaker 1: week so that everyone comes back and watch us next week.
Speaker 1: And that's why you get bullshit in the new season
Speaker 1: of Dot two where they're like, we're bringing omegaback, who's
Speaker 1: not been in it since like the seventies, And then
Speaker 1: it's not the Omega from the seventies. It's a big
Speaker 1: CGI baby that's on screen for literally, I think it's
Speaker 1: only thirty seconds, and you're like, you spent a whole
Speaker 1: episode building up to this and it lasts thirty seconds.
Speaker 1: It is one of those things that is unfortunate that
Speaker 1: superhero movies have fallen into this space where they always
Speaker 1: have to have a big CGI fight at the end,
Speaker 1: and it hasn't aged as well. You know, you look
Speaker 1: at something like Sam Raimi's First Spider Man, and yes,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to sit here and claim that that
Speaker 1: final fight between Spider Man and the Green Goblin is
Speaker 1: the smoothest thing ever. It's very clearly it's very obviously
Speaker 1: wire working the way that wire work has that certain
Speaker 1: look to it. But at least it's fucking real. You know,
Speaker 1: it's Willem defo, it's Toby maguire, this drama there, and
Speaker 1: fair enough, maybe you can't do that with the Hulk.
Speaker 1: Let's say, let's for a minute say it's not an
Speaker 1: option to do it practice. There's still away. I still
Speaker 1: believe that CGI done well can still there is no
Speaker 1: reason for this to feel as weightless as it does well.
Speaker 2: What's kind of interesting is that CGI fights in movies
Speaker 2: that are all CGI, that are not live action movies
Speaker 2: quote unquote, tend to do fight scenes better because for
Speaker 2: some reason there's this weird thing where they are restricting
Speaker 2: themselves to having to work with camera work, even if
Speaker 2: it doesn't really apply. This film has a lot of
Speaker 2: problems with that, Like the final fight between the roth
Speaker 2: Monster and Abomination, the roth Monster and the Hawk is shit.
Speaker 2: It's I'm not even gonna say, you know, it's not
Speaker 2: my jam it's literally the cheesy.
Speaker 1: Part of me liked a bit where the Hawk used
Speaker 1: half two halves of a car as boxing gloves. I
Speaker 1: was like, that is stupid, but I like it. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: that's not the main issue, because the thing is the
Speaker 1: problem is that at that point, yes, you get little
Speaker 1: bits like that which are OK, but this is at
Speaker 1: the point where it's still basically two invincible objects punching
Speaker 1: each other, which means nothing. Then you get to the
Speaker 1: point where it's like, right now, one of them has
Speaker 1: to win, and it has to be the Hulk. So
Speaker 1: how does the Abomination fall? And fuck knows because I
Speaker 1: don't know the limits of either of these characters.
Speaker 2: So why why would the Hulk win? Why would the
Speaker 2: Abomination lose? And they don't fucking know, because clearly what
Speaker 2: they do is they've been punching and smashing the hell
Speaker 2: out of each other this entire time, nearly a scratch
Speaker 2: on either of them, and the Hulk just somehow just
Speaker 2: cuddles him to death or some shit.
Speaker 1: No, he wraps a chain around his neck and chokes
Speaker 1: him out. And to be if a thing can't breathe,
Speaker 1: it falls asleep. That's you don't matter if you're invincible
Speaker 1: if you can't breathe, you can't get oxygen to your body,
Speaker 1: you fall asleep. But chain make any difference if this
Speaker 1: is another punched with a car, But this is another
Speaker 1: where they drop the ball because it's not a hit,
Speaker 1: it's a constant pressure. But this is another bit where
Speaker 1: they drop the ball because the whole thing here is
Speaker 1: the Hulk is clearly going to kill him and live.
Speaker 1: Tyler's like, don't kill him, and the Hawk makes that
Speaker 1: choice not to. But because the rage of the Hulk
Speaker 1: has felt so watered down in the rest of the film,
Speaker 1: that doesn't feel like that should be a monumental moment,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't feel like one because it's just kind
Speaker 1: of like, well, yeah, the Hulk's kind of been mostly good.
Speaker 2: For all of this anyway, And he listened to her before,
Speaker 2: so why would I not believe she'd listened to he'd
Speaker 2: listen to her now?
Speaker 1: I did make a note if you ever noticed that
Speaker 1: it's a trope in character design. Whenever you have a
Speaker 1: hero and villain who are wondering if you're about to
Speaker 1: menure to say that I was going to venture go okay,
Speaker 1: whenever you have a hero and villain who was supposed
Speaker 1: to be roughly the same thing. So these are both Hulks,
Speaker 1: but one's evil. The evil one will always have spines.
Speaker 1: You ever notice that that character i've tim ross got
Speaker 1: all the spines off his back, just to be fair,
Speaker 1: that's one bit that I was like, that is Nihley's
Speaker 1: when the Hawks fucking grabs the spine and sideways, I
Speaker 1: was cool.
Speaker 2: So we're kind of both on the same train of thought,
Speaker 2: but on slightly different tracks. So, yes, you're right when
Speaker 2: they do like an evil version of a Hulk, it's
Speaker 2: one with spikes. The other thing I mentioned might know
Speaker 2: was I've noticed that the Roth Monster's not wearing any
Speaker 2: clothes and specifically has no wing wang.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was a speeder in the comics. He has
Speaker 1: in the comics, if I remember right, he has like
Speaker 1: iguana frills as well, because when they brought him back
Speaker 1: in Shee Hulk, they gave him the iguana thrill frills.
Speaker 2: So yeah, put, I've noticed. It's not any wondering if
Speaker 2: this is a mckismo thing where Hulk is better and
Speaker 2: more of a man, because he might still have a
Speaker 2: cat right, because it's the case of he's still got
Speaker 2: his trousers on why would you have the Hulk without
Speaker 2: his trousers, like, because why has he got the trousers on?
Speaker 2: It's clearly to cover up the fact that there may
Speaker 2: be something you'll flappen. I never noticed, and it's like,
Speaker 2: and I'm just like, but the Roth Monster doesn't keep
Speaker 2: the trousers on, even though traditionally in the comics he does,
Speaker 2: so it's literally just to make Tim Ross's character less
Speaker 2: of a man.
Speaker 1: I did like Bruce saying goodbye and jumping out of
Speaker 1: the plane, but I didn't like that they did a
Speaker 1: death fake out. He should have just hold. He should
Speaker 1: have just honked out on the way down. And my
Speaker 1: only other note, which is kind of a tongue in cheek.
Speaker 2: Though, the helicopter with Betty and William hurt and it
Speaker 2: crashes and every single person on board dies except for
Speaker 2: Betty and William hurt. I just fucking plot armor for
Speaker 2: those two.
Speaker 1: I did make a note here this is kind of
Speaker 1: a tongue in cheek, humorous one, but I find it
Speaker 1: funny that two massive Hulk monsters fighting somehow do less
Speaker 1: collateral damage than General's Odd and Superman in Man of Steel.
Speaker 1: It's yeah, because they fucking level Metropolis. In Man of
Speaker 1: Steel they do.
Speaker 2: Indeed, we then get a cameo of Robert Danny Jr.
Speaker 2: A Stark Yeah, saying he's putting a team together. So
Speaker 2: and that's how I put here. Did it come before
Speaker 2: or after?
Speaker 1: Im? It's after, But it kind of contradicts iron Man
Speaker 1: two a little bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I'm Man two. Yeah, because the Avengers isn't
Speaker 2: for another five years, yeah, and three years.
Speaker 1: So to be fair, irom Man one, the post credit
Speaker 1: scene is Nick Fury saying I want to talk to
Speaker 1: you about the Avengers initiative.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: Iron Man is then clearly coming to General Roth talking
Speaker 1: of General Ross, talking about wanting to do a team.
Speaker 1: But in iron Man two we find out Shield of
Speaker 1: actually rejected Tony from the team because they've decided he's
Speaker 1: two unstable mentally. Right, It's a bit like, well, why
Speaker 1: was he the one going around recruiting people? Then?
Speaker 2: Well, to be fair, he didn't say the Avengers, so
Speaker 2: maybe he was trying to recruit for his own.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, if you don't want me, I'll get my
Speaker 1: own the Iron Gang. But that brings us to the
Speaker 1: this is back when they only did one post credit
Speaker 1: scene in Marvel movies as well, because, let me tell you,
Speaker 1: at one point I think it's Guardians of the Galaxy
Speaker 1: two has five post credit scenes just spread out throughout
Speaker 1: the credits. It's like, James Gunn you all be I
Speaker 1: love you, Jane Gone. I think you're a great filmmaker,
Speaker 1: but you are being agreedious right now. Five post credit scenes? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Fuck off?
Speaker 2: Yeah guy? Yeah, this film was boring, completely unengaging. I
Speaker 2: don't recommend it, to be fair, this is kind of
Speaker 2: this is what I think of when someone goes, oh,
Speaker 2: do you want to watch the new superhero?
Speaker 1: No? Fuck off?
Speaker 2: I think of this. If I'd seen this before we'd
Speaker 2: watched iron Man, I wouldn't have wanted to watch iron Man.
Speaker 2: So lucky for the mcu iro, Man came first because
Speaker 2: I think I think that gave people enough to go,
Speaker 2: you know what, we'll give them another shot. And then
Speaker 2: IMN two wasn't great, but at least it was better
Speaker 2: than this.
Speaker 1: Yes, this is the in the Infinity saga. Either this
Speaker 1: is the worst one or Captain Marvel's the worst one.
Speaker 1: Captain Marvel's pretty bad.
Speaker 2: I thought Captain Marvel was in phase two after the
Speaker 2: Infinity War thing.
Speaker 1: No, no, so Infinity Saga is the first three phases.
Speaker 1: What Phase one, two, and three is the Infinity Saga.
Speaker 2: I thought the first I thought the first thing was
Speaker 2: all the way up to endgame. Captain Marvel because she
Speaker 2: makes a cameo inme. I haven't seen any of that.
Speaker 1: Ship Captain Marvel came out between Infinity War and Endgame.
Speaker 1: Although it's set in the nineties.
Speaker 2: Can't imagine Captain Marvel being any good, not because of
Speaker 2: its being a woman. I can't imagine it's any good
Speaker 2: because I just imagine it's like this shit.
Speaker 1: It's super still, Captain Marvel has the Superman problem. She
Speaker 1: has no weaknesses and I hate Steel, so Woman of
Speaker 1: Steel has ain't gonna.
Speaker 2: Do it for me.
Speaker 1: They try they I don't know why they try and
Speaker 1: do this. In the MCU, they're trying to puller who's
Speaker 1: the real villain? Thing like, it's the British guy. It's
Speaker 1: Jude Law. Judelaw's the villain. He's the only British guy
Speaker 1: in the cast. It's Judlaw. And then it is it
Speaker 1: is Jude Law. And there's a bit that there's a
Speaker 1: bit they do that is funny because it's different from
Speaker 1: other superhero movies, but it's also unsatisfying because it denies
Speaker 1: you a climactic battle sequence, right, which is she's got
Speaker 1: she's basically Superman, She's iNFiNiT powerful, and Jude Law is
Speaker 1: basically just a normal guy. And there's a bit where
Speaker 1: like when they're finally face to face and he's like,
Speaker 1: come on, let's go one on one, no powers, just movie,
Speaker 1: and Captain bobble Lich is like, no, annihilate sip. Right.
Speaker 1: It's funny, yeah, because a lot of films have the
Speaker 1: here I do the yeah go on? Like in Resident Evil,
Speaker 1: for for God's sakes, when Crowser turns up with a
Speaker 1: knife and me I was just like, yeah, I'll put
Speaker 1: my gun away and just fight with the Why you
Speaker 1: just shoot the mother? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Blazing Settlers does the same thing with the fingers, just
Speaker 2: like you wouldn't shoot an I'm mad. So Cleveland Little
Speaker 2: drops and goes, all right, we'll do this man and
Speaker 2: man with fist over fist, and he goes, oh, I
Speaker 2: just for remembered, I do have a gun.
Speaker 1: Is it Raiders of the Lost Ark or Temple of
Speaker 1: Doom where Indiana Jones there's a guy does a load
Speaker 1: of that fancy sword swinging Indiana, Jones shoots him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is the first one raids the Lost Dark.
Speaker 2: Yeah that that apparently that was actually meant to be a.
Speaker 1: Fight sequence, but food poisoning.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he had a dicky Tubby. He just went a
Speaker 2: couple and you can see it in his face. That
Speaker 2: whole I can't be fucked. It justos the guy.
Speaker 1: So looking back, this has some pros in the sense
Speaker 1: that it feels more like an actual movie than some
Speaker 1: of the later MCU.
Speaker 2: It's only good in comparison to modern movie making.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's a bad sign of the state modern
Speaker 1: movie making is in. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I mean the actual film itself is trash.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and obviously famously, Edward Norton does not return as
Speaker 1: the whole. Do we know why creative differences.
Speaker 2: With Marvel because of this film?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Edward, there's a reason Edward Norton is regarded
Speaker 1: as a very good actor in yet has never ever
Speaker 1: won an Oscar. I know he's famously difficult to work with.
Speaker 2: Yeah, i'd heard that because I know he's He's played
Speaker 2: on that in a couple of things where he's cameo
Speaker 2: does himself, but as a really difficult to work with actor,
Speaker 2: So at least he's got a sense of humor about it,
Speaker 2: I guess.
Speaker 1: But he insists on having put in the script right.
Speaker 1: So he did a rewrite of this movie, and then
Speaker 1: Marvel rewrote it again and kept some of his stuff
Speaker 1: and not some of his stuff. And I think that's
Speaker 1: one of the reasons the tone is completely offen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it kind of flip flops between being a Marvel
Speaker 2: movie and being a drama, and it doesn't. It can't be.
Speaker 2: The problem is, is you think that would be nice, Oh,
Speaker 2: a dramatic Marvel movie, but it flip flops. It's not
Speaker 2: a consistent time.
Speaker 1: And I can't imagine Edward Norton fitting in once they
Speaker 1: all get together as the Avengers. Yeah, I just can't
Speaker 1: imagine him fitting in to that. I don't think he
Speaker 1: would have liked the way those movies are made where it's.
Speaker 2: I imagine him just the Avengers. I can't imagine him
Speaker 2: liking the way that any of that script was written.
Speaker 1: No, and at least that one was written, because as
Speaker 1: we know, the later MCU movies, they start filming them
Speaker 1: without scripts. Jesus, Yeah, Avengers Doomsday they started filming without
Speaker 1: a finished script. They're the first two acts written. But
Speaker 1: I don't understand how they can do that when the
Speaker 1: movie is going to be like what one hundred how many?
Speaker 1: Multiple millions? It's the most expensive film ever made. It's
Speaker 1: half a billion.
Speaker 2: Dollars, So that you're spending half a billion dollars on
Speaker 2: a film and you're going in without the fucking.
Speaker 1: Script because according to their algorithm, and to be fair,
Speaker 1: the sales have so far shown them right, audiences don't care.
Speaker 1: Paul W. S Anderson's bought a borring Resident Evil franchise
Speaker 1: can make a billion dollars despite the fact that it's
Speaker 1: all written by the same writers in Marveled at least Marvel.
Speaker 2: Single film in the resident as a franchise, six films to.
Speaker 1: Get to over a billion is still pretty good, though, Well,
Speaker 1: but my point is it's less than in each back
Speaker 1: then though, and for the budget, what I would give
Speaker 1: to get to it. But those films, at least the
Speaker 1: Marvel films. Yeah, okay, you've got fifty different writers pulling
Speaker 1: it in different directions. Those that's a six film series
Speaker 1: all written by one man, and it can't even stick
Speaker 1: to its own internal continuity. Well, the virus ride up
Speaker 1: the water try to pull the water the next one
Speaker 1: out on a fucking bolt. Awful movies, honestly, like the
Speaker 1: rest my level of rage for I listened to a
Speaker 1: podcast the other day where someone had the opinion that
Speaker 1: Monster Hunter wasn't a bad movie. I turned that podcast off.
Speaker 1: Oh Jesus, and I know I've got some pretty bad
Speaker 1: takes no, but that no, I will not stand for that.
Speaker 2: For anyone who wants to know about Jamie and my opinions,
Speaker 2: more on people like Paul W. S Anderson in the
Speaker 2: video game space VGMP is available and we have covered
Speaker 2: all of Paul W. Sanderson's and all of Bowls movies
Speaker 2: within that series. So now, yes, big irony, I know
Speaker 2: this off topic, so you might want to cut it.
Speaker 2: Ou Bowl has decided he's going to make a sequel
Speaker 2: to the House of the Dead because Paul Anderson is
Speaker 2: doing an official and he's in his video Cobbin. He
Speaker 2: was like, we will call it Return to Zombie Island
Speaker 2: because we cannot call it House of the Dead because
Speaker 2: some other idiot has the rights and they're going to
Speaker 2: make a truly terrible movie. Bowl versus and I want
Speaker 2: to see the fight. That's that's the new that's raging
Speaker 2: bowl to bowl versus Anderson. I want to fucking see
Speaker 2: that film.
Speaker 1: So there you have it. That is the incredible. What
Speaker 1: did you guys think about it? Do you guys think
Speaker 1: it's one of the worst in the MCU or maybe
Speaker 1: you rate it better? Please let us know. We love
Speaker 1: to get comments from you guys, and if you send
Speaker 1: us some thoughtful emails about what you did or didn't
Speaker 1: like about the film, maybe we'll read it out on
Speaker 1: a future episode. Wouldn't that be great? Thank you very
Speaker 1: much for tuning in. You can catch new episodes of
Speaker 1: Second Text Cinema every Thursday. As Rory said, you can
Speaker 1: find the complete library of all six seasons of the
Speaker 1: Video Game Movie podcast available on all good podcasting apps.
Speaker 1: And in around May time, we will be returning with
Speaker 1: the next set of episodes of our audio drama series Haunted,
Speaker 1: So lots coming from in Parlor Films.
Speaker 2: I hope people didn't find that we weren't a big
Speaker 2: in this film. I don't want them to call this
Speaker 2: episode the Incredible soulk.
Speaker 1: I'm also accepting applications to replace Worri as a permanent
Speaker 1: co host, So if you're interested in talking about film
Speaker 1: every week hit me up. Thank you everyone, and we
Speaker 1: will see you next time. For more Second Take Cinema,