The Flawed Potential of The Incredible Hulk or: How We View Mental Illness in America.

Welcome to week 2 of Marvel Monday! Last week we had a great time talking about Iron Man and this week we move forward with our next entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And I know you’re all excited to read my thoughts on the big green wrecking machine but I need you to remain calm.

 

Ok, Ok! Forget it! Get as excited as you want. We’re talking about The Incredible Hulk! 

Released on June 13, 2008, The Incredible Hulk tells the story of Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) a scientist who, years prior, was involved in a radioactive accident which caused a radioactive reaction triggered whenever he gets angry or excited and causes him to transform into the Hulk, a green monster of seemingly endless strength. Bruce has fled the U.S. to Brazil where he has been in hiding working to control his condition and searching for a cure. However, after some of his radioactive blood gets shipped to the U.S. by accident. The army sends a task force to retrieve him in hopes of extracting and utilizing his condition as a weapon.

Now before we go any further I’m gonna have to address the elephant in the room.

Not what I meant but that’s ok… I guess… Moving on. This movie is confused. It has a lot of good parts, but it also has a lot of parts that could be better. The movie has, whether it intended to or not, become a reflection of its main character. It is a mountain of potential that needs to be properly harnessed. And while I think the movie falls short in places, I think it really succeeds in others. Taking all that into consideration, I’m trying to find the best parts of this movie, so I’m gonna get a lot of the criticism out of the way first so I can then go forward and explain why I love the Hulk. So, if you will allow me put on my snooty hat for a moment….

 

Thank you. This movie has a lot of wasted potential. Much like Bruce at the beginning. The movie has a strength and power, but it doesn’t know how to use it. The plot is there lying under the surface, the characters are all fleshed out and well-motivated, but the movie just never quite figures out what it is. Is it a thriller akin to The Fugitive, a monster movie somewhat like Frankenstein, a full superhero film, or some slow burn sci-fi/body horror flick like a PG-13 Cronenberg movie? It’s trying to be all of them at one point or another, and if it had chosen to just be one of those options it would have been more successful, and possibly set up for numerous sequels featuring the Hulk as a standalone character. I’m forever disappointed we don’t get to see Samuel Sterns (Tim Blake Nelson) fully transform into The Leader. Likewise, I wish we had more of the Abomination (Tim Roth) in the MCU. That being said, I can’t control Marvel Studio’s creative choice, nor can I choose the way the crowd reacted to this movie. And given that The Incredible Hulk is the lowest grossing movie in the MCU it’s likely that neither group sees it as a property worth pushing forward. So I, the young…ish Hulk Fan, can only dream of all the glorious Hulk moments we’ll never get to see.

 

But it’s not all bad, The Incredible Hulk has a lot of things I really like. The cast is strong, the plot is (mostly) well motivated. It’s simply a pace and tone issue within the movie that makes it suffer, as well as a movie that is trying to push itself too hard to be numerous things.  But beyond its wasted potential and struggle to find its focus, the movie is a good work. It’s not a standout because it is dealing with trouble underneath the surface. And, when you look at it, also makes the film a great metaphor for how we, the world, deal with mental illness. The Hulk as a character is a symbol for anxiety, depression, and so many other ailments we suffer with regularly and try to hide away from the world to protect those around us.

Bruce Banner within the film is a tortured genius. He struggles with the fact that his legacy will no longer be seen through his scientific work, but through this burden he now carries every day. This idea that no matter how much he works, how many successes he has in his career, and how smart he is, he can’t be anything other than the man who must bear the weight of the Hulk because of something he could not control and could not anticipate.

Much like Bruce there are millions of us who struggle with our own personal Hulk. Only ours don’t have a side that seems to make us stronger. We just have to suffer with the monster. And it’s dangerous, both to us and others. It weighs down everything you do. We sit and stew and stress about how to deal with the monster inside of us, and just when we have a really good day and think that maybe we can live with this thing, it comes back worse than ever and takes back over us. The Hulk is Depression, Anxiety, ADHD, Autism, Bipolar Disorder, and so many more things that don’t get enough attention and care.

And that’s why Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (William Hurt) is really the villain in this whole movie. He doesn’t care about Bruce. If the Hulk isn’t useful, he doesn’t want anything to do with it. But he wants to take the parts that will make him look good and harness them as what? A weapon. He wants to cure the disease only so he can reawaken it as a way to aim it against enemies. And let’s be honest, if vaccines really did cause autism, you can be sure some corrupt general or military force or counter terrorism unit would have harnessed them as some sort of weapon/interrogation technique. Ross is a monster, more than any of the monsters who appear in the film. And yet when the shit hits the fan, so to speak, his eyes are opened by who, his daughter.

Betty Ross (Liv Tyler) is the first female love interest character in the MCU who really stands up for herself. I know at this point she’s only competing with Pepper, but the fact that we lost Betty as a result of the MCU virtually erasing this movie from the canon, is the worst part of this whole thing. And I’m saying that as someone who’s not a huge fan of Liv Tyler as an actress. I think she does less for the character than someone else could have but the role itself is the backbone of the movie. She is the strongest character in a film about strength of character. She risks everything to protect Bruce from her own father and, her father from the damage she knows Bruce can do if the Hulk goes ballistic. Betty sees that Bruce is not at fault but also knows that he still needs to be kept calm and alert through all of this. She’s the only one seeing both sides of the conflict and trying to truly work in the interests of all parties.

Now, if Betty is the altruistic character in the film, then Samuel Sterns and Emil Blonksy are the selfish ones. And we know these people too. The ones who do not care at all for the person behind the disease, and in fact find the illness to be the most important part of the character. And both do this in very different ways. On one side you have Sterns’ curious and constantly questioning scientist. He works as an ally to Bruce for much of the movie but when they finally meet Bruce finds out that he was working from an ulterior motive. He doesn’t want to cure the Hulk; he wants to use it. And that’s the thing, often we do see the detriment that mental illness places on people. But in a world constantly looking for a way to utilizing every thing around us to gain power, how often do we take these tortured souls and stretch them out to use the parts of their minds that are good. How many movies and TV shows are out there about an autistic genius who excels in the one thing and are taken advantage of by those around them, or pushed to their mental breaking point? People like Sterns are vile, but we don’t see it if we’re too close to the problem and only looking for the cure.

And then we have Blonsky. The thing about him is he represents different pieces at different times in the film. Blonsky goes from a similar role as Ross when we first meet him, he then evolves into a bully wanting to prove his dominance over Bruce, and by the end when he lets the Abomination out, Blonsky grows into a metaphor for the danger of improper treatment of mental illness. He doesn’t care at ALL about Bruce. Bruce is simply a mission to him, and Bruce’s humanity is the least important part of the man. As the movie progresses, we see the way that Blonsky becomes obsessed with the Hulk. He has to contain it, and then when he can’t he becomes it. But as Sterns warns, the combination of untested substances with the Hulk’s DNA could result in the creation of an abomination. And here’s the thing about mental disorders, they are hard to medicate because you are messing with a person’s brain chemistry. And how many stories are out there about people becoming addicts or worse dying because they took things to cope with a mental disorder that were not good for it, or took too much of something because they were desperately looking to cope in an unhealthy way. Blonsky is the worst parts of living with a mental disorder. He’s the people who see you only as a nuisance because of what is going on in your head, and he’s also the people who struggle to cope with their disorders and use anything they can which can cause more danger than just living with the disease untreated. Blonsky is the worst of the worst, and he shows it in every single moment. And Tim Roth must be praised for keeping the role grounded and interesting. There are many villains I wish got another showing later in the MCU and Blonsky is near the top of that list, whether as the man or the monster.

Ultimately, The Incredible Hulk is flawed. It’s imperfect. It’s a complicated entity struggling to live with itself. It is person learning to cope with mental illness. And as someone who has dealt with their own mental illness, undiagnosed for a large majority of my life, it is a way to show people that you can have struggle and still be smart, strong, and good. The Hulk was one of my favorite characters when I was a child and I think it makes sense why. He is an imperfect character and the movie is a reflection of that. It could be better, but it still stands on its own and shouldn’t be brushed aside in the face of its more polished franchise brothers and sisters. The Incredible Hulk has value in the same way that those of us who struggle with our own mental disorders on a daily basis have value. You have value. You have power. And even if the world brushes you off, you still matter.

Just a quick refresher of my MCU ranking criteria.

Cast and Performances

Story and Plot

Best Fight/Action Scene

Rewatchability

Cleverness of the Stan Lee cameo

Each film will be judged solely by me and then placed against all the other films. And rated on a scale of 10 with a total possible score of 50.

So, here is the quick breakdown of The Incredible Hulk:

Cast and Performances: Cast is fairly strong. Norton is great as Banner, if a bit too serious at times. Hurt and Roth are commanding villains who really hold the screen. Roth especially is fun the entire time. Nelson and Tyler fall flatter for different reasons. Nelson for being written very one dimensionally and working against some of the poorest dialogue in the film. Tyler for showing very little emotional range, especially against seasoned actors such as Norton and Hurt. Again, aside from those roles most of the characters are given some history with the leads, but ultimately pushed aside, including Ty Burrell’s Leonard Sampson who is another moment of wasted potential, and several fun cameos from Lou Ferrigno and Martin Starr to round them out. (7/10)

Story and Plot: The movie as I said is confused. It is trying to be too many things and doesn’t reach any other them. While the basic plot is straightforward, the overall conflict takes a long time to get going and much of the middle of the film is spent re-setting up relationships between the main characters that have no bearing on the events of the movie. It is flawed and confused and needs a bit of polish, but still does a serviceable job.  (6/10)

Best Fight/Action Scene: The Harlem Smack-down between the Hulk and the Abomination in the film’s conclusion is the obvious choice for this. The size and strength of the characters are on full display as they engage in a super powered street fight, the creative use of the landscape and scenery as weapons and shields is fun and exciting, and after waiting for a showdown like this, it is truly a satisfying and action-packed conclusion. (8/10)

Rewatchability: The Incredible Hulk is not as rewatchable as many other MCU films, while others can be watched a few times a year, and some every month or two. Hulk comes out more on the yearly to bi-yearly basis. But it’s still a good film to watch every once in a while. (4/10)

Cleverness of the Stan Lee Cameo: Stan the Man is an unfortunate senior who ingests some Hulk blood through a Brazilian soda. Not super memorable. (4/10)

Total: 29/50

Current Ranking:
1. Iron Man
2. The Incredible Hulk

There you have it! The Incredible Hulk! We’re not two films into this adventure with no signs of slowing down, next time we look at… my admitted least favorite entry in the MCU, and its first sequel, Iron Man 2. If you like reading what I’m writing, come on back and you’ll get to see me find the best parts of that film and keep the ranking going.

 

And as always, thanks for taking the time to get Ploominated!