We went and saw The Incredible Hulk tonight.
Not a whole lot to say about it, really – it was a solid movie, way better than the one from five years ago, although admittedly that’s not really saying much! But Edward Norton and Liv Tyler were both great and even the special effects turned out pretty sweet. It was certainly no Iron Man, but I honestly didn’t expect it to be.
Just a couple of beefs:
A) I thought the whole S.H.I.E.L.D. thing at the end of the flick this time was really lame – it was a cool, little teaser at the end of Iron Man, but here it just wasn’t done right at all. And mind you, I don’t really know any of the backstory behind it from the comic books, but it just seemed like a blatant plug for the next movie when there were clearly other places where the story was left open for a sequel already. I really hope that that type of ending doesn’t become a standard for Marvel films because as far as I’m concerned, it’s old already…
B) And more on a general comics level, what’s with all of these superheroes having archenemies that are basically evil versions of themselves? Hulk vs. The Abomination, Iron Man vs. that other dude who made a bigger Iron Man suit, Spider-Man vs. Venom, Wolverine vs. Sabretooth – the list goes on. I mean, here are some of the most creative minds ever – they come up with these vast universes and plotlines and far-out superpowers, and then what? By the time they got to writing the bad guys, they were just plum out of ideas?! Maybe it’s a point towards the idea of the fine line between good and evil, but … I don’t know. Magneto, The Green Goblin, The Sandman, Dr. Doom – those were creative villains … why stop there?!