The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Our Rating:

Date Friday, September 19th, 2008 at 11:09 am

The Incredible Hulk is a 2008 superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character the Hulk. It is directed by Louis Leterrier and stars Edward Norton as Dr. Bruce Banner / the Hulk. The second Hulk film after Hulk (2003), it is a reboot that establishes a new back-story, where Banner became the Hulk as an unwitting pawn in a military scheme to create supersoldiers. On the run, he attempts to cure himself of the Hulk before he is captured by General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (William Hurt), but his worst fears are realized when power-hungry soldier Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth) becomes the Abomination. Liv Tyler also stars as Betty Ross, Banner’s girlfriend and General Ross’ daughter.

Marvel Studios reacquired the rights to the character after the mixed reception to Hulk, and writer Zak Penn began work on a loose sequel that would be much closer to the comics and the television series. Norton rewrote the script after he signed on to star, which clarified the film’s new back-story. Leterrier aimed to make the film realistic, giving a more frightening direction for the look of the monsters, while redesigning the Abomination from the comics’ reptilian humanoid into a mutated man with bony protrusions. Filming mostly took place in Toronto, Canada in 2007, where the production attempted to be environmentally friendly.

Normally I would pass on this movie all day long but with the recent crop of decent comic book flicks I thought, why not? I’m guessing you are more or less supposed to forget about the previous attempt by ang lee which isn’t hard to do. This one feels more like a full film and even though the bad guy is mostly made up, he is pretty cool. This one is definitely better than the previous hulk film but there is still work to be done on this franchise. Maybe the filmmakers can take some lessons from Iron Man or TDK for the next go at a hulk movie. I’m loving the fact that Marvel is making their own movies now though. Seems like the creative control that they have is really making for better movies.

What did you think?
Rating: 3.0/5 (1 vote cast)

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The Grand (2007)
Our Rating:

Date Saturday, May 10th, 2008 at 7:34 pm

I figured I might as well make a weekend out of David Cross. He is the second lead in this new film about poker. The Grand is the biggest poker tournament held in vegas with a payout of 10 million dollars. The movie focuses on the lives of the final six, each with their own reason to win the tournament. Woddy Harrelson needs to win so that he can buy his fathers casino back before it’s destroyed. David Cross and Cheryl Hines are both competing to show their father who is the better of the two. Dennis Farina is the trusty old veteran on the scene. Werner Herzog is the German and was hired by the owner of Harrelson’s casino to try and beat him out of the game. And then there is the amateur at the table, played by Richard Kind.

The cool thing about this film is that the script was only 29 pages long and the director (Zak Penn) just let the actors ad-lib most of the dialogue. He picked some of the best in the game with Cross and Hines. And surprisingly Harrelson does a really good job as well. The movie isn’t anything special by any means but if you watch a lot of poker on TV then you will find it pretty decent. It takes cracks at amateurs just playing stupid hands and making bad decisions and it also takes a few cracks at the announcers, where one of them is always stupid and almost intolerable to listen to, you know like Woody Paige. I will watch anything with Cross in it and I was just happy to not see him in a total sell out movie for Disney.

What did you think?

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