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Hulky Talky. BlogNosh 06/12/08

Under discussion:
The Hulk (2003)
The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Speed Racer (2008)

Under discussion:

The Hulk (2003)

The Incredible Hulk (2008)

Speed Racer (2008)

“If Iron Man was about America’s power overseas — specifically in Afghanistan, where much of the movie takes place — then the Incredible Hulk is about what happens to our soldiers when they come home,” writes Charlie Jane Anders in a long review at io9. It’s about the impossibility of transforming young men into “super-soldiers” and then expecting them to blend back in.” Related: Anders takes a look at superheroes who can’t have sex, including “Poor Rogue from the X-men. She’s got the cool Susan Sontag hair, and the leather jumpsuit, and the hot boyfriend… but she can never touch anyone.”
Anders isn’t exactly ga-ga over New Hulk, but she calls Ang Lee’s version “disastrous.” At Bright Lights After Dark, Erich Kuersten vehemently disagrees. “Man, it’s a sad day on our bitterly defended-from-Galactacus earth when an Ang Lee Hulk film is just dismissed outright, and here it is a super and vastly underrated picture. Granted the CGI was a bit cartoony in the previews (I know I laughed at the time) but looked much better in real big screen life.”
David Poland bottom lines it: “The truth is, for all its flaws, there is not a single frame of The Incredible Hulk that contains a fragment of the artistry that Ang Lee brought to Hulk. Of course, the film was too long and the psychodrama too thick for most people. But there was true aesthetic beauty. I hate to even pull this one out of the backpack, but Speed Racer? Genius in comparison. Every frame.”