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— by Robert Mancini, with reporting by Ryan J. Downey
In retrospect, it might not have been the best way to spend $2 million.
On January 26, as the NFL staged the annual marriage of consumerism and football known as the Super Bowl, 137 million viewers got their first glimpse of Hollywood's latest incarnation of the Hulk. During a 30-second commercial, Hulk smashed, Hulk crashed and Hulk even hurled a tank across a desert, but those with discerning eyes came away from the pricey spot wondering, "How did they get Shrek to play the Hulk?"
Buzz was bad and threatened to grow even more so in the months leading up to the film's June 20 release. An eleventh-hour leak of the film online didn't help, as fans eviscerated what the studio claimed were unfinished special effects.
But Ang Lee wasn't sweating. The director believed that if he could pull off his vision, his finished film would push CGI where it had never gone before and "Hulk" would be more than just another popcorn flick.
Lee knew exactly what he was getting himself into when he signed on to bring the Hulk to life once again. Born in 1962 in the pages of "Tales to Astonish," the character has had a rich history that includes thousands of comic appearances, at least three animated series, and, perhaps best known, a live-action television series starring Lou Ferrigno (splashed with green paint and topped with a fright wig) as the rage-fueled beast. Details would change, but each was driven by the same basic premise: after a laboratory accident, a meek scientist finds himself transformed into a giant green beast when faced with intense circumstances.
No matter what else might change about Hulk lore (the giant's skin color, the first name of Hulk alter ego Dr. Banner), the potential of unleashed rage was always the core, and ultimately what drew Ang Lee to his latest project. However, Lee and his team had new plans for our old green friend, including going deeper into the relationships between Dr. Banner and the people around him and the beast within him.
"There's all kinds of potential action and frightening effects, and that excitement of a summer movie, which I have to deliver and which I have fun delivering, but I always like to combine whatever I do with drama," Lee explained. "I've got to do both, and blending them is a little problematic. That's my main work. It's a very exciting project for me."
Having fused supernatural high-flying martial arts action with a surprisingly poignant love story in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," Lee seemed up to the task. Seeking to beef up the drama, the director brought in screenwriter James Schamus (who penned Lee's acclaimed "The Ice Storm") and bolstered his cast with Golden Globe nominee Sam Elliott, Academy Award nominee Nick Nolte and Academy Award winner Jennifer Connelly. For his main character, Lee made an even less conventional call, tapping relatively unknown Australian actor Eric Bana (whose previous credits include "Black Hawk Down" and the intense Aussie indie "Chopper") for the role of Dr. Bruce Banner.
"In the comic book, I don't think anybody cares about Bruce Banner. He's a wimp, a loser, and he's just melancholy," Lee said. "You're waiting for the Hulk to come out so that he can have some excitement. I don't think that will work for a motion picture. You watch the guy for two hours, so you have to have some respect for the person."
In Lee's re-imagining of the Hulk story, Banner is once again blasted with gamma radiation in a lab accident, leaving him and his girlfriend (Connelly as Betty Ross) to explore his sudden blackouts (and the explosive destruction that seems to surround him when he wakes from them). Woven throughout these familiar elements are a deeper examination of the emotional barriers that Banner places between himself and the world (including Betty), as well as his relationship with his father, David (Nolte), a mysterious figure whose influence on his son's life may be even greater than the young scientist could have imagined.
Lee also spends considerable celluloid pondering the symbiotic relationship between the repressed Dr. Banner and the raging green monster that shares his skin. Of course, all of this unfolds while the might of the military attempts to hunt down the rampaging Hulk, making for plenty of eye-popping destruction.
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Photo: ILM
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