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This is the three-disc “special edition,” which is a bit of a misnomer. There are three discs, that’s true, but the third disc (which is in a paper slipcase inside the DVD case) is a digital copy. I knew that going in and have no use for the Digital Copy yet, but want it in case I do ever use it.
The Main Characters
--Bruce Banner/Hulk (Edward Norton) tested a super-soldier serum on himself with some pretty bad side effects. He turns into a raging monster when angry. He is being chased by the government since they want the serum that made him what he is.
--Betty Ross (Liv Tyler) was Bruce’s love back in happier times before he went into hiding. When Bruce is back, she’s the first person he goes to. Will she let her father get in the way of things?
--General Thunderbolt Ross (William Hurt) is the father of Betty and he has a one-track mind. He wants the Hulk. He desperately wants to capture Hulk and he doesn’t care what he has to do or who he has to hurt to do it.
--Emil Blonsky/Abomination (Tim Roth) is a great soldier brought in on a mission to capture Banner. When he finds out Hulk is Banner, he has the same tunnel vision that Ross has, and he will stop at nothing, even injecting himself with a serum to stop the Hulk.
The Setting
It begins with Banner in Brazil somewhere, but the bulk of the action takes place in the capital of Marvel Comics, New York City.
The Film (1:52:27)
This starts off with a brief recap of what happened in the first film, though subtly changed to show why Ross hates Banner and Hulk so much, and changing how Hulk got his powers (testing himself with a super-soldier serum). It was a good way to show that yes, something happened before but now the hunt is on for Hulk. Note the Stark Industries and Fury mention on the computer screens. General Ross finds a hiding Banner (and in doing so gives us the most original uses of Stan Lee in a Marvel film I’ve seen) and calling in Emil Blonsky and a team of other operative to extract him. They fail and Blonsky gets obsessed with finding and bringing in Banner, especially after learning that he is the Hulk. Blonsky goes so far as to inject himself with an untested serum and wouldn’t you know it, he becomes a raging beast, too, one that only the Hulk can stop.
Movie Review
This was an interesting idea for Marvel probably based in part on the idea of Superman Returns. The original Hulk movie was not well-received. Ang Lee wanted to make a movie and not a super-hero movie, but those that paid to see it didn’t want a “movie,” they wanted a super-hero film. So Marvel, like DC did with Superman, basically said, “Ok, we acknowledge the earlier version of the film, but this is our real vision for the character and how we want him represented.” Did it work? In a word, Yes. The plot was a lot better, and it didn’t take over an hour to first see the Jade Giant! This had call-backs to the original Hulk series (the music as Banner walks away after first becoming Hulk in the film). The plot strays a bit from the story of the first, making it more similar to the Ultimate Hulk origin than the 616 Origin. Basically, Banner became the Hulk not through a radiation experiment but by testing a super-soldier serum on himself. This may cause some to be a bit turned off by that change but it enables a great reason why the government is after Banner (for what’s in him) rather than just because he’s a beast and also explains how the Abomination became the Abomination. This film, though not as “fun” as Iron Man was still great. It had great action and great Hulk scenes, where we got to see HULK SMASH. That’s really all you could ask for. Throw in a Tony Stark (Downey Jr.) appearance, and you have a movie you can sit and watch and enjoy, and that makes you completely forget the first one was ever made. ***.
DVD Features
A) Extras
---Disc One---
1) Deleted Scenes (13:28)
---A) Bruce in Brazil (3:11)
Bruce runs through Brazil and picks up a package from the mail and complains to his dog. This was way too long and ultimately pointless, which is why it was cut.
---B) Bruce meditates (0:47)
This is exactly how it sounds. It was probably here so Ed Norton could take off his shirt and show how much he worked out for the film.
---C) Searching for the Flower (0:41)
The flower mentioned here is from the first deleted scene.
---D) Building the Lab (1:24)
Bruce creates a make-shift lab in Brazil.
---E) After the Bottling Factory / General Greller (2:50)
Ross learns more about what Banner was doing and Ross realizes that Banner wanted to get rid of the Hulk inside of him. Then Greller interviews Ross and Blonsky about the Hulk, and Greller isn’t too happy with what’s going on.
---F) Ross and Blonsky Conspire (Extended) (4:38)
This is just an extended scene of Ross telling Blonsky about the Secret-Soldier Program and Blonsky injecting himself to take on the Hulk.
2) Feature Commentary
This was recorded by director Louis Leterrier and actor Tim Roth. Tim and Louis made this commentary very enjoyable, though they didn’t really mention too many things worth noting here. There was a funny joke about the Hulk having “pieces” while the Abomination did not. They did note that they recorded this commentary on the day the Hulk was released (June 13th, 2008).
---Disc Two---
1) Alternate Opening (2:34)
Banner goes to the Arctic, (to kill himself?) but Hulk takes control. I don’t know what to make of that.
2) Deleted Scenes (29:15)
---A) Bruce Delivers Pizza (1:46)
Bruce delivers pizza. He notes a mistake in a science problem then gets PWNED by some girls.
---B) The Computer Lab (0:52)
Bruce is inside a computer lab and gives the pizza to a weird guy working there.
---C) Bruce and Stanley (0:51)
Bruce talks to Stanley and tells him the information about his “problem,” is completely gone. He is about to leave when Betty shows up.
---D) Bruce Meets Leonard (0:54)
Leonard is Betty’s boyfriend, and Betty brings home Bruce to meet Leonard.
---E) Bruce and Better Talk (3:20)
Bruce gets the data information as Bruce mulls how Ross found him, and how he’s been on the run.
---F) Dinner with Bruce (1:31)
Bruce has dinner with Betty and Samson. He cries after laughing because he is finally living normally.
---G) The Orchid (1:26)
Betty grows an Orchid, which is tough to grow or something. I guess Bruce sent it to her.
---H) Betty and Leonard (0:33)
They hug and that’s all there is to it.
---I) Bruce and Leonard / Leonard’s House – The Next Morning (4:18)
Bruce tells Leonard that he didn’t come back for Betty. Leonard doesn’t know why Bruce dropped off the face of the Earth, since Bruce won’t tell him about the Hulk.
---J) Bruce’s Guilt (1:47)
Bruce is guilty and he tells Betty that as they are at the school, but before the military shows up. He didn’t like “playing God,” with his experiments.
---K) Nature’s Mystery (3:02)
Thunderbolt talks to one of his female officers about Hulk and their first run-in with him.
---L) Motel Room Conversation (1:21)
Betty and Banner talk after Banner puts the kibosh on their love-making. At least it wasn’t ED.
---M) Ross and Greller (1:26)
Thunderbolt talks to Greller about the incident at the school and Greller questions him about Blonsky and the super-soldier serum.
---N) Pawn Shop (0:25)
Liv sells her stuff at the pawn shop for money, but for real cheap.
---O) On The Hulk Hunt (1:25)
The female officer (what’s her name) preps the troops on hunting Hulk. Blonsky asks what happens if he becomes the Hulk, and Ross tells him to let him go.
---P) Ross and Sparr (2:38)
The woman’s name is Sparr, it seems. Ross tells Sparr to keep Betty with Banner and to go through all of Stern’s stuff and then arrest him. Betty gives her father a tongue-lashing as she gets on the helicopter.
---Q) Leonard Calls Betty (1:49)
The guy who will become Doc Samson calls Betty and asks how she’s doing after the fight. Betty knows that Leonard ratted them out and calls him out on it.
3) The Making of Incredible (29:52)
Now I have seen everything, this has the Volkswagen logo next to it and tells us this is brought to you by VW. This starts on July 9th, 2007, the first day of Photography. This is a full-on making of, with Ed Norton actually chiming in on being Banner. He was hesitant to do it at first because he was such a fan of the comics and didn’t want to tarnish it at all. They talk about all the sets, the filming they did, including in Brazil. This was a very good making of.
4) Becoming the Hulk (9:23)
Ed talks about becoming the Hulk and the other creators talk about the design for the Hulk, and the aspects of the comics that they borrowed from. They wanted their Hulk not to be as big as the Ang Lee version (which was like 15 feet tall) but around 8-10 feet. Ed also wanted input on the character and they had him act out what Hulk would do, and also took shots of his face and put those expressions onto Hulk. This was fascinating stuff. They show Hulk flexing, and Lou Ferigno, watching it, flexes too and damn, he still looks ripped.
5) Becoming the Abomination (10:16)
Abomination was very different from what he was in the comic, though that’s not a bad thing. Something like what was in the comic wouldn’t work well on screen. Tim Roth talks about his character of Abomination and how he sees it.
6) Anatomy of a Hulk-Out (27:50)
These three are really cool. The Hulk hulked out in the film three times, and each of these takes an in-depth look at how the scene was filmed, what went into filming it, and how the actors, director, and crew thought about the scene. It appears that Hulk, Hulked Out in all three acts.
---A) Hulking Out in the Bottling Plant (9:44)
---B) Hulking Out on Campus (10:09)
---C) Hulking Out in Harlem (7:58)
7) From Comic Book to Screen (6:33)
This is an animated scene from Hulk: Gray showing Hulk and Betty in the grotto that was the inspiration for one of the scenes in the film. I really like the animated comic stuff.
B) Audio/Video
This is widescreen (2.35:1 ratio) and audio is Dolby Digital 5.1, as well as DVS 2.0. I watch almost all my DVD’s on my headphones on the computer and the video was well done, with the film being bright when it needed to be and dark when it needed to be. The audio sounded awesome, with some really good uses of the surround and bass, especially during the fight scenes. This was a very good transfer.
C) Liner Notes
The only additional things included is a fold-open 8-page leaflet with ads for HD and Blu-Ray, and other Hulk related materials. There’s other ads, too. Nothing too worth mentioning. This comes in a slipcase, too, though its just the cover of the DVD.
D) Easter Eggs
None
Overall Review
This starts as many DVDs do now, with commercials. There’s a new Beethoven movie (WTF?), Hellboy 2, an anti-smoking commercial, Iron Man, the Marvel TV cartoons and DVD animated features coming down the pike, Blu-Ray, all totaling 5:06. This was just better than the original Hulk movie in so many ways. First the movie was just leaps and bounds better, and that will help the final score a lot. Secondly, I really enjoyed the extras on here, from all the deleted scenes to the pretty decent commentary, to the animated comic to the fact that the stars like Tim Roth and Edward Norton actually took time out to record things for the disc, something that it isn’t often seen nowadays. Very good disc, and if you saw the first one and swore off Hulk, you may want to rethink that. Highly recommended.
Overall Rating
9.5
10.0 Perfect
9.0-9.5 Near Perfect, Highly Recommended
8.0-8.5 Really good disc, Recommended
7.0-7.5 Good DVD, Mildly recommended
6.0-6.5 Above Average DVD. Mildest of mild recommendations
5.0-5.5 Decent all around disc, but catch it on TV
4.0-4.5 Great Movie but horrible DVD
3.0-3.5 Horrible movie but great DVD
2.0-2.5 There’s at least some merit to this DVD, but not much.
1.0-1.5 Horrible DVD, don’t even bother
0.0-0.5 Worst DVD ever
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