split personality
i went to see the hulk tonight. let me just say that the latest round of commercials for it, touting it as some kind of artistic triumph are utter horseshit. bantha pudu. seriously. now, that's not to say it's a total loss, more that it, like its protagonist, has a totally split personality. half crowd-pleasing ass-kicker, half fable about the sins of a father being visited upon his son. it's that last part that's been being flogged in an effort to convince people this is a worthy followup to crouching tiger, hidden dragon. and it's that last part where the thing just doesn't work. the first part of the movie tedious, but at least seems to be going somewhere. the middle part, with the big chase is superb, i mean, really good. and the last 20 minutes just plain sucks. a freaking mess. what's more frustrating is how good the good parts are, which makes the bad parts that much more annoying. a couple of the fight scenes are incoherent (you'll know which ones), and way the hell too dark. the resolution at the end of the movie is tacked on, done too quickly, and, agh, i can't explain any further without spoiling it, but it really could've been saved for the inevitable sequel. and then there's the so-called 24-style editing. which, as others have pointed out, really dates back to the andromeda strain, but anyway, what it refers to is multiple images onscreen at once, a deluge of information. 24 uses it to excellent effect, to convey the massive amount of information on the screen simultaneously necessary for the format; it doesn't always happen to be aesthetically pleasing, but really, that's beside the point. with this movie, it's been noted that the intent is to strike a resemblance between the moving frames onscreen and the panels of a comic book. the few times it works, it's way cool. the rest of the time, it's either showy or clunky or both. some of the cuts make george lucas' in the original star wars look subtle. and worst, there's an important scene which winds up looking like the beginning of charlie's angels, as a result.
ugh, that's enough about it. like i said, a mess. there's a lot good to say, too (the hulk himself is truly impressive. despite my better judgement, i believed it; it looks unreal on tv, but on the big screen, he seemed to me to live and breathe.). anyway, that's enough for now...
