The green giant is back (From Western Telegraph)

The green giant is back

The Hulk Directed by Ang Lee Starring Eric Bana, Jennifer Connelly, Nick Nolte, Josh Lucas and Sam Elliot. Cert. 12A

The Hulk, the movie, is finally here as the comic book artists intended him to be. With the help of Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic whiz kids, the one ton green freak has been created. No need whatsoever for a 300lb deaf muscle man with a good covering of paint and a pair of little green daps to keep his feet from being hurt by stones then.

The Hulk is Ang Lee's vision of a tale we all know pretty well. Ang Lee's directing is innovative, classy and very, very fast. His actioneer skills were given credence again. From the opening rally of this match, The Hulk seems to have got the better of us, with so much back-story easily dealt with among so much chaos and action. Now, like a true superhero, I'm going to split personality.

The first thing I'll say is that the film is fantastic fun. But it's only fun, because unlike so many blockbusters there is real quality here. Eric Bana, playing Dr Banner, is fantastic. He's sensitive and tough at the same time. It would have been easy to make him just a nice guy who goes green when he loses his rag. Eric Bana goes further than that, with some effort at least from Lee Schamus and script writers Turman and France, who show us the complexity of this tortured soul, who actually finds a hugely satisfying sense of release when he becomes The Hulk.

There are two actors who have a huge presence. The first is Nick Nolte. He's been in the news recently for the unlawful side effects of living the high life. He appears in The Hulk as Dr Banner's father, but looks more like the aged Gorrilla from Greystoke whose been living as a tramp ever since. He growls his way through what is actually a mesmerising performance.

His only battle for best actor is of course with The Hulk himself, the computer generated tank-hurling beast in little stretchy purple boxer shorts. Ingenious technology. An incredible hulk.

Here I must show the other side of my personality, the dark side of my persona. For all the good work that the real actors do, when Dr Banner changes in the movie, he turns into a cartoon! It's not real! It's animated. It is so obvious that it ruins the entire film! "You wouldn't like me when I'm angry I become a cartoon!". But, if you can get past the cartoon star, you'll love it.

Vaughan Sivell