Like many moviegoers, you may find yourself watching advertisements for The Incredible Hulk and wondering, “Didn’t I just see this movie?” In fact, it has only been five years since the not-so-jolly green giant hit the big screen. Unfortunately, the Ang Lee-directed Hulk was considered a big disappointment both financially and artistically. So when Marvel Comics formed their own production company, they decided to start from scratch, apparently going out of their way to point out that the new version is not a sequel or remake, but more of a re-imagining.

Ironically, though, The Incredible Hulk actually works quite well as a sequel to the earlier film. The movie opens with Dr. Bruce Banner hiding out in South America—ironically, perhaps, but not-so-surprising—right where he was hiding out at the end of Hulk. While trying to find a cure for the Gamma radiation that contaminates his blood, Banner spends his time learning techniques for controlling his anger while passing his time doing maintenance at a soda bottling plant.

However, when a rogue drop of his infected blood finds its way into one of the bottles, it draws the attention of General Thaddeus Ross, who subsequently deploys an elite team of soldiers to capture Banner, intending to utilize his blood in order to devise the ultimate weapon. Unfortunately for the General, this (predictably) angers Banner—and, well, you won’t like him when he’s angry.

When his pulse reaches a tidy tachycardic 190, Banner becomes the Hulk—a massively-muscled giant capable of destroying everything in his path. It’s an unnatural and dangerous state trait that Bruce detests, but one that super-soldier Emil Blonsky covets.

Banner escapes, returning home with hopes of finding the missing data from the experiments that created his inner Hulk, and fate ultimately reunites him with lost love Betty Ross, the scientist daughter of the General. Unfortunately, Banner doesn’t have the luxury of settling down with Betty, and is forced to hit the road to find the cure.

Meanwhile, Blonsky is trying to give himself every radioactive advantage for his rematch with the Hulk.

Unlike the majority it seems, I didn’t have a problem with Hulk. It wasn’t one of my favorite films, but I certainly didn’t think it was a disappointment. However, after seeing this version, I can see how many people—including director Louis Leterrier—felt they could do better.

A supreme advantage that this film has is that it doesn’t waste any time with the creation story, an aspect that kept the earlier film from developing any early momentum. We need to wait only through about fifteen minutes of this film before we are granted our first glimpse of the Hulk in action, although Leterrier wisely leaves a bit of mystery.

It’s the first of three big, exciting action set-pieces that drive this film’s brisk pace. Aided by terrific special effects, this film manages to make the Hulk more realistic-looking than the somewhat cartoony earlier version. Additionally, a more worthy adversary of the Hulk left me anticipating how the ultimate fight scene could even be brought to a conclusion.

In the midst of these action scenes, the film is anchored by terrific performances from Norton and Tyler—welcome additions to the strategic and well-timed humor, including references of previous incarnations of the Hulk, such as the actual comics themselves or the 1970s TV series. In fact, although I am hardly an expert on either, it seemed that the film’s story was inspired more by the television show than anything else. Of course, the film wouldn’t be complete without a cameo by the star of that TV show, Lou Ferrigno, along with Hulk creator Stan Lee and another superhero that I won’t reveal here.

It could be argued that it was quite a risk to make a new Hulk film so soon after the last one was such a disappointment, but I don’t think many will argue that The Incredible Hulk is not a solid superhero effort.

The Incredible Hulk is rated PG-13 for “sequences of intense action violence, some frightening sci-fi images, and brief suggestive content.” The violence is intense, but never too gory and the one scene of suggestive content is brief and nothing you wouldn’t find in a PG film.

Courtesy of a local publicist, Jeff attended a promotional screening of The Incredible Hunk.