Hulk (2003) Movie Review

Director: Ang Lee
Writers: Stan Lee, Jack Kirby
Story: Bruce Banner, a genetics researcher with a tragic past, suffers an accident that causes him to transform into a raging green monster when he gets angry.
Starring: Eric Bana, Jennifer Connelly, Sam Elliott






The Hulk is quite the opposite of the thinking man’s superhero. You merely need to know two words to enjoy a good hulk movie: ‘Hulk’ and ‘Smash'.

This movie completely disregards this basic principal of the rage-induced behemoth. Instead it decides to focus on the backstory and the inner turmoil that Bruce Banner is going through. This is why I feel that the ‘Avengers’ is the best Hulk movie ever. It doesn’t need to explore anything other than unrelenting, non-stop destruction. You would expect a lot of destruction from a movie with such a frontman. However, there is a distinct lack of such action. This is shown in that it takes over forty minutes for the Hulk to first appear. Even after that there’s only four scenes with the Hulk in it and one of them is used to show the Hulk murder three of the most disgusting CGI dogs ever.

One of the most infuriating things about this movie is that the Hulk always stops moving. Why would a being of seemingly unlimited power and strength that is fuelled by rage stop smashing things? Imagine if one of the red lanterns just stopped attacking something because they wanted to feel all their other emotions. It just makes no sense. I just want to see Hulk smash things.

All this horrific nonsense aside, I suppose the transitions are cool. They really help to tie the entire movie together (as most transitions should) and they also are really cool and creative throughout the entire movie. More than this, the movie could even pass as a decent film had it not been drawing from the most adrenaline fuelled source material ever conceived.

While this is true, my love for having pre-existing marvel heroes and villains in my marvel movies is not treated kindly. Yes, I recognised General Ross but who the hell is David Banner supposed to be. Halfway through the movie, I thought that he was Absorbing Man but then he became a massive lightning dude resembling Zzzax. Soon after that he becomes some sort of water being who might just be Hydro-Man. They need to make up their goddamn mind.

This entire movie feels completely pointless. It pretty much tarnishes the source material and has very few redeeming qualities. It would have been interesting to see some really classic Hulk villains like Abomination, A-bomb or even Red Hulk. If you go into this movie expecting action, you will be sorely disappointed. I really can’t recommend this movie to any one… it is just too embarrassing to anyone who is a fan of the Marvel universe.

Daredevil (2003) Movie Review

Matt Murdock, a smart as hell school kid witnesses his boxer of a father beating another guy in the streets. Matt runs away into the endless alleys of barrelled biochemical and rather inconveniently, a forklift punctures one of these barrels, spewing hazardous chemicals all over Matt. Matt is blinded only to find that his 4 remaining senses have been boosted to superhuman levels. His father is murdered in the streets and Matt vows to bring everybody and their mothers to justice. We have ourselves a movie.

When I was a lot younger, I watched the movie ‘Daredevil’ and I thought that it was the most awesome movie ever. When I watched it today, I was unpleasantly surprised. By all means, the first two thirds of the movie were fantastic and cool, but the last third of the movie was just stale and boring. It felt like the writers of the movie just got bored and started writing scenes filled with raining, sais and random killings. The last scene, with Kingpin, was very entertaining.

All the characters were cool as well. Bullseye was badass and often times hilarious. Admittedly Daredevil was quite monotonous for a lot of the movie (other than the fight scenes). Also, Michael Clarke Duncan as Kingpin was simply daunting. I tell you what, I would not like to be in a room with that guy any time soon.

One thing that is unmistakably annoying in this movie is the way that such serious themes are addressed like death and betrayal, yet the characters seem to never abide by pretty serious rules, like the law… and the laws of physics. There are legitimately points in the movie where Daredevil jumps about fifty feet. I thought Matt Murdock was Daredevil, not Michael Jordan. Speaking of annoyances, the character may be called ‘Daredevil’, but that doesn’t mean that you have to reference Christianity at every possible turn. That however, can be easily overlooked.

The visual effects in Daredevil were pretty ground breaking. When they were used correctly they were really eye-catching and appealing. This coupled with fun characters and some awesome fight sequences makes ‘Daredevil’ a fun way to spend 99 minutes of your precious time. I give ‘Daredevil’ a 7/10 – Worth a watch.




Have you seen ‘Daredevil’? If you have, let me know what you thought of it by leaving a comment on this review. Perhaps even suggest a movie for me to review next.