Top Five Friday: HULK SMASH!

Man, what the fuck is with me?

It seems like lately if I don't immediately review a book/movie/album/concert, I totally forget about it and never remember to do it. It's been a couple of weeks now since I saw The Incredible Hulk and said I'd review it in a few days. Did it happen? Fuck no.

So, with that in mind... here's the next best thing...

The Top Five Reasons You Should Go See The Incredible Hulk!

NOTE: Please be aware this will contain mild to moderate spoilers so click away if you want to "go in fresh."

5. NO HULKDOGS
This really could fit under a wider umbrella of "It's better than the first one" but that just seems really vague. Considering there's only two things I remember about the first one, I thought I should pick one. The first thing I remember about it was "I didn't really like it." Not much to go with there, huh? The other thing? Fucking Hulkdogs. Well, not literally fucking Hulkdogs although that might have been an interesting subplot. But I'm talking about the gamma ray affected poodles that were angry - and man, you wouldn't like them when they're angry. Suffice to say, there was nothing in The Incredible Hulk that made me cringe and be incredibly pissed that it was in the movie. That's a plus!

4. CGI Hulk
So... I thought it looked better. I mean, it's the Hulk, right? The Hulk's not real. It's not based on anything real. It's going to be incredibly difficult for something that's not based on reality to ACTUALLY LOOK REAL! I was so blown away by people bitching about the movie [either of them] with a "The Hulk looks fake." THE HULK _IS_ FAKE! Geez. These are the same people who make shit like The Pacifier or Air Bud successful, I swear.

3. The Score
It's odd actually because for the most part, I've considered the score of most of the Marvel flicks to be a big weakness. A serious lack of anthemic themes for the major characters sucks. For someone who loves a large part of movie scores, the lack of a major identifiable theme is a serious drawback. And while I don't know if the Hulk had a "Hulk Theme" that blew me off my seat, I really thought the overall score was impressive. The homages to the old TV theme really seemed to add something to it as well as it was something that people could identify with. I look forward to the soundtrack actually being released on iTunes so I can see if I like it as much as I think I did.

2. TONY STARK ALERT!
This one I really don't want to spoil but suffice to say... the path to the Avengers is getting clearer and I'm getting the happy pants just thinking about it.

And the #1 reason to go see The Incredible Hulk...

1. Ed Norton
Easy pick, right? Who wasn't enthused at the announcement that Ed Norton was going to play Bruce Banner? He really knocked it out of the park. A lot of hullabaloo [good word choice!] was made about him not being happy with the finished product. The current rumor is that there's about 40 minutes of footage that was shot that is mostly Banner character development that is sitting on the cutting room floor. Thank god for the invention of the Director's Cut. I'm of the opinion that adding 40 minutes of Norton written character development to the movie could make the race for best comic book movie of the summer a hell of a lot closer.

So, was it better than Iron Man? No.

Will it be better than The Dark Knight? The Magic 8-Ball says "Signs Point To No"

But was it a shitload better than the old Hulk movie and a very worthy member of the Marvel feature film family? Absolutely.