PREMIERE.COM'S REVIEW (posted 6/20/03)

Science has rarely looked more exciting than it does in the opening credits of Ang Lee's The Hulk (though technology, it seems, has made the vaguely cartoonish title character more "incredible" than ever). In Dr. David Banner's laboratory, cells divide, body tissue regenerates, and test tubes spin in centrifugal harmony, the perfect backdrop for some mean, green genetic experimentation. Decades ahead of his time, Banner injects himself with a mutation that will manifest itself upon his son, Bruce, when the time (and gamma radiation levels) are right.

Like Spider-Man before him, the Hollywood Hulk has traded in his origin story for a new and improved 21st-century scenario. Back in 1962, Stan Lee adopted the nation's "duck and cover" Cold War hysteria as the perfect creation myth for his two atomic superheroes. In Spidey's case, one bite from an irradiated arachnid transformed mild-mannered Peter Parker into the human web-slinger; direct exposure to a gamma-bomb blast unleashed the monster lying dormant inside Dr. Bruce Banner. These days, nanomeds and genetic tinkering apparently represent our collective fear of the unknown.

A superhero's origins can be every bit as telling as his actual powers. To that end, Ang Lee and longtime English-language screenwriting collaborator James Schamus introduce Bruce's father, played by a beleaguered-looking Nick Nolte, as a mad scientist determined to improve on God's design. Lee shares roughly the same goal, going all- digital with the Hulk character. The computer-effects work is some of the best ever. Industrial Light & Magic's Hulk is a major improvement over the body-painted Lou Ferrigno . . . and considerably more compelling than Eric Bana's wimpy Bruce Banner. (For the spoilsports who don't think he looks "real," I challenge you to define how a 15-foot green-skinned monolith should look.)

Where The Hulk excels is in Schamus and Lee's almost academic attempt to reinvent the superhero movie according to the rules of its source material. The very idea of montage (whereby viewers must orient themselves with every cut and supply the information missing between shots) applies just as strongly to deciphering comic-book narratives, in which the illustrators may "cut" from a wide tableau to an extreme close-up or radically alter angles between panels. Although such innovation frequently comes at the story's expense, Lee's use of split-screens and dynamic transitions makes the process of actively interpreting his monstrous vision a fresh and unrivaled experience.

— Peter Debruge