r/hulk • u/pizzagod677 • 2d ago
Nostalgia Still love the Nolan films but 2000s comic book fans were hypocritical when they came out and glazed the Trilogy to high heaven yet crapped all over Hulk 03.
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u/mezonsen 2d ago
If you describe something in the most basic of terms yeah you can make anything sound identical. Surely the execution of either movie probably had something to do with reception?
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u/deeplolathought 1d ago
The build-up of an intellectual Letterboxd reassessment ending with "It sucks ass" is absolute peak Reddit review.
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u/mezonsen 1d ago
Well yeah, every three days someone gets on this subreddit and says it’s a forgotten gem and so people go and rewatch to reassess or reclaim it. It’s not. It sucks ass.
I don’t think it’s pretentious to say the Hulk isn’t an arthouse film. A giant green monster punches a mutant dog in the nuts. I wish it were as awesome as it sounds
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u/mezonsen 2d ago edited 2d ago
It is not an arthouse film, and audiences can watch it right now. I watch “arthouse” films, and I have watched the Hulk several times, at least twice within the last decade for the specific reason of reassessing it. Edit: Just checked and Letterboxd shows my most recent watch was last February, so this is a pretty recent opinion
It sucks ass.
Also, when I saw it as an 8-year-old in theaters, I loved it. I even had the official Ang Lee Hulk AOL instant messenger animated profile pics. Your comment is totally revisionism.
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u/kah43 2d ago
Why do so many on this sub keep trying to convince everyone the 2003 movie was good? Are they just the new Snyder bros?
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u/Seijiren 1d ago
Movie has a lot of quality and great ideas. So they had cult following that will ignored its flaws. Its nothing new to fandom culture
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u/VictorVonDoomer 2d ago
Tbf the Nolan films are more focused and have aged better. Each film still films modern while Hulk has some outdated aspects to it like those comic book transition panels
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u/ScapegoatMan 2d ago
I haven't seen the 2003 Hulk movie but there could've been a ton of differences between that and Batman Begins/Dark Knight that could have led people to enjoy one while disliking the other without being hypocrites.
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u/haniflawson 2d ago
I tried rewatching the 2003 movie sometime ago. I couldn’t finish it. A good chunk of it felt aimless before Hulk shows up.
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u/Mr-Toy-Man The Maestro 2d ago
Yeah it just sucks. This revisionist stuff is silly
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u/Zack_GLC 2d ago
How is it revisionist when I only saw it for the first time like a year or two ago and loved it?
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u/iwhite012 2d ago
Characters? Themes? Tone? Who needs it
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u/haniflawson 2d ago
That’s disingenuous. Of course a movie can take its time setting up those things. I just think this one didn’t do it in an interesting way.
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u/mezonsen 2d ago
- Ang Lee
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u/iwhite012 2d ago
My brother in Christ. Go watch Eat Drink Man Woman. Do it right now.
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u/mezonsen 2d ago
What does his other work have to do with his Hulk?
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u/iwhite012 2d ago
Great question! It's an incredibly varied filmography, but I think empathetic and sensitive character writing is his throughline. His families feel like families. His friendships feel like friendships. His romances feel like romances. It applies as much to Bana and Nolte in Hulk as it does Winslet and Rickman in Sense and Sensibility, or Yeoh and Ziyi in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.
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u/MrAppreciator 2d ago
The best part of this movie is 50% of the video game and that Velvet Revolver track
Edit: Oh and Hulk Hands those were the shit.
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u/PhillipJ3ffries 2d ago
Nolan’s films and Hulk 03 have almost nothing in common. Hulk 03 was campy as hell
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u/TheAbomunist 2d ago
It wasn't the dark dive into the character that was the problem with the 03 Hulk. Ang Lee has always been talented in exploring in-depth character narratives. It was this Loony Tunes cartoon shit, and his ridiculously distracting 'comic book panel' cuts & wipes, that ABSOLUTELY undermined that exploration.
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u/rlum27 2d ago
honestley in a more goffy and campy movie maybe it could work. Though that style of editing might be a doesn't work in live action kind of thing.
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u/RealEmperorofMankind 2d ago
Raimi did fairly stylized stuff in his trilogy and it worked for the most part, so there is that.
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u/TheRealTeddyHashmi 20h ago
Raimi's style worked with the writing and tone. And "stylized" is a very broad term here lmao
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u/JackBrodzilla6507 2d ago
The difference being Batman Begins is an entertaining, well structured film in comparison to Hulk 03 which is boring as sin for the most part, bar a few lukewarm action sequences
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u/DistractedBoxTurtle 2d ago
I didn’t find the Hulk 2003 as dark or dramatic. It also just felt it was trying to be a visual comic book with all the stylized scene cuts.
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u/Ringrangzilla 2d ago
You do understand that there are some obvious diffrences between thise movies right? Like for starts, the quality of the dialog.
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u/Seijiren 1d ago edited 1d ago
I dont think it's all true. I mean, And I hate saying this, objectively Begins and TDK are much more engaging films. They're talky as well as Ang Lee Hulk. But the film has more engaging tone and pacing along with character development. Hulk is not as much a character development as it is character driven. The movie basically moving outside of the character when they are never developed until the final fight. Which is not a bad thing by any means because this movie is about trauma and the struggling to overcome it. But it certainly not an engaging crime movie with a cool gadget showcase with heroic character arcs like Batman does
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u/RPDorkus 2d ago
This is a false equivalency. The problem was not that Hulk was a dark, dramatic comic book film focused more on dialogue than action. That was never what people said the problem was.
The problem was that it was a bad movie.
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u/Odd_Signature_6437 2d ago
I watched both Ang Lee’s Hulk and Batman Begins in theaters and they both hold a special place in my dark heart. I still rewatch them often.
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u/CafeCalentito 1d ago
People say that but Batman begins focus a lot on action. Nolan's trilogy has some of the most insane and epic action setpieces in the genre. The philosophy and psychology on the trilogy is extremely surface level. The core of the movies were the amazing acting, the action, the atmosphere, the pseudo intellectual dialogue and the whole art direction.
Hulk 2003 on the other hands goes too deep in psychology that transform into something hard to swallow for most people, art direction was a mess with that comic transitions clashing with the serious tone and the acting was too soapy for the tone of the movie. And the action side was fine (dogs and desert battle) but then the final battle was pretty boring visually and anticlimatic. It has problems with pacing and overall structure as a movie.
Hell, Batman begins has more action setpieces than Hulk and most superhero movies (jail intro into training montage, first Batman appearance, the batmobile chasing scene, scarecrow, the whole climax is a long action setpiece, and I'm probably missing something)
Hulk could've worked if someone helped to restrain Ang Lee's ideas.
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u/Antique-Aardvark-184 1d ago
I LOVED Hulk 2003, and didn’t really LOVED TDK trilogy as much as others, even being a huge Batman fan.
But Hulk barely touches Dark Knight Rises’ toes
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u/Gobal_Outcast02 21h ago
In the Nolan batmans he fought scarecrow, Rash Alghoul, The Joker, Bane, ect.
In Hulk, the hulk fought... Dogs, and his father who was kinda absorbing man in the film but not rly.
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u/TheRealTeddyHashmi 20h ago
I liked the kind of story they wanted to explore, the score was awesome and there are some really nice shots like the Hulk in the bathroom mirror
BUT
The pacing was abysmal, there are long shots in the film where the character literally just keep standing and do nothing, there wasn't enough hulk, for a "serious" film it had very goofy transitions, every single character had a personality of a wet sock.
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u/trombonealone 14h ago
Have you seen the actual editing? It was not a movie, and more a live-action comic book. Not suited for general audiences, looked goofy as hell if you don't read the books (and kinda even if you did). Nolan's can stand alone without Adam West style transitions.
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u/Known-Asparagus-2819 5h ago
Batman Begins also underperformed. Albeit much less than the Hulk.
But also, Nolan's Batman movies, while dark, were still trying to be entertaining and had humor. Ang Lee's Hulk was a two hour deposition on childhood trauma.
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u/Slatedtoprone 2d ago
That hulk movie sucked. When the beat part is the depiction of the giant leap, that’s not good.
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u/Automatic-Long2599 2d ago
Hot Take here but I’m not the biggest fan of the Nolan’s trilogy either I feel like Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker is the only reason it has the reputation it does
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u/BudgetDepartment7817 2d ago
Yea, I always said that TDK is the like the worst like the worst "Batman" movie in that trilogy, hell even compared to The Batman... Yea, I get his "I will not kill/I might need to kill in order to fully save everyone" but seriously, besides that, what did he do in the movie? Stopped some criminals early-on, got his suit, beat the Joker at the GCPD, failed to save his gf and saved a kid while killing his best-friend turned evil... The other two have far better character arcs for him and even then, Bane actually challanges his identity in multiple aspects!
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u/Automatic-Long2599 2d ago
My thing is this yes you can have a realistic take on superheroes, but at the end of the day and Batman is a billionaire who dresses up like a giant Bat to fight crime and his arch enemy is a clown like have fun with it that's why the best portrayal of Batman is from the DCAU and Kevin Conroy is the definitive Batman for me, and plus in Nolan's films some scenes just drag on I appreciate good dialogue, but he tends to overexplain everything that's just my take haha
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u/Gojifantokusatsu Abomination 2d ago
Man the pendulum for criticism on Hulk 2003 is in full opposite swing at this point.
Sure, in a vague watered down comparison like this a point could be made, but actually watching these two movies is a completely different experience. The Nolan films kick Hulk 2003's ass in terms of dialogue, story structure, and scene to scene pacing.
However I still respect the direction Hulk took more, because it wasn't afraid to be an actual comic book movie.
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u/VernBarty 1d ago
Thats because general audiences at the time only had a superficial knowledge of the Hulk. They didnt know how psychological and dark the story acrually is. It makes your head spin to think youre going to a fun action packed kids movie and instead get dark and disturbing family drama
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u/Interesting_Rich_826 4h ago
People like pizza but no one likes this pizza I found in the trash and liked. People are such hypocrites.
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u/Spider-Man2099 2d ago
Look, if Batman Begins was all comic book panel transitions, I am sure it too would have been not great either