The House Bunny (**)

THE HOUSE BUNNY

Occasionally amusing bad movie. Comic timing was way off throughout. Jokes funny on paper blown in execution left and right. Constant mixed messages; movie had no clue whether it was glorifying Playboy or mocking it. Tried to have it both ways and failed. Yet at the center was Anna Faris giving an earnest comedic performance. Very endearing. Emma Stone was also good. Kat Dennings was unrecognizable prior to makeover. Colin Hanks did a Luke Wilson impersonation. Probably the best runner was Hefner so distraught at Anna Faris leaving the Playboy Mansion all he could do was eat Haagen Daas on his bed for days, but even that joke never found its sure footing. Still, I know what I hate and I didn't hate this.

The X-Files: I Want to Believe (**)

THE X-FILES: I WANT TO BELIEVE

 

** SPOILERS IF YOU STILL CARE ABOUT THE X-FILES **

The X-Files: I Want To Believe was like a reunion with old friends you now have nothing in common with. Yet you're stuck there for a couple of hours pretending like it's the old days until a requisite amount of time has passed for the ordeal to be over so you can politely excuse yourself and head on home.  

I Want to Believe is a dour, sleepy, unnecessary movie that fails to justify its very existence 6 years after the TV series limped to an end. Standing outside The X-Files' twisted mythology, with no aliens, black oil, monsters, Cigarette Smoking Men, Lone Gunmen, conspiracies, or even the X-Files division of the FBI, all we are left with are Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, two relics from the Clinton decade who look like they want to be there even less than we do.

Time has passed Mulder and Scully by. Mulder looks pasty and tired. The courageous nut who once had the ability to wittily coerce not just Scully but millions of audience members to follow him on whatever lunacy he was investigating barely musters any enthusiasm. Scully's attractively rigid face has only gotten frownier and more right-angular in the years since the series ended. Scully and Mulder live together in some shack in the woods, sleeping together and having long, boring arguments that they seem to conduct on autopilot. They used to have sexual tension that has since dissipated, but it hasn't been replaced with a new dynamic. Their ghosts from the 90's want to continue to argue and debate belief vs. skepticm while their flesh and blood selves go through the motions but couldn't care less. They had a son but now they don't. He's barely worth a passing mention in an awkward bedroom scene that was more about Mulder's Grizzly Adams beard irritating Scully neck than anything else. 

Mulder is now a fugitive recluse. Scully is a physician and apparently also a surgeon working for a Catholic hospital that doesn't seem to make enough profit to pay their electric bill because the lights are never on. It's a gloomy, depressing hospital of deep shadows and glowering doctors and priests. I imagine the suicide rate for patients admitted into such a forbidding place must be a cause for concern. Scully has a subplot of a young boy dying of cancer. She wants to operate on him with a dangerous stem-cell procedure. This subplot does nothing for the movie except give Scully reasons to argue with Mulder and refuse to accompany him on his quest to find a missing FBI agent.

Just when Mulder and Scully thought they were out, the FBI pulls them back in. Sort of. Special Agent Xzibit (his character name is Drummy but I swear, each time he said his name, I heard "Special Agent Dummy") doesn't really seem to want either of them there, but Special Agent Amanda Peet is a fan of Mulder's work on the X-Files (hey, aren't we all) and wants his insight on their missing colleague. Peet calls herself "not the most-popular girl in Washington" (what professional woman would describe herself this way?) and introduces herself to Mulder with the greeting, "Fox Mulder, I believe?" Who the hell says that? Peet also has a penchant for flirting with Mulder during FBI raids on suspects. She's also Special Agent Dummy and deserves what happens to her (nothing good). 

The FBI has been working with a psychic priest, Father Billy Connelly, who may or may not be a fraud but is most certainly a pedophile. As Scully puts it, he's "buggered 37 young boys", and I hope none of them was named Dennis Blunden. Scully hates this priest. Fucking hates his guts. He must bring back terrible memories for Scully of when she was a red-haired little boy.

There is a lot of gabbin' about God in I Want To Believe; whether or not He would actually speak through a pedophile and whether that means He forgives our balls-tickling priest. It's an interesting idea but the movie tackles the issue mostly through Scully barging into the priest's apartment in the middle of the night and yelling at him. Scully eventually uses the priest's advice ("Don't Give Up" - did Father Sodomy get this from God or from a Peter Gabriel song?) to save Mulder's life in the end. Scully saving Mulder from the killer pays him back for saving her from the alien spaceship in Antarctica (in the previous and superior The X-Files: Fight the Future ten years ago), only Scully's rescue was far less interesting. She bonks the killer on the head with an axehandle and that was it. She didn't even quip, "Let me axe you something." 

Walter Skinner shows up in the last 15 minutes in an embarrassing walk-on where I'm pretty sure writer-director Chris Carter expected wild applause from the audience when they see his familar mug. Even the crickets were too bored to chirp. Skinner tells some bad jokes, points a gun at the evil Russian surgeons who offer no resistence, and then disappears back to Stargate Atlantis or where ever he hangs his hat these days.

Since there are no aliens or monsters of the traditional sort, I Want To Believe turns out to be Mulder and Scully versus the villains from Turistas. The mystery Mulder and Scully unravel (sort of, she really only helps tangentially, which is one of this movie's many, many problems) involves organ harvesting, kidnapped girls, severed heads, Russian homosexuals, Leoben from Battlestar Galactica, and dogs. (Batman would have warned Mulder to stay away from the attack dogs, but Mulder wouldn't have listened anyway.) I shit you not, all of the blood and gore in the movie is about a gay Russian who wants to be a female Russian. Apparently, when Father Billy Connelly raped him as a boy, it turned him gay and made him want to be a woman so he and his boyfriend Leoben began Frankenstein experiments, first on dogs. They harvest organs and bodyparts and then attempt to graft a whole new female body using mismatched parts from girls they kidnap who swim at the local public pool. No, seriously. It's over for The X-Files. It's so over.

The Dark Knight (****)

THE DARK KNIGHT

"You Either Die A Hero Or You Live Long Enough To See Yourself Become The Villain."

The Dark Knight behaves as if it would be surprised to learn it's a comic book superhero movie. It expends a muscular two and a half hours vigorously arguing that it's an epic crime drama and haunting Shakespearean tragedy. The Dark Knight would convincingly win its argument, too, were it not for the guy dressed like a bat, the clown-faced killer, and the man missing half his face. Even then it cuts them all down to size, tears them inside out, and bares their souls for the world to see. The Dark Knight turns out to be a gripping four way dance: three men trying to preserve their city and one enigmatic chaos-bringer tearing apart all their efforts, and tragically later, their bond.

Escalation. This was the idea that ended Batman Begins, and The Dark Knight all but redefines the word. There is so much going on in The Dark Knight, so much happening, often all at once, it's almost staggering. The intricate details of Batman, Gordon and Dent's war on the mob, going after the mob's money laundering, indicting underbosses to turn state's evidence against the godfathers of the city, could be straight from The Wire. Batman outdoes Mission: Impossible III's Ethan Hunt in both coolness and jumping off of buildings when he makes a special and all-kinds-of-illegal side trip to Hong Kong to "extradite" (a better word is "kidnap") Zau, a potential Wayne Industries business partner who works as the Gotham mob's accountant. (Side note: one of the best things about Christopher Nolan's Batman films is that they are global in scope. His Batman and his Gotham City are palpably a part of our world, not existing in a sealed off, self-contained universe of soundstages and CGI cityscapes.) 

Meanwhile, the Joker robs a mob bank in a splendid homage to Heat, and then essentially hires himself as the mob's enforcer, giving himself the assignment of eliminating the Batman. In between, the Joker bumps off each mob boss (played by Eric Roberts and Michael Jai White) and takes over their operations to give Gotham City "a better class of criminal". Then the real shit hits the fan. 

City officials are assassinated. Jim Gordon becomes Comissioner. A pivotal handsome face is scarred irrevocably. And a major death, but not the one expected. Minor characters, like one of Gordon's cops or Bruce Wayne's accountant, end up making huge mistakes that cost our heroes gravely. Even Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman, bemused) and faithful Alfred (Michael Caine, rock solid) get important bits of business. Fox takes a moral stand against Bruce Wayne abusing his technologies while Alfred makes a difficult decision to burn Rachel Dawes' goodbye letter to Bruce and protect his employer from further heartache.

Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale, confident and firing at all cylinders) was the singular focus of Batman Begins, and the previous chapter did its job so well that Batman is able share a much grander canvas with Lieutenant James Gordon, District Attorney Harvey Dent, and the Joker without being upstaged and shoved to the background. Wayne's two lives have settled into a successful routine in the last year. He can sleep through his days as Chairman of Wayne Enterprises and flaunt his bevy of easy hotties (to Rachel Dawes' eye-rolling chagrin) thanks to Lucius Fox minding the store. Fox is also ever-upgrading Batman's suit and weapons in the best Q tradition. Meanwhile, Batman has become a mythic figure of inspiration to the people of Gotham. In some ways, the wrong kind of inspiration as bands of misguided caped crusaders dress like him and attempt to protect the city, causing far more trouble than they're worth.

A year after the "Narrows Attack" and demise of Ra's Al Ghul in the first film, Batman, Gordon and Dent have formed an effective team in bringing down the mobs that choke the life out of Gotham City. (It was a nice touch to open the picture with Batman apprehending Jonathan Crane, the Scarecrow, (Cillian Murphy, welcome back) tying up a loose end of Batman Begins.) The Joker reveals himself to be a dangerous wildcard, singlehandedly upending all of work being done to save Gotham. As tragedy compounds tragedy despite our heroes' best efforts, Wayne begins to ask the hard questions about what Batman is worth. I thought the pressures the Joker placed on Bruce Wayne midway in the movie where he decided to turn himself in as Batman were weak and insufficient. I didn't buy that part of the story. I was glad to see Rachel didn't either and she was more than a little disgusted at Bruce for allowing Harvey to take the fall for him. But everything worked out fine for them. Wait, no, it really, really didn't.

The strangest stuff was Batman's (off the record) friendly relationship with the Gotham Police. There were moments of Batman in his full regalia inside police headquarters that skate memories of Adam West and Burt Ward hanging out with Commissioner Gordon and Chief O'Hara. The Police didn't seem to mind Batman parking his, presumably unlicensed, Batmobile and Bat-Pod in the police parking garage. Maybe the glove compartment of his now-destroyed Batmobile (which must put smiles on toy licensors' faces) was full of unpaid tickets. Despite all his wonderful toys, there were moments when Batman seemed strangely inadequate for his mission. So much action happens in broad daylight that Bruce Wayne was reduced to meddling in his "much more subtle" Lamhborgini once or twice. And old Batsuit or new, light is not Batman's friend. The more clearly we see the Batsuits, the more the illusion is lost by what eyesores they are.

There has never been a Joker to equal the vile, mesmerizing psychopath the late Heath Ledger created. Ledger's Joker is a creature of pure malevolence, bereft of moral or ethical limitations. Every second the Joker is on the screen, Ledger virtually has his hand clenched around each audience's member's throat, forcing us to pay attention to him. The first big shock of the movie was the "disappearing pen" trick the Joker pulled on a mobster, and we laughed not because it was funny, but because it was sadistic and horrible. It was fascinating gauging the reactions of people in the theater when the Joker was on the screen. I overheard a number of people, mostly girls, whisper "he's so scary." 

All of the Joker's murders, his forward-thinking schemes of escape and attacks, were brilliant, if highly improbable. I loved the Joker's stories about how he got his scars, one about his father told to a mob boss, and another about his wife told to Rachel Dawes. I don't believe a word of it, or anything that comes from that lunatic's mouth, personally. Nolan and Ledger gives us sides of the Joker we've never seen before, like when he's dressed as a nurse visiting Harvey Dent in the hospital, or sitting on the floor "helpless", baiting a stupid cop. I believe Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker is the new standard by which the character will now be defined and redefined, in the comics and elsewhere. 

The Dark Knight more than satisfies in Batman's interactions with the Joker. Their classic interplay was brought to life, fully developed, in just a few precious scenes. The Joker's conversations with Batman, challenging Batman's sense of morality, creating dilemmas and provoking his responses, were amazing, far richer and more intriguing than the "comic booky" dialogue route they could have tread. I loved how the Joker quickly deduced Batman's affections for Rachel from the way he "dove after her". (A great bit was Batman's "Let her go" and Joker's retort, "Poor choice of words." before throwing Rachel away like yesterday's garbage.) 

The scene where Batman locks the interrogation room from the inside because he wants to beat the Joker half to death to find out where Rachel and Dent are was electrifying. This is most terrifying Batman has ever been in a movie, but even at his most intimidating, the Joker just laughed Batman's physical threats off. The Joker knows Batman's limits all too well. I adored how Joker lied to Batman, sending him to Dent's location and not Rachel's. Finally, the Joker's scheme to force one ferry of passengers to choose to blow up the other failing was great, especially in how it was a victory for Gotham and the goodness of the people who live there, proving Batman's point over the Joker's. Considering Ledger cannot return for any sequels, it was more than a little surprising that his Joker didn't take the long drop into a dirt nap that Jack Nicholson's Joker did.

Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart, doing fine work), Gotham City's "White Knight", emerges as a bright, heroic hope-bringer, everything Batman can't be. So persuasive is Dent's crusading passion that Bruce Wayne's jealous asshole attempts to cock block him from their mutual love, Rachel Dawes, ends with him firmly on Dent's side. Bruce Wayne believes in Harvey Dent, and so do we. He was the best of them, as Batman says. I loved the way the movie showed violent little cracks in Dent's shimmering armor, like his tendancy to cheat chance with his lucky two-headed dollar coin, and when he kidnapped and went ballistic on one of the Joker's mental patient henchmen, foreshadowing the tragedy meant to befall him. The inventive way Nolan devised for Dent to lose half his face - to flames instead of acid - and become Harvey Two-Face, along with the runner of where the name came from, were light years better than the comic book's explanation of a mob boss throwing acid at Dent's face during a trial (as depicted hilariously in Batman Forever). It's tragic, operatic stuff and it works brilliantly. We truly feel for Dent, how he suffered, what he's lost. The special effects for the "scarred" side of Two-Face are grotesquely persuasive.

Perhaps even moreso than Batman, Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman, for my money the MVP) emerges as the true hero of Gotham City. Half of The Dark Knight is a cop procedural, with Gordon front and center, making the hard calls, facing down mobsters and madmen alike. The difficulties of Gordon's job leading the police in the most corrupt city in America, the frustations he faces, the dangers he and his family endure, the compromises he is forced to make, have never been clearer or more compelling. Gordon pulled off the most shocking moment in his film when he faked his death and apprehended the Joker. (Yes, there was a moment when I did actually think Nolan had busted the ballsiest move in Batman movie history and killed Gordon off.) The climactic events where Batman saved Gordon's son's life stamped the friendship and understanding the two men have. In certain ways, Gordon's job is more difficult than Batman's. Gordon shares the burden of protecting Gotham with Batman but has the added pressures of having to publicly justify and secretly protect Batman himself, especially going forward into future Batman movies.

Replacing Katie Holmes with Maggie Gyllenhaal as Rachel Dawes was a savvy casting decision. Her pretty pout and perpetual headlights aside, Holmes merely (or barely, or hardly, depending on who you ask) held her own in Batman Begins. Gyllenhaal, a superior actor, immediately made the pivotal Rachel character her own. She was convincing as an assistant D.A. convincing Zau to turn state's evidence. More importantly, Gyllenhaal made Rachel a woman worthy of both Bruce Wayne's and Harvey Dent's affections, so much so that her death was a heartbreaker (the audience would probably have applauded if it were Holmes who died). Although the single most unbelievable event in the entire movie is when Batman dove off Wayne Tower after the Joker defenestrated Rachel. They plummeted dozens of stories, crashed into a car, and were both completely unharmed. Sure.

The action in The Dark Knight is superior to Batman Begins', though some of Batman's fight scenes seemed awkward in how limited Bale and his stuntmen could move in the Batsuits, old or new. There's no shortage of car chases and explosions -- an exceptional one was the Joker comically exploding a hospital. Whereas the previous film presented Batman the way a horror movie would -- jump cuts of action from the shadows that were impossible to follow -- The Dark Knight shows Batman's full fighting capabilities, as well as how much he gets hurt. Attack dogs are not the Batman's best friend. Batman is properly injured, and quite a bit too, the most bizarre example being when he coudn't bring himself to run the Joker over with his Bat-Pod and ended up crashing into the overturned trailer truck, knocking himself out in the process. The last time Batman spent this much time on his back in a movie, Catwoman was straddling him and purring about mistletoe.

The presence of the Joker notwithstanding, humor is at a premium. There's nothing funny about living in Nolan's Gotham City, much less trying to protect it. Bruce Wayne's millionaire playboy facade of concurrently dating prima ballerinas and handfuls of supermodels seems to be as much about amusing himself and the audience as providing an alibi for how Wayne is above suspicion as Batman. Does Wayne sleep with any of these girls, though? Seems like there'd be gossip if he didn't. Maybe he pays them off to keep their mouths shut. Or maybe Alfred finishes what Wayne started.

The finale of the movie is devastating. Before The Dark Knight, the bleakest chapter in Batman's cinematic journey was Batman Returns. The concluding events of The Dark Knight eclipse Tim Burton's singular vision of emotionally cracked animal-people living in a freak show. At the end of Batman Returns, Batman is so very sad because he thinks his girlfriend is dead on Christmas. Well, come what may. The Dark Knight pushes the pathos far beyond. Rachel is dead, and thanks to Alfred, Wayne will never know she had moved on. Add Dent's descent to madness plus the end of Batman's detente with the local authorities and no movie Batman has ever lost more. 

In the end, Batman chooses to be an armor-clad Atlas, shouldering the hopes, guilt, and dark secrets of the entire city. Batman takes the blame for Harvey Dent's mistakes so he can die a hero, while Batman becomes a hunted vigilante once more. No movie Batman has ever willingly re-examined his purpose in Gotham like this. As Alfred sagely advised, Batman is the one who can make the hardest choices. Harvey Dent promised that "it's always darkest just before the dawn." I think this Batman, our best Batman, has come to understand that for him, no light of dawn will ever break his dark nights.

Batman: Gotham Knight

BATMAN: GOTHAM KNIGHT

 

July 15, 2008

I was under the impression that Batman: Gotham Knight "bridges the gap" between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, but this DVD seems to me to be pretty non-essential viewing. You don't learn a whole lot besides some stuff about Boss Maroni and the Russians' mob war in Gotham, and the introduction of a minor cop character in Dark Knight. I tend to doubt Deadshot and Killer Croc will be referenced in The Dark Knight so I question whether these cartoons are even going to be canon. I'll guess we'll see on Friday.

The six main chapters were extremely underwhelming. Some of the animation was nice. Some. But six different anime styles created a very disjointed viewing experience. I thought the Killer Croc and Deadshot chapters were generally the most successful, but I didn't think the writing was so hot, despite the hype of David Goyer and other big name writers penning the chapters. The voice acting is in the DC cartoon style of the last 15 years; monotone voice over work that puts me right to sleep.

Overall though, compared to The Animatrix, which is the template Gotham Knight seems to want to follow, it's a failure. The Animatrix contained a riveting two parter explaining how the Machines gained control over the Earth and built the Matrix, and there was a very good, moody piece about how Neo freed The Kid's mind from the Matrix.

Gotham Knight sums up as six fairly interesting, somewhat weird, but ultimately unconvincing vignettes about Batman. It's set in the Batman Begins/Dark Knight universe but doesn't really represent it well at all, since Chistopher Nolan's Batman movie universe is about grounded, gritty realism, which Japanese anime is pretty much the exact opposite of.

Wanted (**1/2)

WANTED

June 27, 2008

"Shoot this motherfucker!"

Wanted wants to be a lot of things, mainly a cross between Fight Club's hard-wired social commentary and The Matrix's blistering action. Sitting in a theater with a bunch of 22 year olds and under, I reflected that when I was their age, I had the real Fight Club and The Matrix when those movies were brand-spanking new and mind-blowingly innovative. These kids get Wanted. My generation got the original deal while these kids get the hand-me-down knockoff. You were born ten years too late, children. You got screwed. 

Wanted is exactly the hyper, video-game, teenage boy tittilating, action picture it advertises itself to be, so on that level it works. I got a little tired of the movie's redundant one guy shooting a curved bullet and other guy shooting another curved bullet so the curved bullets collide in slow motion gimmick, but that's me. I'd say Wanted tried way too hard to be cool. If you wanna be cool, just be cool. Trying so hard just gets a little embarassing. 

James McAvoy plays Wesley Gibson, a sweaty, sniveling loser who complains endlessly in voice over about what a sweaty, sniveling loser he is. When he walks outside his shitty apartment, Nine Inch Nails' "Every Day is Exactly the Same" follows him around until he gets to his job as an office drone. And then when he leaves work, Nine Inch Nails' "Every Day is Exactly the Same" starts up again. At least Wesley Gibson's shitty life has a rockin' soundtrack. Wesley Gibson is also the son of the world's greatest assassin and genetically inherited the ability to shoot the wings off of flies with bullets that are bigger than the flies are.

One day, Wesley Gibson meets Angelina Jolie in a CVS. We should only be so lucky. Jolie saves him (or did she?) from an assassin trying to kill him and he gets to look up her skirt as she spreads across the hood of her car shooting at their attacker. We should only be so lucky.

From there, Wesley Gibson is indoctrinated into the Fraternity, a cabal of dude assassins, and Jolie, the one token girl who plays rough with the boys. The Fraternity get their marching orders from Morgan Freeman, who gets his marching orders from a loom. Wesley Gibson also gets to sit in some sort of all-healing milkbath every day. Once, he gets to watch Angelina's bony, inked up, but still hot bare ass prance around the Fraternity spa. We should only be so lucky.

I enjoyed Wesley Gibson's Fraternity initiation of getting his face caved in and his belly stabbed with knives repeatedly. I also enjoyed when Wesley grew a set and used a keyboard to bash in the face of his asshole "best friend" who's been fucking his girlfriend. (Somehow this asshole forgot all about it and hero worships Gibson even more when Gibson makes a surprise visit to his old apartment to collect his father's gun and show off making out with Jolie.) The biggest laugh in the movie is when Wesley puts a gun to Freeman's head and warns, "I have a gun, sir!"

Problem is, I hated Wesley Gibson. Really did not like that little turd one bit. I didn't mind the Fraternity, although Jolie was the only one who had a backstory and something resembling a personality, which mostly consisted of her not saying anything and punching Gibson when she got annoyed.

The big reveal of What's Really Going On leads full-onto Wesley Gibson's Plan of Retaliation That Makes No Sense. It involves Wesley strapping bombs to rats, driving them into the Fraternity fortress, and then running through the fortress screaming and shooting. Then he stops at the floor Morgan Freeman is on and screams for him to come out, only to be completely surrounded by the main guys in the Fraternity he didn't kill.

There's some sort of moral dilemma over what the Fraternity is up to, where Freeman has violated the code they live by, but it seemed to me he had a good reason for doing so. Jolie disagreed since she lived her entire life by the code. Nevertheless, when Freeman urged his cohorts to "Shoot this motherfucker!" I was in wholehearted agreement with the sentiment, mainly because I could do very well without sequel movies about Wesley fucking Gibson.

My suggestion for Wanted 2: Wesley Gibson meets the opposite of the Fraternity, the Sorority. A bunch of girl assassins with one token dude who kill via bakesales, bikini carwashes, and STDs.

Hancock (***)

HANCOCK


June 27, 2008

"Good job!"

We know that Hancock is about a drunk, asshole superhero, but I was pleasantly surprised to discover a melding of two of my favorite shows of recent years, Friday Night Lights and Arrested Development. I'd managed to successfully stay away from the marketing for Hancock where I'd totally forgotten Peter Berg was directing. Watching the shaky-cam style Hancock was shot in, it reminded me a whole hell of a lot like Friday Night Lights. Then Buddy Garrity showed up. Then the little kid who lived next door to Tim Riggins played Jason Bateman's son. By the time Jason Bateman brings Hancock home to meet his wife, Charlize Theron, I was half expecting to hear the familiar "Mr. F" jingle. The main villain, as it was, even had a hook for a left hand like Buster Bluth. If Gob had rolled his Segueway across Jason Bateman's cul-de-sac, it wouldn't have surprised me.

Hancock's trailers pretty much give away the entire first half of the movie. We know going in that he's a drunk who sleeps at bus stop benches, smashes through highway signs, launches obnoxious children into the stratosphere, and tossed a humpback whale back into the ocean, demolishing a faraway sailboat in the process. We know he volunteers to go to prison to "get better." And that's still mostly it. The rest of Hancock's story turns out to be thinner than my girlie wrists. There's not a whole hell of a lot more going on. Summer blockbuster movies tend to overstuff their convoluted plots with lots of multiple storylines taking place to numb the senses, but Hancock takes the opposite route where we follow the A story of a superhero who he does and says surprisingly little. Meanwhile, there is no B story. The big action beat where Hancock, in a Wolverine leather uniform, puts a stop to a bank robbery was a highlight. Hancock making a point, as instructed by Bateman, to tell all the cops "Good job!" was the best runner in the picture. The climactic moments in the hospital were a bit of a letdown because the ersatz villains the movie provides were no match for Hancock, even in a weakened state.

The second half of Hancock provides a carefully worded reveal of who and what Hancock is. We're given an extemely sparse explanation, but somehow it was sufficient. Curious, though, that for an amnesiac with as many questions as the audience about his origin, history, abilities, and purpose, Hancock neglected to ask what his real name is. I did like how the movie layered the clues before the reveal of what Hancock is: the scribblings on the walls of his cell he etched with his fingernails of eagles and pyramids and Charlize noticing he has a bruise on his hand before dropping the big surprise of the movie. The visual effects were extremely convincing. Whether lifting a car, smashing through buildings, or tossing a whale several miles, the physics of everything Hancock did felt like it had the appropriate weight and mass.

The performances from the three leads do all the heavy lifting. Hancock works mainly because of the charms of Will Smith, Jason Bateman, and Charlize Theron. Smith was in rare form; embodying the angry, confused Hancock character while carefully measuring his inner conflict of being bitter towards humanity yet wanting to perform do-goodery. Smith held back virtually all of his trademark Will Smith-isms to bring the Hancock character to life. Bateman playing the sunniest and most naive version of Michael Bluth he could muster, under-reacts to all the property damage and insanity he's personally involved in. Bateman got two of the movie's biggest laughs: His drunken line about "Hancock tucking me in" and his scolding Charlize for being rude to Hancock at dinner: "Do you want him to kill us all?" Theron had the thankless job of having a Really Big Secret! she's just dying to tell but can't so she compensates with angry glares. The movie gets another big laugh when Hancock uses various kitchen tools to test his curiosity about Theron. She did sell the dramatic moments later on with Hancock in the hospital room. The one character who everyone should be worried about is the kid who plays Bateman's son. He already started off the movie with bully problems, but in the last ten minutes he personally witnesses two bad guys shoot Hancock in the back, shoot his stepmother, Hancock defenestrating two bad guys, his father chopping off the main bad guy's hand, and his stepmother flatlining and then coming back to life. Someone should probably have a talk with him. That boy could be seriously fucked up.

The Incredible Hulk (***)

THE INCREDIBLE HULK

"Don't make me... hungry. You wouldn't like me when I'm ...hungry."

It was a curious thing to watch The Incredible Hulk, a more-straightforward, crowd-pleasing, comic-booky take on the material, and end up continually reflecting on the things Ang Lee's Hulk movie did right. I wouldn't count myself as a fan of the maligned 2003 Hulk, but there are certain aspects of it I remember fondly: the Hulk swinging the tank and tossing it in the air and the dreamlike qualities of the Hulk leaping through the skies. Both sensations were oddly missing from the new Hulk movie.

This re-imagined Hulk is properly angry, green, and certainly powerful; he smashes a lot of shit and screams bloody murder (Ang's Hulk was mostly silent, if I remember correctly). But for a sheer display of power, this Hulk did nothing as singularly demonstrative as toss that fucking tank across the desert. This Hulk theoretically has the power to leap for miles, which is the comic book and Ang Lee's Hulk's preferred means of getting around, but he never did. For much of the movie, this new Hulk was similar to Ang Lee's deer-in-the-headlights style Hulk, wondering why every time he shows his green face, soldiers shoot missiles and machine guns at him. However, the new Hulk clearly is a fan of his "Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction" video game. He busted out the video game moves of vaulting up the side of buildings and the always-fun tactic of smashing a car into Steel Fists.

What it's like for Bruce Banner to actually be the Hulk was also disavowed from Ang Lee's version. Eric Bana's Bruce Banner was conscious within the Hulk and he said, "When I lose control... I like it." Edward Norton's Bruce Banner felt exactly the opposite. He remembers only flashes of his time as the Hulk and spends the entire movie trying to "get rid of it". Only in the end does he begin to see its advantages and, we assume, begin to gain a measure of control over the Hulk. I guess we'll find out in the sequel, or in The Avengers movie, whichever comes first.

What's missing from every cinematic incarnation of the Hulk I've seen so far is the crux of the character as I remember it from the classic Stan Lee comics from the 1960's. I'm no afficianado of the Hulk comic books; the original stories from the 1960's that I read as a child form the bulk of my Hulk knowledge. Thing is, that original version of Hulk had a personality. The original Hulk was self aware. He knew he comes from Banner but he thought himself different and better than Banner. Better than all the "puny humans." That Hulk had a fierce sense of pride in being the Hulk: "Hulk is the strongest one there is." Both movie versions and the television version of the Hulk have taken the route of portraying him as a brute, which he is, but without a personality.

The other thing missing from these Hulk live action adaptations is what I feel is a crucial component of the Hulk: The Hulk is the ultimate expression of "I can do whatever I want with no consquences". Banner is the one who has to deal with the consquences of the Hulk's actions, while the Hulk enjoys a freedom that neither Banner nor any other person has or can ever have. Hulk, a being of pure anger and negative emotion, can heedlessly break all of society's norms and laws. He smashes and rages without pity or regret.

It's a primal kind of freedom the Hulk has that anyone who has ever felt, say, road rage or felt slighted or mistreated in daily life can readily identify with. The Hulk, in his anger, does whatever the hell he wants. Thus, there's a level of jealousy towards the Hulk that Banner, a man who lives with unfortunate restrictions on his freedom and quality of life caused by the Hulk being part of him, must have towards his alter ego. Alternately, the Hulk of the classic comics despised Banner for being weak. He especially loathes the fact that Banner, being a part of him, is a weakness he sees in himself. To me, this is what the story of the Hulk is about. I've yet to see it presented as such in any movie.

In The Incredible Hulk, screenwriters Norton, Zak Penn, and director Louis Letterier fully embrace the Hulk's comic book and B-movie roots. The Incredible Hulk's opening credits established that it's an entirely new version by zipping through what was essentially a prequel Hulk movie, showing the revised origin of how Banner became a Gamma powered monster.

The movie then spent much of its time lovingly tipping its hat to the 1970's Incredible Hulk television show, wisely hitching its wagon to the nostalgia the older general public has for it. It was fun spotting all the in jokes and cameos: Bill Bixby on Banner's TV, the TV show music, the shot of Banner hitchhiking, the closeups of Banner's green eyes when he Hulks up, Lou Ferrigno as a security guard (and as the voice of the Hulk), the character named "Jack McGee" who's a reporter at Culver University, and the alias of "David B." Banner was using at the end of the movie when he was hiding in British Columbia. Stan Lee got his obligatory cameo, drinking Hulk blood-tainted soda and presumably Hulking out the way he couldn't when he guest starred on The Simpsons.

There was an homage to Peter Jackson's King Kong when Hulk and Betty Ross spent a night in a cave (thank goodness she didn't do a tap dance routine for Hulk). And because we're now living in the Marvel Age of Movies, SHIELD plays a role, the Super Soldier Serum and "Vita Rays" are mentioned, Stark Industries and Nick Fury get name dropped, and summer 2008's Mr. Popularity Tony Stark appeared, as the TV commercials promised, to make a no-longer surprising pitch for The Avengers.

Because Bruce Banner is played this time by Edward Norton, an actor who conveys copious amounts of both empathy and intelligence, it's much easier to feel for Banner's plight as he's on the run from both the U.S. Army and the thing that dwells within him. I really enjoyed the first act set in the shanty towns of Brazil where Banner lived a low-key life working in a soda bottling factory with the hottest woman in the City of God when he wasn't pining for Betty Ross and IMing a mysterious scientist looking for a cure (the handles Mr. Green and Mr. Blue were nice touches). There was a big plot hole of how, in this day and age, Banner was able to get from Guatemala and cross the US border into Virginia; we know he didn't Hulk out because of the Days Without Incident count the movie kept putting on the screen.

I started to get dismayed as the movie reached the third act that Banner had no character arc to speak of. He was a guy who wanted to get rid of the Hulk in the beginning and didn't change at all during the movie until the very end. Banner did a 180 degree turn when it was teased that he was learning to control and enjoy his Hulkacity. I'd have liked to see Banner become a Hulkamaniac a little earlier in the story, myself. 

Liv Tyler was beautiful and in full-on sweet, supportive mode as Betty Ross, but she's about as believable a "cellular biologist" as Denise Richards was as a nuclear scientist. This brings up another pet peeve of mine in Marvel superhero movies: all of the characters we keep being told are brilliant scientists do and say nothing scientific or brilliant. Liv Tyler's Betty Ross, Jessica Alba's Invisible Woman, Julian McMahon's Dr. Doom, even Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man and Ioan Gruffold's Mr. Fantastic -- the way they're written in their movies, I doubt any of them could pass a 9th grade science exam. The only brilliant scientist in a Marvel movie who actually is a brilliant scientist: Tony Stark.

The most depressing moment in The Incredible Hulk may have been when Banner realized he can't have sex with Betty because he might Hulk out on her, or worse, in her, if he gets too excited. (Frankly, I'd probably kill myself if I were Banner.) And you're telling me when they were stuck in that cave that night, Betty didn't wonder about how much Hulkness he has in his size-changing ripped pants? Come on, we were all thinking it! 

Tim Blake Nelson pops up as Banner's would-be savior Dr. Sterns, and finally, a brilliant scientist in the movie actually conveyed some brilliant science. I didn't realize who Dr. Sterns was until later when the Abomination knocked some Gamma formula into his brain, causing it to become abnormally deformed. I guess when Incredible Hulk 2 happens Hulk might just have The Leader to contend with. (Then again, three Spider-Man movies have gone by teasing Dr. Curt Conners and as of yet, no Lizard. So we'll see.)

The most interesting character in the movie, maybe even more than Banner, was Tim Roth as Emil Blonsky, the world's shortest Marine. He's a mean little guy who really wanted to go green. The scene when the Hulk kicked his ass into a tree was pretty great. Not so great was the Abomination itself, an unsightly and fairly dull CGI monster.

If there's a more boring villain in superhero movies than General "Thunderbolt" Ross, though, please spare me having to meet him. William Hurt, hiding behind his mustache, had virtually nothing to play, unlike the charming and scheming Obidiah Stane Jeff Bridges and his bald cap and beard got to play in Iron Man. Considering the resources General Ross wastes on capturing Banner; full military raids in Brazil, millions spent on giant sonic cannons that get Hulk smashed in a college campus, and helicopter assaults in New York City, no way this idiot shouldn't get courtmarshaled for being the world's shittiest commander. General Ross also believes for some reason that every day he leads a foolhardy military clusterfuck is Take Your Daughter to Work Day.

In its final 20 minutes, The Incredible Hulk devolves into a story of two fine actors who morph into not-quite-entirely-convincing-or-photoreal CGI monsters that fight. The good news is the fight, for as long as it lasts, is pretty good, if a little contained. It was a lot of fun to see the Hulk actually go house on an enemy, finally, although the Abomination pretty much cleaned Hulk's clock until the end, when Hulk got the anticlimactic tap out victory on the rooftop.

The whole fight I was wondering what brutal depths of property-damaging, comic book-style violence the Hulk would resort to in order to defeat the bigger and stronger Abomination. I figured Hulk would go all out and wreck Harlem to get it done. Instead of Hulk Smash, Hulk went MMA. But, as ever, at least Hulk's pants stayed on.