Film

Between Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Brokeback Mountain lies his Hulk, a green, misunderstood golem, daringly Freudian. If The Incredible Hulk, a plastic, steroidally pumped reattempt, is what the fanboys really wanted, then they don’t deserve directors like Ang Lee.

Quickly, let’s exempt the actors from blame: Norton makes for a wiry, curious Bruce Banner, already gamma-infected and on the run in Brazil’s favelas as the movie gets under way. Likewise, Tyler as his onetime girl, Betty Ross, suggests the defiance of a nerd still in love with Frankenstein’s monster.

But you can tell from the film’s tedium-inducing smackdowns—even Roth gets to grow massive pecs—that a different philosophy prevailed: the artificial Zen of video-game playing. The camera jostles, and a fakey Harlem is summarily destroyed. But how many movies will it take for Hollywood to realize that this kind of virtual mayhem rarely translates for those of us not playing the game? Much is being made of the cinematic Marvel universe slowly being assembled—and yes, Robert Downey Jr. makes a brief cameo as Iron Man’s Tony Stark. But let’s hope future filmmakers remember that toys are disposable. Human hearts, not so much.