Movie Impressions: The Incredible Hulk

"Ang Lee's Hulk Sad!"

So what's the deal with Ang Lee's HULK? I mean it wasn't that bad......ok maybe It was, but who cares? Now there's a new Hulk and this one's not as bright green nor are his pants purple.

Edward Norton replaces Eric Bana(whom I consider to be much more awesome) as Bruce Banner and Liv Tyler replaces Jennifer Connelly as Betty Ross(Connelly being about 23 times more attractive). These two lead a pretty good cast, and deliver an overall satisfactory performance. Still the star of the movie is the Hulk himself, and truth be told I'm a bit conflicted. I liked Ang Lee's Hulk, or rather Industrial Lights and Magic's Hulk, I thought he was really well animated and his facial expressions in particular were very impressive, who cares about the skin color that resembles Nickelodeon ooze and the purple pants are not realistic, I mean come on, we're talking about a dude that turns green and becomes a giant when he gets angry. But Rhythm and Hue's Hulk(the new one) is really quite good too, he's animated in a very "realistic" way, meaning that he looks like he actually weighs what a giant would and he moves for the most part in a non cartoony way. There's a particular scene that I really liked where you can see Hulk's skin cracked near his shoulder right after you see bullets bounce off his skin that made me the graphics whore inside of me say "COOL!" Overall I'd have to give the nod to Rhythm and Hue's Hulk because unlike the previous movie they decided to show the Hulk for the most part in only dark settings where the sun could not make it look too unreal, and the one scene that was in the daylight was shot with crazy fast camera angles that also hid the "unrealness" of the hulk for the most part.

Now the reason why this film was made was because Ang Lee's lacked action, it was too "cerebral" Is the word most of the internet uses to condescendingly describe the film. In this sene The Incredible Hulk delivers, this film is short on back story and feelings and heavy on action, that's not to say that we don't see how Bruce feels about his situation but the movie doesn't emphazise on that too much. There's even a return of the "HULK SMASH!!!" line which I have to admit occured in a really REALLLY corny way. But the action scenes deliver, we get to see the Hulk take on the army a couple of times in different settings and even take on some sort of cloverfield-monster-only-a-baby-version-lookalike with pretty awesome results. Still at the end of the movie you get the feeling this was just the exposition of the story and there's gonna no doubt be a sequel, a trend I'm starting to really dislike.

Overall, the Incredible Hulk is good. Go see it. But see it in the afternoon when it's not 8 bucks, it's not really worth 8 bucks....Meaning it's not Iron Man Caliber, but then again what is??

Movie Impressions: Kung Fu Panda

Let me set the scene here, I'm super hyped for WALL-E, part of the reason why I wanted to go see Kung Fu Panda is because I KNEW that there would be a trailer for WALL-E, so a couple of weeks ago I decided I was gonna go just for that. But as the release date approached I was beginning to like the idea of an animated martial arts movie, after animation and martial arts are two of my favorite genre of films. So that was my bias coming in, now let's get to the movie itself.

Very Satisfying. The whole movie barely seemed like it was a Dreamworks movie, this is due to the fact that the whole style was taken very seriously and it was SELF CONTAINED. There were no incredibly out of place pop culture references as in others(Shark Tale, Madagascar) which is a breath of fresh air from this animation house. Also there are some moments of awesome cinematography, I'm talking about beautiful almost poetic scenes which give you a sense of inspiration and even make you channel Keanu Reeves as you say "Woah." The opening sequence in particular and the end credits showcase beautiful 2D animation that would make a pretty good Nickelodeon show or something.(and it probably will, mark my words) The best part of the movie by far however were the fight scenes. They were fast, but not chaotic always elegant and you never lost sight of what was going on. The Furious Five scenes in particular are awesome and each different animal moves in a way which is unique to the species, I really liked Crane's movements in particular. The story however is a bit formulaic but it's forgivable due to its short length. Jack Black delivers a pretty good performance but Po as a whole failed to be as lovable and memorable from his dialog as I was hoping he would be.

The movie as a whole is very satisfying and is well worth the money, It's good to see that the talented guys at Dreamworks are getting better at telling stories and at having awesome graphical styles. Hopefully Pixar and these guys keep pushing each other to tell great and unique stories that can only be told through animation.

Iron Man Impressions

Just got back from watching the latest comic book based movie, and I gotta say, I liked it! I mean I've always had a soft side for Iron Man because the suit is friggin' awesome and because underneath that awesome suit is a hardcore smart geek who built it. Tony Stark is what every nerd would want to be, rich, smart, cocky, women all over you, and the unlimited funds and time to tinker around and build whatever you want to be, so yeah I was looking forward to this movie. In that sense it did not fail, throughout the whole movie Tony Stark is that cocky sarcastic rich smart bastard who gets to play with awesome toys. And boy were they awesome! His set up is crazy, and there's some fictitious workstation that's like a 3d holographic thing you can interact with that has no chance of being made within the next 50 years but is still awesome. The Iron Man himself also looks incredible, I really have to congratulate the animators and engineers behind the graphics, because they look incredibly convincing and never look outlandish or too plasticky.

The story however does tend to drag. At a little over 2 hours it's not an especially long movie but the slow pace and lack of action makes it feel much longer. Also there's some bits of "humor" and characters that feel thrown in there only to please the waves of kids that will be flocking to see this movie.To be honest there's only a handful of true action scenes and I think the movie could have benefited from a bit more. I can't shake the feeling that this was just an expository film and that it's just building up for the sequel. The fact that there's no real strong antagonist only further illustrates this. The acting is pretty good, Robert Downey Jr. as stated before plays Tony Stark pretty incredibly and his character stays constant throughout, Gwyneth Paltrow has a good show and Jeff Bridges too.

Overall the movie is worth watching, I do really recommend it. If you're a geek it goes without saying that you need to be there, but even if you're not really one and are looking to be entertained go see it.

Also Iron Man owns a Wii!!!! You can see it right underneath his TV in his living room.

Woah, Check it out

Wow, this has the potential to be good. For one it's Jerry Bruckheimer, he made Pirates of the Caribbean. It also has the potential to suck after all it's Jerry Bruckheimer, he made King Arthur. Still could this possibly be the first good video game movie, I mean don't get me wrong Super Mario Bros and Bloodrayne were awesome....but wait...no they were about as good as getting your nads frozen until they became petrified and then getting them chopped off and fed to you. So hopefully this one is atleast decent...just please please please don't have Vin Diesel or Bow Wow or someone like that play The Prince.