Welcome to The Daily Cup a movie blog/writing project by Kyle B. Dekker, presented by Hot Chocolate Media. You can read series concept here. The basic rules, Kyle must watch 365 movies in 2018 and write about all of them. 292 of them have to be movies he's never seen before. Thanks for reading.
My rewatch of the Marvel Cinematic Universe continues. The MCU is the only franchise that I’ve seen every film during its theatrical run. The Incredible Hulk (2008) was the follow up to the absolute success of Iron Man by the newly minted Marvel Studios. This film is often an overlooked entry into the MCU, with much of what it established forgotten, or at least ignored by subsequent movies in the franchise.
Edward Norton plays the titular character, and instead of a full origin movie we start off with Bruce Banner hiding from General Ross in Brazil. They do take care of Banner’s Hulk origin in the opening credits, which I fell was an interesting choice, but the film would’ve been better served without it in my opinion. Superheroes, especially ones from Marvel and DC are such a part of our cultural zeitgeist that the need for origin stories is long past. I’m not against them, especially if done well, but I hate that Hollywood still feels comic book characters are niche enough to require them most of the time.
The only things in this film that carried on into the rest of the MCU were Bruce Banner’s view of the Hulk persona as a curse, and General Ross. Ross returns later as Secretary of State Ross in Captain America: Civil War. There were many cool things introduced from the Hulk comics that we haven’t seen come to fruition in the MCU. MCU mastermind Kevin Feige has confirmed there won’t be any more Hulk standalone movie, so now we can only hope some of these are worked into the Avenger’s movies.
While it’s unfortunate we will never see the Samuel Sterns the Leader or Ty Burrell’s Doc Samson, the direction they’ve taken with the Hulk in The Avengers and Thor: Ragnarok is the right direction. I feel the only thing they’ve missed is adding the Black Widow/Banner love story as the biggest driving force for Banner/The Hulk in the origin film was Bruce's’ love for Dr. Betty Ross. They’ve never explained how he has gotten past that love, or any conflict he may have from abandoning it. I hope they can address it in the Infinity Wars movies, but we will see.
So are we going to just forget this realthionship doesn't exist anymor ein the MCU?
While not the most spectacular entry into the MCU, this is an enjoyable film. Norton, Tim Roth, and William Hurt are all good in their roles and the action sequences are fun and enjoyable. Some of the digital effects haven’t aged as well as I think people would like, but this is still the best standalone Hulk film we’ve ever gotten.
Tally
Movies new to me watched: 16/292
Other movies: 4/73
Total movies watched: 20/365
Have your own thoughts or opinions on this movie? Comment below or contact Kyle at kyle@hotchocolatemedia.net or on Twitter at @kbdekker.