The Incredible Hulk

(Pictured: The Once and Future Hulk)

I liked the new Hulk well enough, but it seemed too precious to me. All the little nods and winks to previous incarnations of the character, while flatly ignoring the most recent outing, seemed rather mean, and that threw me off.

But _The Incredible Hull_ had a bigger problem, and that was the fact that David Banner, as portrayed here, just wasn't a very interesting guy. When he was human, he was a normal, unassuming fellow trying to make the best of a bad situation. When he was the Hulk, he wasn't particularly dangerous. Had the Hulk been a murderous brute, then we might have been playing for keeps. As things stood, Norton seemed primarily interested in protecting the world from excessive property damage.

That needn't have been the end of things, however. If a hero is only as good as his villain, Tim Roth does everything in his power to make Hulk one of the greatest heroes of them all. Roth plays Emil Blonsky, a commando who's out to get The Hulk.  To some extent, commandos are professional athletes. In the case of Roth's character, here was one athlete who was not going to make a graceful transition to higher leadership and the joys of paperwork. He was willing to take any steroid, go through any regimen, to keep playing with the big toys and, when his 'roid rage makes him an abomination, he welcomes it. Roth plays the transition well, and I found myself much more interested in his arc than that of the supposed hero of the story.

Though Roth does great work with his character, the filmmakers make two errors with him that broke my disbelief. First, they explain that he's "on loan" from the Royal Marines, then put him in U.S. Army working uniforms, with U.S. Army pins and ribbons. Second, they make the Hulk more than the match of his Abomination in the final battle. This film has established that Norton has spent, tops, one year in Brazil working on his martial arts skills, while Roth has been doing this stuff pretty much his entire adult life. I simply could not buy that a half-thinking, semi-trained Hulk could outfight a fully aware, fully trained Abomination. Granted, _Iron Man_ had a couple of illusion-snapping moments, as well, but that film was so much fun that I was willing to give it a pass. For whatever reason, _The Incredible Hulk_ never built up that goodwill with me, so those moments stuck.

All this is not to say that _The Incredible Hulk_ is a bad film. It's fine, for what it is, but I didn't hit my sweet spot. I may be in the minority here, but I liked Ang Lee's version a whole lot more.

Hellboy Animated: Sword of Storms

HELLBOY ANIMATED: SWORD OF STORMS is much better than I thought it would be. I only rented the thing out of loyalty to the characters, and I expected a cheap, direct-to-DVD knockoff. What a pleasant surprise to find an involving story, solid animation, excellent voice acting, and an all-around great experience.

If you're already a Hellboy fan, read no further and be assured that you'll enjoy a film that hews to the style of the comics. If you aren't familiar with the character, here's a bit of background. In the waning days of WWII, Hitler's occult advisor tries the last-ditch tactic of summonig a demon from Hell to aid in the fight. When American forces break through at the culmination of the ceremony, they find cutest li'l baby demon you ever did see. They name him Hellboy, raise him to be a good guy, and put him to work in the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense, or BPRD (Motto: Things really do go bump in the night. We're the ones who bump back.). Hellboy's a gruff manchild, still living in the equivalent of his parents' basement, and his solution to most problems involves significant amounts of blunt force trauma. He's a great character. He's nearly indestructible, so he can face the most horrific of creatures with little more than a deadpan, "Oh, crap." He carries his massive upper torso and Fist of Clobberin' around on spindly little goat legs and delicate hooves, making him simultaneously imposing and amusing. And he hangs out with a gill man and a firestarter. What's not to like?

In HASS, the BPRD sends Hellboy to Japan to investigate the theft of a legendary sword. Before he knows it, the demon gets sucked into the Japanese equivalent of Faerie, where he must undertake a quest that gives him and us, the audience, a tour through some of the scarier tales of Japanese folklore. As Hellboy uses the amazing power of blunt force trauma to survive in this world, his pals in the BPRD must deal with the real-world repercussions of his actions and figure a way to get him back.

It's a solid setup, and one that goes right for a variety of reasons. First, HASS, as do the comics, boasts a love for folklore and an ability to introduce the audience to new legends with a light and entertaining touch. Second, the animation style resembles Hellboy creator Mike Mignola's comics, creating a continuity with the printed page and inviting us into the greater world of the character. Third, the voice acting (largely by the cast of the not-as-good live action HELLBOY movie) sells the picture. Genre stalwart Ron Perlman voices Hellboy as I always imagined the character; Selma Blair does fine, if necessarily whiny, work as Liz the firestarter; and Doug Jones gives Abe Sapien, the gill man, a different and successful spin than did live-action voice actor David Hyde Pierce.

HASS is fun. It's funny, scary, and thoroughly entertaining, and it provides a wonderful introduction to the world of Japanese folklore. What more could you want?

Constantine

CONSTANTINE is internally inconsistent, theologically unsound, and utterly ridiculous. Nevertheless, it's trying so hard to entertain you that you can't help but like it. Case in point: in every thriller, there comes a moment when the hero's had all he can stands, and he can't stands no more. This moment usually involves the hero's arming up, looking resolute, and saying something along the lines of, "Let's get 'em!" When Keanu Reeves's John Constantine has this moment, he whips out this weapon that's a cross between a shotgun, a revolver, and a giant crucifix, all done in solid gold. While I doubt that laughter was the intended effect, you can't deny the earnestness of a production that conceived, created, and shot a giant golden crucifix-shotgun-revolver.

Go in expecting a cheesy good time, and you won't be disappointed.