Is incredible.
Marvel Studios has it right.
The story line walks a balance beam between story and action, and they've succeeded with just the right amount on both sides.
I loved the acting ... it had a sense of restraint - no one grabbing the limelight ... with the underlying passion of good (mostly) people caught in bad times, with choices mostly between bad and bad. Liv Tyler conveys a remarkable balance of beauty and innocence in her love for Banner and her estranged relationship to her father (the general). It's a feat of this script to have captured some of the human drama implicit in this otherwise action story.
If there's a story within the story, it's this: the desire for power, even in the defense of the good, corrupts the soul. The Hulk himself is the result of medical experiments to produce the ultimate WMD. Yet power is what the world is all about, and rather than shunning it, can we learn to harness it, control it, use it?
Tim Roth (Abomination) is merely a professional soldier who wants to link what he now knows to a younger body ... as the general (William Hurt) says, "I think we can arrange this." His plight is that of every professional soldier - a job to be done, and don't ask questions. If there's a lesson here, it's this: don't expect the soldier to make "moral" decisions - that's up to the Brass, and if the Brass are blind, the whole thing succumbs to mindless obsessions and fruitless battles. William Hurt conveys something of the Captain Ahab syndrome - when the goal of conquest becomes everything, and everything else is expendable. As the novel ends, Captain Ahab is ensnared in the ropes entwined around Moby Dick. This story ends with more of a question - will the general be lost? Or will his daughter's love and the horror of Abomination bring him to his senses?
One of the most delightful moments: Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) is delivering a pizza to a lab (he wants in), but is stopped by a security guard, who's permission to enter is won by giving him a free pizza - and who's the security guard? None other than Lou Ferrigno, with his massive arms, who played the original Hulk on TV. The audience went bonkers!
The music was terrific ... sound editing impressed me ... visual effects perfectly done.
I give this effort my highest rating.
