Shipwreck
Ang Lee USA 2003
Ang Lee?s first fully intentioned summer Blockbuster is an angst-ridden ride through normal big budget superhero territory. The main story fails on most counts to maintain interest for either crowd attracted to this film, providing over padding to those wanting to see the primal tank buster in situ and repressed insipid human drama for those who want to understand what makes a man really lose it. Cramming realms of subtext into a film that simply had to have nothing more complicated than a green thing smashing other things (with explosions) Lee opts to fracture the psyches of the leads before giving the US army its dues. The result is an overlong ?regular with fries? bloat-buster, which startlingly exhibits vast thought and depth. Hulk is exactly the kind of failure one should aspire to, dragging comic movie adaptations into maturity.
Doubling back from the straight laboratory accident genesis of our antihero, Lee bestows alto-ego Bruce Banner with a back-story infinitesimally more potent than a quick fix of gamma radiation. Like Hulk creator Stan Lee does for his other star creations, Ang Lee finds an inner hook to promote this superhero?s relevancy beyond the ripped trousers and green mist, beyond the remote personification of rampaging id. Spiderman is a youthful wisecracking New Yorker; the X-Men are alienated teenagers. Bruce Banner is a man who hates his father.
Delving into the germination of adult rage, Lee compares the childhood formulations of lovers Bruce Banner (Eric Bana) and Betty Ross (Jennifer Connelly). Both are army orphans, marked by the loss or withdrawal of their parents. These characters are lost children, subconsciously dominated by the destruction and monumental fallout from Banners father?s (Nick Nolte) experimentation. In the aftermath Banner is raised by step-parents under the belief that his parents are dead, despite the hideous trauma he experiences that day. The gamma exposure is superfluous. The catastrophic lab accident here is Banner?s discovery that his father is alive and working as a janitor. Post exposure nature and nurture violently clash; Banner has a reason to be angry and destructive means of expressing it.
Hulk?s standout contribution to the genre is the editing. This is the first film I?ve seen that actually resembles the frame format of a comic book. Earlier comic book adaptations have relied on epic depiction, caricature and set design with the exponentially increasing reliance on special effects. Blade 2 was the first film I can name that used Matrix style impossible camera shots to give its champion choreography that could start to match the source material. Through flamboyant editing technique Hulk is a multimedia power point presentation with special effects provided by the US army. Using frames, split screens, wipes and endless varieties of montages Hulk capitalises on the recent vogue for split screen techniques pioneered in the mainstream by 24 (and followed by films like Phone Booth recently) and chases dizzying chains of thought. Seven years ago The Usual Suspects led us by the nose through such sequences by spinning a lie then revealing the building blocks of that deception around the office in which the interrogation takes place. Hulk dispenses with such a user-friendly approach and drags us through theoretical 1960s research in the opening credits. A decade of web design has prepared us for this cinematic Flash plug-in and the sheer revelation invigorates this film.
Harking back to the New Mexico style desert military setting gives Hulk the geographical fix needed. The initial Californian setting is too suburban, too sedate for a beast of rage. Once in the desert the US military vision is embodied by underground bases and decaying 1960s pre-fabricated towns. This is bleak lonely beautiful terrain where the military machine can bury nuclear testing or rampaging monsters with relative impunity and minimal press.
Fittingly the film finishes deep within the only wilderness that could contain the Hulk, the Amazon. Hidden deep within the forest, Banner concludes Hulk as a pop-psychology successor to other unbalanced sylvan spirits such as the medieval Green Man or Pan. A primal force of desire unchecked, poised to explode at any moment. A genuine X-File for any Hansel and Gretel types from the bureau to discover.
If you go down to the woods today, you?re in for a big surprise.