Saturday, June 21, 2003
HULK SMASH CRITICS: Saw the Sci-Fi Channel documentary about the Hulk movie, and I'll say I'm a bit less skeptical, although still reserved. The proof was in the extra clips folded into the hour; the bits of the transformation I saw were nicely done, and when the big green fella isn't moving as much (that is, when you can actually get a fix on him) he looks fairly decent. The actual story behind the movie sounds intriguing, although predictably, Sci-Fi didn't actually talk very much about that (unless they covered it in the seven minutes I missed), zooming in on the CGI, the video games, and so on.
After reading a few reviews, I think I finally got a fix on what's really bugging me about those action scenes, and it has something to do with literalizing the Hulk concept: at seven feet tall and with 1,000 pounds of muscle (low body fat), the Hulk would be powerful, but would he be fast enough to run along the side of a canyon wall? It looks impressive, but since we know the Hulk's main power is brute strength, it doesn't really look plausible. As a recovering comic book fan, I will believe the impossible, but not the implausible; in the words of a letter-writer to one of the Superman books, I'll buy the guy flying through the air, but I won't believe that Lois Lane is dumb enough to wear open-toed shoes when the forecast is calling for rain. Also, as a wrestling fan, I've seen big goobers a-plenty, and most often the popular adjective to go between "big" and "goober" is SLOW. I'd add "inflexible" to that, since I don't think Scott "Poppa Pump" Steiner has been able to lower his freakish arms to his sides since 1995. Anyway, the point is that when you see a huge guy with that much muscle on him, speed and maneuverability aren't the first things that come to mind.
So again, I'm a little more interested than I was, but still not enough to drop the dime at the movies...not yet, anyway. Maybe when it hits the $1.50 house.
There is one other thing that bugged me about the Sci-Fi special. The man who currently is the head of Marvel was on and I believe he mentioned the old saw about how Marvel started out as Timely Comics, which, as some comic book archaeology elsewhere has shown, isn't necessarily so. It's a small thing, but the small things are what really bug small-timers like myself in the long term.
After reading a few reviews, I think I finally got a fix on what's really bugging me about those action scenes, and it has something to do with literalizing the Hulk concept: at seven feet tall and with 1,000 pounds of muscle (low body fat), the Hulk would be powerful, but would he be fast enough to run along the side of a canyon wall? It looks impressive, but since we know the Hulk's main power is brute strength, it doesn't really look plausible. As a recovering comic book fan, I will believe the impossible, but not the implausible; in the words of a letter-writer to one of the Superman books, I'll buy the guy flying through the air, but I won't believe that Lois Lane is dumb enough to wear open-toed shoes when the forecast is calling for rain. Also, as a wrestling fan, I've seen big goobers a-plenty, and most often the popular adjective to go between "big" and "goober" is SLOW. I'd add "inflexible" to that, since I don't think Scott "Poppa Pump" Steiner has been able to lower his freakish arms to his sides since 1995. Anyway, the point is that when you see a huge guy with that much muscle on him, speed and maneuverability aren't the first things that come to mind.
So again, I'm a little more interested than I was, but still not enough to drop the dime at the movies...not yet, anyway. Maybe when it hits the $1.50 house.
There is one other thing that bugged me about the Sci-Fi special. The man who currently is the head of Marvel was on and I believe he mentioned the old saw about how Marvel started out as Timely Comics, which, as some comic book archaeology elsewhere has shown, isn't necessarily so. It's a small thing, but the small things are what really bug small-timers like myself in the long term.
|| Eric 12:45 PM#
