As we all know, The Avengers is merely weeks away from release. There have been advanced screenings of the movie and most people that have been lucky enough see it, seem to be rather impressed with The Hulk. During this article I will go through the evolution of the character in film.
Ang Lee's Hulk 2003:
During the year of 2003, CGI was beginning to become the answer to, comic book hero adaptions. In 2002 Spider-Man was released and showcased some excellent CGI, for its time. Not only did this film prove that the super hero genre could be adapted to the big screen but it also paved the way for other comic book heroes adaptions.
A year later, Ang lee's Hulk was released. Whilst again, the character model was pretty good for its time, the actual film itself was not particularly great. Eric Bana was cast to play, Bruce Banner and to be honest I thought he did a pretty good job with the material he was given. Although the story was far from impressive, his performance was solid as a whole.
Now, of course, looking back at the CGI, it is pretty laughable. The texture and depth of the character is very shallow and looks incredibly outdated. The detail is not that great and doesn't help to suspend the viewers disbelief. The facial expressions are very limited and this makes it hard for the audience to become emotionally invested in the character.
Whilst it isn't fantastic, I would still recommend giving it a watch, if you haven't seen it before because it will help you appreciate, how far films have come, in terms of CGI and design.
The Incredible Hulk 2008:
Five years later, The Hulk was rebooted featuring Edward Norton as the hero. This film was considerably better than Ang Lee's attempt and also began setting the Marvel unverse up for The Avengers.
The CGI, in this film was a vast improvement. The detail of the muscles and the face, were much more believable. Although, motion capture technology was not used in this film and at times, I wish they had. So instead of the expressions actually being Norton's the CGI department had to recreate them. At some points the animation for the facial expressions, looked hollow. I mean lets face it, it must pretty hard to try and recreate facial expressions, when they are not produced through, motion technology. This of course was a year before, films like Avatar would fully utilise this new tech.
Edward Norton brought his own take to the character and so far it has been my favourite. He is a fantastic actor and made Bruce Banner for me, a real person. I was disappointed when I discovered, that he would not reprise his role in The Avengers but I will go over that, later in the article.
All in all, this film for me was great and how I expected a Hulk movie to be. There were some fantastic action set pieces and the film as a whole, was a great time. As I said earlier, this interpretation was particularly significant, in setting things up for The Avengers movie. I yelped with joy when I saw Tony Stark appear at the end and new Marvel were serious about making an Avengers film.
The Avengers 2012:
Well, here it is. The interpretation of The Hulk many people have waited for. This version will be played by Mark Ruffalo. When he was first announced to play the role, many people were annoyed that Edward Norton would not be reprising his role, including myself. I was impressed with Norton's performance and was disappointed that he would not feature in The Avengers. That was until clips, of Ruffalo's Hulk began to surface.
From what I have seen, he seems very natural in the role and could bring a new emotional dynamic to Bruce Banner. It appears he will be treated as an outcast and I think this is the best way they could have taken the character.
Now, to move onto the animation of The Hulk. From what I have seen so far, it is looking exceptional. This film has featured motion capture technology, meaning that Mark Ruffalo will play the character of The Hulk. If you look at the detail in the face, you can see that it displays his facial structure and I feel this will be a great way of portraying a variety of emotions. What I found with the previous films, is that, when Bruce Banner would change into the Hulk, it would become emotionally detaching because it was merely just CGI. In this version, even though it is CGI, will contain all of Ruffalo's features and expressions. This I feel, will build a great new dimension to the character and make him visually interesting to watch.
So there it is ladies and gentlemen. Let me know what you think in the comments below !