Hulk

Hulk throws a tank. Come on. That alone buys this movie about three goodwill points it never seems to get credit for, and I'm here to argue it deserves more than the internet wants to give it.

This isn't a bad movie. It just needs some love. People dunk on it like it ran over their dog, and I don't get it. Sit down with it again. There's stuff here.

This isn't a bad movie. It just needs some love.

Eric Bana as the Hulk? Really good. He carries the rage with something behind it. The problem is Bana as Banner, which is a different story. He's a great actor; he just got written wrong. The Banner on the page isn't the Banner that would let Bana cook. That's not on him, that's on whoever was holding the pen.

Jennifer Connelly is always a welcome face when I sit down to watch something. She elevates whatever she's in just by showing up, and this is no exception. Sam Elliott is worth the price of admission on his own. The man could read a cereal box and I'd lean in. Josh Lucas brings a little something too, more entertaining than I expected him to be.

Now the gripes. Straying from the comics is always, always a bad idea. Every time a comic book movie decides it knows better than fifty years of source material, it ends up tripping over its own feet. This one wanders off the map in spots, and you can feel it.

And Nick Nolte. No. Bad casting, bad performance, just no. That one didn't work for me at all, and it's the kind of thing that sticks in your craw when you're trying to defend the rest of the picture.

But that's the thing. I am trying to defend it, because there's enough here worth defending. The theater made it better, big screen, big green guy, big tank getting hurled across the desert. That's the gig. That's what you signed up for.

Would I throw it on again? Yeah, I would. Would I tell everyone I know to run out and watch it? No. This one's for specific people. You know who you are. The folks who can meet a flawed comic book movie halfway and still have a good time with it.

Give Hulk another shot.