Fun with Franchises: The Marvel Universe – The Incredible Hulk (2008), Part IV — “This Movie Is a Shit Frankenstein”

We continue with another entry in our Fun with Franchises series. This week’s film is The Incredible Hulk.

Fun with Franchises is a series born out of my friend Colin and I realizing how much fun it was for the two of us to watch the same movie separately and then share our reactions. We started by watching all of the James Bond movies, for the purposes of ranking them for the blog. I brought him in because he was much more of a Bond expert than I was at the time, and I felt his perspective would liven things up. He would be the color commentator to my play-by-play man.

We soon discovered that, by watching the movies separately and then putting everything we said together in the same place, hilarity ensued. We each brought in our own observations, not knowing what the other would say, and then reacted to what the other said. And we loved every minute of it.

We had so much fun, we figured we had to do it again. So we graduated from a single franchise, to all franchises. If you’re gonna have fun with franchises, it wouldn’t be right if you didn’t franchise it. Season 1 included the Harry Potter movies, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Twilight (which neither of us had seen before we watched them for the articles) and Pirates of the Caribbean. All of those articles can be read on the Fun with Franchises page.

Also, just so we’re clear, this is all for parody. We’re just messing with them because we love them. (Well… Twilight…) We’re watching movies we enjoy and are simply having some fun with them.

Right now, we’re doing the Marvel Universe, and today is the fourth part of The Incredible Hulk.

We begin Part IV in some kind of bunker hospital.

This looks like where they shot Full Metal Jacket.

Blonsky got fucked up.

Colin:

According to Marvel rules, he’s now gonna overdo it with the serum to recover and become a true nemesis. Right? These movies are predictable.

Maybe clean off some of the blood before you do that.

Wouldn’t it be great if that was actually the end of him? And there was just no villain and no climactic action sequence?

They must both be feverish right now. How is that even possible?

Colin:

Waking up scrawny. He’s still basically like a frat bro who juices.

Is she gonna sneak out?

She is!

It’s great that they’re within like ten miles of where her father is, and somehow there aren’t military patrols everywhere.

And also how the rest of the army knows nothing about this.

Colin:

Right, cause nobody saw or heard any of that. How about the sound waves that probably shattered glass for miles behind Hulk?

Looks like they’re taking him to detox.

Colin:

First the Brazilian bar and now here. Coca Cola much?

And two of them next to each other.

These motel guests must be really fucking thirsty.

Colin:

Why did there have to be another Bruce? Batman is Bruce. There are other names. Let’s move on.

Sure as shit looks and sounds like detox.

Eww… armpit hair.

Can he get Psycho’d right now?

This is what it’s like when you remember things you did when you were blackout.

Colin:

Holy fuck, Norton has the skinniest legs.

This looks like where they shot Live and Let Die.

(And that wasn’t even for the pun, either. This is the shot from when Rosie Carver showed up.)

Assassination Attempt or Sex?

“Oh, hi.”

What? She brought you here, asshole.

He had to get his data back.

Uh huh…

“You ate it?”

Academy Award winning acting right there, folks.

“Well, circumstances called for a little improvisation.”

“Wow.”

A HA HA HA. The monotone.

What she should say right now is, “You know we have a backup, right?”

… or she can just say, “Wow,” and then immediately turn and drop the subject.

Clothes, water and condoms?

Today, this would be that Apple watch thing.

Or whatever bullshit Nike came out with.

There’s the purple pants.

Oh fuck you!

Don’t hate on the purple pants.

“I’ll take my chances.”

Wait, so you hate the color purple so much that you’re going to wear regular pants?

Okay.

Colin:

Who is this random woman in the fire truck getting treatment? Are we now pretending that the scene we saw a few minutes ago included ANY bystanders?

You think she’s single?

Also, what’s with the forest ranger over there?

Only you can prevent green sasquatches.

Trisha Takanawa?

Colin:

Asian correspondent in the field. Always. This actress is a type, too. Guarantee you she’s done this part in other stuff. I’m gonna guess her character’s name is something like…Jacqueline Yang. Holy shit. As if to prove my point about the typecasting, look at her IMDB page and tell me I’m not 100 percent correct.

That Aryan kid staring at the camera is creeping me out.

He says Hulk.

So, some random douchebag “reporter” college kid says the name.

Lame.

Colin:

“It was like, a HULK thing, brah!” “I write for the college paper, dude!” Ah, yes. The journalists of tomorrow. Or the unemployed of the day after tomorrow. Same shit. I picked the wrong profession.

21 Things We Can Call This Big Green Monster

That’s more what that article would be nowadays.

Also, he captures cell phone footage, yet… somehow no one’s seen the Hulk, can replicate footage of the Hulk, yet he’s ten fucking feet tall and wrecks shit. How does the rest of the army and government do and say nothing about this?

Colin:

Where’s the guy from the newspaper? “See, I TOLD you I saw a Green Sasquatch!” Cause the first thing that happens when something like this goes down is, every reporter thinks, “What was that, and has it been around before?” And they google “big green thing” and after the first few pages of hits about The Big Green, they come across the news story about the guy who saw the “green Sasquatch.”

Colin:

NOT EVERYTHING HAS TO BE GREEN

This motel is scarily full.

Lotta people taking weekend trips to Virginia, huh?

Or lotta people cheating on their spouses, huh?

Really, what this should be is the media coming to cover the story.

Which would be great for them trying to lay low.

Cutting his hair? Go to a fucking barbershop. I doubt they’re monitoring those.

Colin:

Is she Jason Bourne-ing him? Holy shit, he’s Marie Kreutz and Julia Stiles in this?

His hair is getting… Julia Styled right now.

Yeah, it’s this scene.

Colin:

“Not too short back there. Mullet season is coming.”

“Oh, Bruce. It’s always mullet season.”

You sure forgot about your shrink real fast.

The lamp is green too, Colin.

This editing is abysmal.

Colin:

There’s always an awkward jump cut to them from the side, getting ready to fuck. I hope he has his heart monitor on cause she would be DECIMATED. What if he hulks while they’re boinking? Giant green coital calamity.

Is she not wearing pants while cutting his hair?

Wow, that’s just like my barber.

So, it’s about his heart rate and not about how angry he is. Theoretically he can turn into the Hulk with the right nightmare.

Colin:

Yeah, that’s what I thought. Unless he’s actually trying to split her in half.

“We can’t do this.”

“It’s okay, I want to.”

Two things here. First – you bought him the watch. So you should be able to hear it too. You’re treating it like you can’t hear it. Second, if you can hear it – what the fuck? “It’s okay, I want to fuck you even though it’ll turn you into the Hulk.”

And, also, third, now that I think about it. She could be thinking that he’s being a nice guy. “We can’t do this, you have a boyfriend.” “No, it’s okay, I want to cheat on him!”

“I can’t get too excited.”

“Not even a little excited?”

A HA HA HA. This is so ridiculous.

It’s okay. I hear that happens to absolutely no guy whatsoever.

He should put it in and then change and see what happens.

Colin:

Wait, so does he beat off at the bottom of a quarry or something?

That cigar is his only characterization.

Oh, and Blonsky’s awake. And fine.

Colin:

He healed up quick. She wants to get fucked.

Look at that old school phone on the wall. Where the fuck are we?

Colin:

Seriously, tell me she’s not into him right now.

He’s gonna be into her real soon.

“How do you feel?”

“Pissed off and ready for round three.”

Colin:

Oh, wow. Round three. Technically that is correct, but I still can’t say I feel like this movie has even started.

Right, though? We’ve seen shit, but has anything really happened?

At this point, wouldn’t we all prefer being back at the favela?

This is so ridiculous.

Hey, you have a cell phone. Remember when those were traceable?

“Basically, we can’t use any of this. Because they can track all of it.”

Oh, well okay. At least they acknowledged it.

“Well, my lip gloss, can they track that?”

Colin:

At this point, your lip gloss might actually be tracked.

“How are we gonna get where we need to go on forty dollars and no credit cards?”

Cut to: Betty on the corner.

“Say, baby, you ever get fucked by a Hulk dick?”

“We could sell this.”

That ain’t what he had in mind, sweetie.

The Gift of the Hulk-gi.

Colin:

Sell it. Sentimentality gets people killed.

Finally, people involved. But naturally… he made it five years, so he’s not gonna slip up now. But they’re on it, just in case.

Colin:

Where’s Pam Landy? These situation rooms always look so dumb in hero movies.

Also weird how SHIELD has nothing to do with this. They’re kind of helping, but not really, and they don’t seem to care that any of this is happening. I don’t quite understand the broad implications of this movie.

I’m guessing that’s why they don’t acknowledge it, because they made it not thinking they could really tie it in with everything else they did. And why they started from scratch in Avengers because all you really ever need to know about Hulk is that he gets angry and fucks shit up.

“American ingenuity.”

This movie is full of shitty computers.

Colin:

WINDOWS XP HAHAHA

Mr. Blue has a college email address? Way to keep your identity a secret.

IT’S CALLED GAMMA EXPOSURE DATA?

Yup, that’s exactly how the internet works.

Colin:

How is this S.H.I.E.L.D.? Shouldn’t Nick Fury be around? Shouldn’t they not all be assholes? Where’s Agent Coulson during all of this? I thought they got to him LATER, only after these army dicks fucked up. THIS is S.H.I.E.L.D.?

Which internet tube is this?

This is all Mr. Blue’s fault.

Colin:

“I’m sorry I missed you call.” What?

Edward Snowden loves this scene.

Colin:

How did they get the aliases? And if they could get them, wouldn’t he be smart enough to know that and change the names that they’re using? There are more colors you can pick, right? I know nobody wants to be Mr. Pink.

Colin:

Did…did we need to go into the computer? I bet whoever came up with this sequence still refers to it as the “information superhighway.” This looks like a cheap TV effect.

Nice jacket, asshole.

Yup. Exactly how counter intelligence works.

Colin:

Stern is Tim Blake Nelson. We all remember him from that movie he did with George Clooney in which he was a criminal. (Syriana.)

It’s always by owner. It’s never “For Sale By The Light of the Silvery Moon.”

“Fugitives from Justice.” That’s gonna be the name of that album.

Colin:

What was that picture for? And why is it always a pickup truck?

How much did they pay for that truck?

“What does it feel like?”

“Remember those experiments we volunteered for at Harvard?”

That was Natalie Portman level subtle.

“Those induced hallucinations.”

That sounds like something we’d volunteer for in college.

“It’s like someone’s poured a liter of acid in my brain.”

He only remembers fragments. Images.

Colin:

They did paid experiments involving hallucinations while at Harvard? You know who else was a test subject at Harvard and ended up getting messed up by it? THE UNABOMBER.

“But then it’s still you.”

“No. It’s not.”

“I don’t know. In the cave, I really felt like it knew me.”

Biblically?

I know where this is going. “Did you fuck my Hulk?”

But he doesn’t want to control it. He wants to get rid of it.

Colin:

Do me a favor, woman wearing glasses while driving an old pickup at night in the rain – keep your eyes on the fucking road.

Daddy just hit mommy and now everyone’s sitting in silence.

Round two of doses.

Colin:

Cutaway for like 10 seconds as we build our nemesis. These movies are not super hard to throw together, huh? I mean, they would be if they were good. But they’re not.

Wait til we get to the next franchise.

Colin:

He has dreams? He’s so…complicated.

I know. This is his only character development. I blame Marvel for this. We’ll get to this in a bit, but this is clearly Marvel’s fault.

Ah, a checkpoint.

Colin:

No tradecraft. What is the French word for ‘stakeout?’

“We gotta go. Walk toward the back, just don’t move too fast.”

Because that won’t be noticed.

YOU LEFT THE SIGN IN THE BED?!

Colin:

That’s not sketchy at all. We have some cash, or a necklace. Can you ferry us to New York?

Smart to charter the boat. Not smart to go to one of the most densely populated cities in the country with an uncontrollable rage condition.

What if he were claustrophobic? Everyone would be FUCKED.

Colin:

This feels like GTA IV, where you could randomly hop in a boat and just roll into lower Manhattan.

Yes, I think we get what city this is.

WOW. That’s like the third time they’ve done this. Unmistakable New York landmark. Aerial shot of New York City. The name, New York City on an object. What the fuck, guys? We know where we are.

This is the kind of shit that makes you appreciate what good filmmaking is. You think David Fincher bothers with this bullshit?

Colin:

Also, really? Fucking REALLY? We have the shot of them heading for the Statue of Liberty. Did we really need another establishing shot of Manhattan? Cause we then cut to them looking at a map clearly marked “New York City Subway.”

“I think the subway’s probably quickest.”

“Me, in a metal tube, deep underground, with hundreds of people, in the most aggressive city in the world?”

Colin:

They make this joke in Avengers, too. But I hope their cab driver offers them some hardcore shit made from plant shit.

Also the most “aggressive” city in the world? Let’s slow down a bit.

Never once seen a cab driver do this. Ever.

Colin:

Well, you know New York. Everything that you see in the movies is true.

Life comes at you fast.

Uh out, someone’s pretty… Liv-id.

Colin:

He’s a fun character.

Colin:

The little girl’s face as Liv screams “ASSHOLE!”

“You know, I know a few techniques that can help you manage that anger very effectively.”

Colin:

Most of us don’t need to manage anger like that. Anger is a great motivator.

“You zip it.”

“We’re walking.”

Shifty motherfucker in the overalls!

Again?!

Colin:

ANOTHER ESTABLISHING SHOT. I THINK WE’VE ESTABLISHED THE GODDAMN LOCATION.

The way we cut in close to places makes it look like horrible soundstage stuff. Not even the good soundstage stuff.

Why would you cut to giant city establishing shot, then real close on some steps?

This is awful directing.

Yeah right.

“Dr. Stearns.”

“Sorry to bother you. I’m Elizabeth Ross. I have someone who would like to meet you.”

He’s your son.

That’s how these scenes go, isn’t it?

“It’s Mr. Blue, isn’t it?”

That’s like when people figure out your user name in public.

Colin:

Everyone knows everyone. Are we done yet?

He wondered what it would be like to meet someone with that much power inside them. But here was this unassuming man shaking his hand.

No idea why that dialogue was in the movie. Or rather, no idea why that dialogue was randomly put there and then cast aside for plot.

He doesn’t know if they induce an episode and get the dosage right, if that’ll be a lasting cure.

“I don’t know.”

I’ll give Tim Blake Nelson credit. That’s a hell of a delivery.

She’s a doctor.

Colin:

Lots of name trading. This could be cut down to her calling his name and him turning around, and then they cut to the conversation inside, and we’d be just fine.

“If we overshoot this by even the smallest integer, we’re dealing with concentrations with extraordinary levels of toxicity.”

Colin:

Sorry, but I dislike most scientists. I value what they do and I trust them to inform us, but I don’t want to be in a room with one by myself.

She’s a doctor.

“Kill him? Yeah… I should say so.”

Also, there’s a danger for him, too. If they get this wrong on the opposite end of the spectrum.

But blue don’t give a fuck.

Colin:

“Look…I do kickboxing, so I’m not too worried.”

“Are we gonna do this?”

You look like Robert Carlyle on a heroin and AIDS bender.

Colin:

So many people look like other people with AIDS.

He’ll be… spine.

Or I guess… “I’ll be back.”

Colin:

Okay, so Tim Roth has back ridges. Speaking of which, can we do Hulk vs. Godzilla? They’re both green, strong, radioactive…

What’s with the random light all of a sudden? Why are we trying to make this look good this late in the game?

“How you feelin’, man?”

Reaction shots are the key to comedy.

He just has this in his apartment?

Does he dissect hookers in his spare time?

Colin:

That’s not a spare time, thing. That’s a side gig.

Always smart to have open tubes of random chemicals just laying out like that.

“These’ll protect you from yourself.”

Sure they will.

Colin:

Is it normal for biology professors to have this setup with the table and the straps? Or is this just how he determines which grad students pass?

How else are they gonna be penitent?

“You can tell me later if you thought it was strong.”

Colin:

That won’t protect you. Don’t we know this? Shouldn’t they take it and go somewhere remote? Like the quarry he jacks off at the bottom of?

Colin:

It WAS the graduate students! He has his way with them on the table! I knew it!

Colin:

I thought dialysis was for…actually unsure of which direction this joke should take.

“Oh, come on!”

That’s what you get for taking the Vikings at -7.

Why are we worried? You went into a random stranger’s loft apartment and he’s gonna shoot chemicals into you. Watching him bang a piece of equipment should not be the thing that makes you worry this won’t work.

Oh, I get it. It’s a Windows. That’s why it doesn’t work.

And now he narrates exactly what’s happening.

You’d think he’d have explained this to them before they started the process.

Colin:

This is what he does. He straps them to a table, starts to siphon their blood, then smears honey on their face for pleasure while the life seeps out of them.

Just like Lana Turner.

This looks like where they shot Deer Hunter.

Colin:

“You set to pop?” And he’s holding head tongs. Is this not BDSM? What’s the obsession with BDSM recently, by the way? I don’t get it at all. I’m not one of those weirdos who knows about leather.

Colin:

People zapping people. Stanley Milgram would be pleased. Although there are serious questions about the validity of his famous people-zapping experiment.

What are we watching right now?

I keep going back and forth about whether or not I think this movie is a piece of shit or actually underrated.

You guys ever do absinthe?

Just like this.

Colin:

Shitting pose.

Is he erect?

Colin:

Are you not?

He just… spit the bit.

Weird how bone structure can just change like that.

Actually though… shitting pose.

Fiber, man.

CGI.

He looks like if Wayne Newton played The Scorpion King in The Mummy Returns.

What if this thing turned him into the Hulk all the time, but not huge? So he was just muscular and mid-size and green all the time.

Colin:

What the fuck are they waiting for? He’s excited about the transformation and forgetting to do anything about it. This guy is just dumber than a bag of hammers.

We thought you was a toad.

What if the Hulk had kidney stones?

Colin:

I kinda want a Four Loko.

She wanna get fucked.

A Hulk finger bang is like a regular person bang.

(That was Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey.)

I love that he has stubble. What a weird detail to include.

This porno has to exist.

“Do it now.”

Trying not to cum.

Colin:

Purple got you slo-mo like ASAP Rocky!

Colin:

Well…no. That didn’t save him, cause we still have…30 minutes of movie left and there are other movies. So I dunno what’s about to happen, but I hope he loses it in a Cinnabon.

“Hi.”

Ugh.

Colin:

God, but this movie sucks. I have nothing to say.

“That. Was THE most. Extraordinary thing I’ve seen in my entire life.”

Colin:

I hate how Liv Tyler’s voice is so calm and soft even when she’s doing the big girl voice. Although it worked when she was summoning the river spirits or whomever.

He spouts some mumbo jumbo. Basically he thinks it only stopped that episode and not cured him entirely. But there’s no way of knowing, since all his test subjects died.

Test subjects?

Colin:

Test subjects? Are there gonna be Hulk gerbils? Fucking gerbils, man. You know, they just found reason to believe that it was actually the Asian gerbils that probably caused the Black Plague? Fuzzy little assholes.

Colin:

Snipers are gonna do all kinds of good, as you should well know at this point. But I do want a big command vehicle in which to play video games and bro out.

He’s been replicating and testing his blood.

He thinks they’ll unlock a bunch of cures. (But he also says applications are “limitless.” So we know what that means.)

This guy has too much free time.

“We’ve gotta destroy it.”

It’s too dangerous. Can’t be controlled.

Who needs a Nobel Prize?

Colin:

*RANDOM HAND SIGNALS*

Colin:

Did someone just say “Promethean fire?” If you’re looking for that, I know who’s got you covered.

“We have the antidote now.”

“They don’t want the antidote. They wanna make it a weapon.”

Colin:

You found the wrong guy to help. He wasn’t this chipper and naïve online earlier when you were chatting.

You have a shot, dude.

“I hate the government just as much as anyone, but you’re being a little paranoid, don’t you think?”

Colin:

Did he just say he hates the government as much as anyone? Is that something Hollywood thinks people say? Are we just trying to sell tickets to the flyovers at this point?

They’re on the eighth floor.

Nope.

Nice shriek.

Colin:

I don’t care about your daughter, I’m doin’ monkey shit now!

I’ll take the random red light.

You got a fucking dart in your neck.

Colin:

A HA HA HA HA. Will Ferrell wore it better.

Colin:

This face.

Jerk him off. It’ll get the heart rate up.

“Where is it?”

“Show him to me.”

Can his heart rate go higher while tranqued?

Colin:

Oh, so did it not work, or is the green coming back? Cause once you go green…you find yourself in the dark with a clogged toilet, I guess.

Guess not.

I bet this isn’t the first time someone’s been taken out of a dorm room this way.

“Take this.”

Throwaway shot that’ll be important later. Because why the fuck else do you give her a vest?

“If you took it from me, I will put you in a hole for the rest of your life.”

What, you just gave her a jacket? That’s it? What a waste of screen time.

Colin:

I don’t think that’s really our main concern at this point.

“I will never forgive what you’ve done to him.”

“He’s a fugitive.”

Colin:

Daddy issues, we get it. This movie is a shit Frankenstein.

“You made him a fugitive.”

“Don’t ever speak to me as your daughter again.”

So he’s speaking to her as a general and to her as a fugitive? That probably won’t work out pretty well for you.

“It’s only because you’re my daughter that you’re not in handcuffs too.”

Colin:

Kinky.

So they just left him there?

She wants to know if he can make more. He says no. Not yet, anyway. But even so, he can’t put the same Humpty Dumpty back together again.

“So Banner’s the only—”

“That’s too bad. I’d have liked to fuck her.”

“She’s an annoying bitch.”

Okay. I’ll allow it.

Colin:

So he just clocked her. He wants some of the juice, yes?

“Why are you always hitting people?”

How about – how come you just killed her?

“Now what possibly could I have done to deserve such aggression?”

“It’s not what you’ve done it’s what you’re gonna do.”

The hokey pokey? And turn himself about?

Colin:

CLICK CLACK THE GUN’S COMING OUT

“You look like you’ve got a little something in you already, don’t you?”

Colin:

Spending all that time with those grad students, he can recognize when someone has a little something in them.

He wants what Banner becomes. But doesn’t know what’s inside him already.

Colin:

He seems pretty jacked at this point anyway. What more do you need? I don’t understand his hubris at all. At least Jeff Bridges was trying to take over the company and kill Tony. We get that.

“The mixture could be…”

“An abomination.”

(YEAHH!!!!!!!)

Is that a first? The movie providing it’s own?

“I didn’t say I was unwilling.”

“I just need informed consent.”

“And you’ve given it.”

That chopper’s going down.

Colin:

Planes taking off at sunset? Actually, it wasn’t quite sunset and it wasn’t a plane, so it wasn’t quite Bay. Helicopters at night are more Michael Mann’s thing.