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I usually write my reviews in order of when the movies were seen, but since I always seem to be falling behind, I think I'm going to start posting about new releases as top priorities. That will start with Get Smart, since I actually saw The Incredible Hulk over a week ago.

I'm not sure if there were many people who enjoyed Ang Lee's take on the Incredible Hulk, starring Eric Bana and Jennifer Connolly. I think I rated it as the second-to-last worst movie of 2003 (right above Anger Management). So it was safe for me to assume that I'd like this version better unless someone did something incredibly wrong. I was also interested because the movie stars Edward Norton and Tim Roth, who tend to make movies that I enjoy.

While the last version focused on how the Hulk became the Hulk, this version skipped through the How and jumped forward to show Bruce Banner's attempt to live a life without incident (without letting his heart rate to reach 200 and trigger Hulkification). One thing I didn't like about Lee's Hulk was that we never really got the feeling that the Hulk was becoming a superhero. He just had a lot of strength. By the end of this movie, I got the feeling that I had seen the beginnings of some real superhero fighting and catchphrases. I liked hearing "Hulk Stomp" shouted out during a climactic battle.

Like Iron Man, this comic book hero movie uses the desire for technological advances in military weapons as the bad guys' goal, and the accidental result is a superhero. Just like in Iron Man, the bad guy (Tim Roth with William Hurt's help instead of Jeff Bridges) is a bigger and badder looking version of the hero, and they will ultimately fight each other in an impressive battle. I liked the development of Roth's Emil Blonsky, whose progression from soldier to grotesque thingamabob somehow seems reasonable in the hands of a good actor. Likewise, Norton is more likable than I ever would have expected, and does a great job as Banner.

The movie's one weakness, for me, was Tim Blake Nelson (whom I usually admire). This movie is mostly grounded in a realistic setting and the fights are supposed to feel a little bit more real-life. It doesn't feel like Spider-Man or X-Men, and while there are a few laughs here and there, it's mostly more serious. Tim Blake Nelson jumps in as a physical realization of Goofy himself, and is so incredibly annoying that I thought the whole movie was ruined for a while there, when he was on screen. It reminded me of John Turturro in Transformers (maybe not quite that bad). Thankfully, his role isn't a large one, and if you hang in there, he goes away after a while. I'm just not sure if it was a casting issue or direction, but he was a sore thumb in the middle of an otherwise good movie.

I like the settings of this movie a lot better than the first as well. Rather the middle of nowhere, it moves around in location, but is always in the middle of a city. At first it's cramped Brazilian streets and a bottling factory, and then it's in well-populated areas of the U.S., including a university and busy city blocks.

Overall this movie was tens of times an improvement when compared with Ang Lee's take on the Hulk. The script is a lot smarter (minus one too many of Hulk's big yells), the Hulk is better realized as a character, and the action is better too. Of course, this movie comes standard with your expected Stan Lee and Lou Ferigno appearances, and yes, the promised appearance of Tony Stark (and Nick Fury's name flashing in the opening sequence) is there too. It's got so much more to offer, and is well made. It's not my favorite comic book movie (I tend to prefer the less realism-based ones), but it's a respectable entry and has promise for future movies.

P.S. Work is affecting me more than it ought - I was sitting in the middle of this movie thinking.. "Bruce Banner is the Hulk. We're converting our software to Banner and we've been calling it the beast... we should be calling Banner the Hulk!"