Tuesday 4 January 2011

The Incredible Hulk


Edward Norton hopes to avoid a future wearing stretch pants by finding a cure to his Hulk-ifying.

Pursued by a utterly unconvincing Tim Roth, Norton is helped in his task by his girlfriend - whose father just happens to be the US army officer tasked with tracking the Hulk down - who-da-thunk-it?

Tracked to a university campus the Hulk does battle with a small regiment of army forces. He successfully fights off each wave of attack as progressively heavier artillery is brought in, but to little effect.

Finally a helicopter gunship is called up. The Hulk flings a metal sheet that he’s been using a shield at the chopper, bringing it down. It crashes into the turf and rotor blades sheer off, cartwheeling across the ground.

Verdict

Very satisfying. As soon as the helicopter appears on screen you know it’s doomed. The explosion is handled well and spinning rotor blades skim across the turf in dramatic fashion.

Number of helicopters

1

Relevance to plot

Excellent. If anything you wonder why the Army only had one gunship on hand.

Artistic merit

The sight of the rotor blades sheer off and skim across the turf is a nice touch, adding an element of surprise and tension - will the Hulk going to be split in two? - to the scene.

Exploding helicopter innovation

It’s likely that someone’s done it before, but I can’t remember rotor blades coming off intact and acting as some kind of deadly throwing star before. Until evidence to the contrary emerges The Incredible Hulk shall have the honour of claiming this first.

Positives

A text book helicopter explosion. Entirely unnecessary yet plausible within the confines of the film.

Negatives

We see nothing of the pilots point of view, a classic, “What the….?” comment as the chopper takes it’s hit from the shield would have complemented the scene perfectly.


Review by: Jafo

1 comment:

  1. I always wondered why Bruce Banner just didn't wear Lyrca instead of ripping his clothes everytime.

    No wonder he was so angry with clothing costs that astronomical.....

    ReplyDelete