The Big Picture

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer

Comic book movies are usually pretty fun, which is why it's odd that the franchise that should be he most fun becomes so disappointingly dull.

The Fantastic Four series seems to have settled into its mediocrity, but they're still enjoying the view at the top of the box office. Of course, that's a double-edged sword, because as long as they open well there will be no incentive to improve things, but if they start to fail, then they just won't make any more, and this is Marvel Comics' First Family we're talking about here. If you're making comic-book movies, the FF must be involved.

The FF are unique in that they're a crime-fighting family, with all the foibles of any group of relatives trying to get along, and it should make for some great comedy. The movies, however, have lackluster dialog and strained attempts at comedy that rarely work out, which makes the first part of Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer a bit tedious to sit through. It was good to have a focus on Reed Richards, but that did make the lack of chemistry between Ioan Gruffudd and Jessica Alba that much more painful.

Business picks up when the Silver Surfer shows up and the action finally kicks in, and that's likely what drew everyone to the theaters that opening weekend. The Surfer just looks really cool, gleaming smooth on a super-fast flying surfboard and smacking Chris Evans around. He's pretty much a perfect adaptation of the character, and easily the best thing about the film franchise so far. Of course, he's the herald of Galactus, the world-devourer, a mythic figure in Marvel Comics. Trouble is, he's also a giant dude in a purple skirt and a huge papal hat. That's why we give director Tim Story a pass on this one, because there's no way that translation was going to work, no matter which direction he took it.

The biggest failing, though, has to be with Dr. Doom. Now, Dr. Doom needs to be Darth Vader in sheer presence (pre-Jake Lloyd, natch). He's a masked, arrogant Eastern European mystic with a thundering voice and immense power that can chill the bones. He is very much not Julian McMahon, whom I imagine is quite fine on Nip/Tuck. I blame the Tobey Maguire precedent of constantly having the cool masked ripped off in Spider-Man for the reason McMahon chucks the armor for most of the movie – it screams “face-time clause in the contract.” Apparently only Hugo Weaving is cool enough to commit to wearing a mask for the entirety of a comic-book movie, as evidenced in V for Vendetta.

Even this would be adequate if, when the big metal mask finally goes on, they would synthesize his voice, even slightly, to give it a darker edge. Alas, he has McMahon's light, smarmy tone that is completely incongruous with the incredibly cool Vader-esque villain we see on the screen.

Still, the high-flying action saves this movie, and definitely makes it worth the rental.

ALSO RELEASING THIS WEEK:

1408 – John Cusack stars as a paranormal travel book writer investigating a cursed hotel room. Samuel L. Jackson is the hotel manager full of warning and ominous portents. Yes, Jackson will do anything, but Cusack's presence generally means there's an interesting film to be seen here.

Civic Duty – Peter Krause (“Six Feet Under” and “Sports Night”) plays an unemployed man who becomes convinced that his neighbor is a terrorist in a riff on Hitchcock's classic Rear Window. I'm all for Krause, but why isn't Josh Charles, his co-star on “Sports Night,” just as famous as he is? I demand an explanation.

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has the number one movie in America (The Game Plan) after going the Vin Diesel route and starring in a movie where a tough guy has to deal with a child, a la The Pacifier. He's also in talks to play either the classic DC Comics superhero Captain Marvel (better known as Shazam!, for hilarious legal reasons with Marvel) or his archenemy Black Adam, which would likely increase his bankability, unlike Diesel's “wow, he looks weird with hair” turn in Find Me Guilty.

So how did a pro wrasslin' goofball get to this point? Let's chart this, shall we?

World Wrestling Entertainment (although he started back when it was still the World Wrestling Federation and the World Wildlife Fund hadn't gotten all uppity yet). There are many legends in the wrestling world, and even more “superstars,” since all of their wrestlers are obliged to call each other superstars, even if they're insulting each other (i.e. “you are the worst superstar ever!”). The Rock was the only guy who could legitimately claim the name. Sure, Stone Cold Steve Austin was a big draw, and Hulk Hogan has the name recognition and a movie career under his belt, too (Santa with Muscles is a holiday classic), but The Rock had what they didn't – a real sense of humor. He had all the tough-guy bravado, but he also had the flair and dynamic range needed to really make a splash. Didn't hurt that he was a handsome young buck to boot.

The Mummy Returns.
“Hey, we're making a movie about Egypt. We need a big scary dude to be the villain.”
“How about this guy, The Rock?”
“A pro wrestler? Sure, he could pass for Egyptian, but we can't give him any lines. Pro wrestlers can't speak. I mean, have you tried to listen to the Ultimate Warrior?”
“He doesn't need to talk, he just needs to fight at the end.”
“No, we're going to CG his head onto a big spider-thing. He doesn't even need to do that.”
“... really? That's just weird.”

The Scorpion King.
“Hey, that movie did pretty well.”
“And it seems our demos on it exploded just because this Rock guy was in it”
“Give him his own spin-off! We'll let him talk and fight this time, and we'll make him a good guy instead of the evil psycho he was in this movie!”
“... how does that make any sense?”
“Movie magic, I tells ya! I'm greenlighting this cheesy Conan thing!”

The Rundown. Finally, The Rock has come back to the present day. It's a test of his talent that he now has to play the straight man to Seann William Scott after being known for bombastic comedy in the wrestling world. He also has to act like a real person instead of an ancient warrior of questionable historical accuracy. Still, it's an action comedy, just like pro wrestling, and Christopher Walken is there making speeches about the tooth fairy. That's a formula for fun.

Walking Tall. A somewhat more serious tone for him, as he's segueing into being Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson instead of just The Rock, but making him into a more somber badass doesn't quite really exploit his talents. Yeah, he's big and muscular, but the 'zazz is his biggest strength. But it's a reasonably satisfying revenge fantasy, and he wields a 2x4, so they're definitely doing something right.

Be Cool. The ill-advised sequel to Get Shorty allowed “The Rock” Johnson to stretch his public perception a bit by playing a gay bodyguard aspiring to be a movie star. A good supporting role in an ensemble cast to build up the cred, and an opportunity to be more than just a tough guy.

Doom. A video game adaptation is rarely the best move, especially with the occasionally nauseating cinematography, and he's back to tough guy mode. Let's skip this one.

Gridiron Gang. Drawing on his football history with the Miami Hurricanes, we get a sports movie based on a true story about a rag-tag group of misfits in juvie who try to make good. A safe movie to make, and it did well enough.

The Game Plan. Number one at the box office, but another predictable football movie. One might think he's in trouble and might be stuck in this kind of role for a while, if it wasn't for...

Get Smart. That's right, he's starring with uber-funnyman and big-time star Steve Carell in the remake of the classic Don Adams TV series, and this kind of comedy has the potential to get The Rock right back into the thick of things.

Or so we hope, because if Stone Cold Steve Austin's The Condemned or John Cena's The Marine are any indication, there's not a heck of a lot wrestlers can do once they're done taking bumps for a living. We want Dwayne Johnson to stick around.

A smattering of tidbits from the movie world.

4 Fast 4 Furious - Comingsoon.net says that Vin Diesel and Paul Walker are returning for another sequel, to be helmed and written by Justin Lin and Chris Morgan, who performed the respective tasks on 3 Fast 3 Furious: Tokyo Drift. Yeah, this can't be good.

McTerminator - Chud.com has rumors abounding that Charlie's Angels director McG might give us his rendition of the robot apocalypse by directing Terminator 4. The setting of the script in the post-Skynet world would seem to indicate that the series may have finally outgrown Arnold Schwarzenegger.

What's left to mock? - Variety reports that Kevin Dillon is going to star in "National Lampoon's 301: The Legend of Awesomest Maximus Wallace Leonidas," and 300 guesses what it's spoofing. But there's no way it's going to get any better than United 300.

Thursday the 12th - Hollywood Reporter says that a remake of Friday the13th is in the works, but it sounds more like a "reimagineering." The original film focused on Jason's mother, but this one will have Jason in the hockey mask from the get-go. Freddy vs. Jason scribes Damian Shannon and Mark Swift are on board again. Can 80s horror resurge? Personally, I'd take Jason Voorhees punching a guy's head clean off over Matthew Lillard in a bathrobe any day.

According to Variety, Eddie Murphy is reteaming with "Head of the Class" star and Norbit director Brian Robbins to make a movie about a man who finds out he can only say one thousand more words before he dies, appropriately titled "A Thousand Words." This, of course, means that Murphy will also have to play the man's 500-pound girlfriend, his 500-pound brother, his 500-pound father and his 500-pound son. The man loves his fat suits, and he loves his fat jokes.

Perhaps even more disturbing is the idea of Murphy developing a movie version of "Fantasy Island." No word on whether he's going to star or just be behind the scenes, but dollars to donuts he's going to play both Ricardo Montalban AND Hervé Villechaize.

As you might have surmised from the crazy amount of business the live-action Transformers movie did this summer, there's a sequel in the works.

Yes, Michael Bay is directing it again, so at least the action will be insanely bombastic again.

The two scriptwriters, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, are also returning, but The Hollywood Reporter says that a third scribe is being added, one Ehren Kruger, writer of The Ring.

This means the guys who thought a sound military tactical decision when dealing with giant death robots from space would be "let's run this thing they really want right smack dab into a heavily populated area" are getting writing help from the guy who made many of us feel old because VHS tapes can now be considered creepy and mysteriously old-timey.

Not sure how to take the news, really. On one hand, they've got the fans interests at heart, because if they'd gone the way they'd originally planned, that jittery little weirdo CD-player thing would have been Soundwave, and that just wouldn't have been right, so they changed it to Frenzy. On the other hand, Bumblebee urinated on John Turturro, who had to work really hard at eating the scenery to make his dialog funny. That was very much not right.

Perhaps even more concerning is the reason Kruger is being brought in is because Orci and Kurtzman are too busy writing the screenplay for the all-new, all-young, all-fresh, all funky "Star Trek" movie, in which Matt Damon is said to be considered too old to play Captain James T. Kirk. "Star Trek" is known as being a relatively high-concept (if low-budget) series, so the guys who wrote a robot peeing on John Turturro may not seem like the best fit for lofty philosophical debates. You have to think that Captain Kirk wouldn't steal dilithium crystals from the heavily armed and violent Klingons and then run into a crowded market, right?

This may be a bit unfair, though. Most big sci-fi/comic-book adaptations like this have second chapters that blow away the first, once all of the cumbersome origin exposition is out of the way, so maybe they'll kick it up a few notches. Spider-Man 2 > Spider-Man, X2 > X-Men, etc. We need not get into how the third installments start to stumble. It's possible we'll get a heck of a lot more giant robot action in Transformers 2: Electric Boogaloo, but I think I can speak for most everyone when I plead for a bit more than primer paint on these guys, so we can tell them apart during the big shaky-cam fighty hoe-down at the end.

The Heartbreak Kid - Word has it that this isn't your standard Ben Stiller "romcom," (which is "romantic comedy" for those who want to be all insider-like) where it's a test of how long you can stand watching some poor schmuck get humiliated. Nor does it seem to be your standard Farrelly Brothers fart-fest, but rather a darkly funny flick about just how self-destructive we can be in our love lives, and it may surprise a lot of people at the end.

Feel the Noise - Looks to be the standard 'struggling musician beats the odds and becomes a superstar' flick, and the rise to the top can always be interesting. Jennifer Lopez is producing it, though, so with any luck, we'll get to see the trials and tribulations of B2K member Omari Grandberry starring in a remake of Money Train on his way to celebrity. Likely, though, he'll just be rapping in Puerto Rico.

The Seeker: The Dark is Rising - A fantasy movie about a young unlikely boy chosen for a great magical destiny. This is, of course, the plot of just about every fantasy movie ever, from Frodo to Luke Skywalker. However, with Ian McShane of "Deadwood" as the mystical mentor, one can't help but hope that the child learns to save the world while cussing out the bad guys.

AP - Owen Wilson showed up at the Los Angeles premiere for his new film with Wes Anderson, The Darjeeling Limited, which has to be a pretty awkward public appearance after his suicide attempt in late August.

Anderson's quote was notable. "I've never made a movie without him and I hope I never have to."

Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, and now this one, where Wilson stars as one of three brothers (Adrien Brody and Jason Schwartzman are the other two) who travel across India to renew their estranged bonds.

Other folks at the premiere of the highly-anticipated film were Brody, Schwartzman, Natalie Portman, Anjelica Huston, Peter Bogdanovich, Mike White, Roman Coppola and Rosanna Arquette.

How does one feel after something like that? Does the snapping of pictures and forced smiling and nodding just make everything seem that much more hollow and empty, or could he possibly be taking comfort in his life returning to the normal abnormality of celebrity?

Let's hope it's the latter. Wilson's one of the good ones, and it would be a crying shame to lose him.

Wes Anderson has made a good number of weirdly quiet and off-beat movies that generally become critical darlings, and film nerds rejoice at their arrival. This is perhaps due to the fact that one never really knows what's about to happen next in an Anderson film, and for people who watch movies for a living, it's an incredibly refreshing experience.

The other aspect of his films is that he rarely beats you over the head with the story points. They're usually well-disguised with odd dialog and unusual character tics. (I hope you appreciate the fact that I'm attempting to write this entire review without using the word 'quirky.')

The three estranged Whitman brothers - controlling Francis (Owen Wilson), selfish Peter (Adrien Brody) and frustrated Jack (Jason Schwartzman) - have come together in India on the Darjeeling Limited train line to try and force themselves to have a spiritual journey and recover their familial bonds, since they haven't spoken for the whole year after their father died.

Most movies with this kind of premise would have everybody constantly kvetching about how they're being dragged into this, but it's relatively clear from the get-go that the three brothers would very much like to do this - they just have no idea how to make it work. Either that, or they're all just running from their lives and this is the only place they had to run toward.

It's that typical Anderson style of being consistently engaging, amusing and surprising, but rarely actually making one laugh out loud. It's a very strange sort of comedy he brings us, but in a world full of Norbit and Epic Movie, I think it's very much welcome.

Wilson is his usual low-key yet magnetic self as the man organizing the whole thing while his entire head is bandaged up for pretty much the whole film. Much will likely be made of coincidental parallel between his character and his recent tragic episode in reality, but for Francis, it serves as the impetus to take this journey in the first place.

Brody and Schwartzman also turn in quietly compelling performances as the brothers who occasionally resent being led around by Francis, but easily fall into lockstep behind him anyway. The old routines you grow up with never really die, and it's so easy to settle right back into them no matter how much time has passed.

Even though the movie ends with quite possibly the most blatantly obvious metaphor ever used in an Anderson film, it still feels good to see it. This family isn't made up of the most likable people in the world, but once the forced companionship ends and the epiphanies begin, you start to see why everyone is they way they are, and it feels entirely natural.

See it. Feel it. Think about it.

Best Performance: Owen Wilson
Water Cooler Line: "Let's make an agreement..."
Rating: 4 stars out of 5

Alan Tudyk has gotten Joss Whedon fans utterly twitterpated.

Whedonites are abuzz at this Moviehole interview with the star of Serenity, and previously "Firefly," where he was speaking about how well the Serenity DVD sales have been, which prompted the release of Serenity: The Special Editon.

“They had to put [the SE DVD] out because they’ve been selling out of the other one [the initial release] and so Universal’s like ‘So, let’s do another one’", Tudyk said, adding "And now… there’s now a chance there’s going to be another movie”.

For those not in the know, a quick Whedon refresher. He's a screenwriter who created Buffy The Vampire Slayer as a Kristy Swanson film and years later transmuted it into a long-running TV series that has a passionately strong cult following to this day, even prompting the spin-off "Angel." "Firefly" was his follow-up, a critically-acclaimed sci-fi swashbuckling western that was lamentably cancelled after one season. The Whedonites, however, made enough noise that it merited a feature film as another chance at glory. Sadly, it wasn't resoundingly achieved - which is why it needed strong DVD sales to bring about talk of a sequel.

Hollywood lately has been catering to the fanboys and fangirls of the world - genre fanatics who are generally also a really strong internet presence, who help create the buzz that can make or break a film months before it's even finished. Whedon has the market cornered on these fanfolk, especially with the help of his hot-selling work on Marvel Comics' "Astonishing X-Men" and by putting out "Buffy: Season 8" in comic-book format.

The curious part of all this, though, is that Tudyk's character actually died in the first film, so fans are likely also buzzing about how he'd even be included if a second film was made. The next chapter would be welcomed, though, as "Firefly" wasn't nearly as cloying as "Buffy" could be and, due to its outer-space setting, it was unable to rely on pop-culture references as a crutch for easy, cheap jokes. Therefore, "Firefly" was forced to be a better show, and it achieved that by essentially being "the continuing adventures of Han Solo." Sure, there are a few differences between Harrison Ford's charming rogue and Nathan Fillion's outlaw Captain Mal Reynolds, but a lack of Wookiee does not make him any less entertaining.

Fingers are crossed for "Serenity 2: Electric Boogaloo," and this time with better pacing.

The Heartbreak Kid, starring Ben Stiller and directed by Peter and Bobby Farrelly, was expected to win the box office battle this week, opening against a couple of movies starring mostly unknowns - Feel the Noise and The Seeker: The Dark is Rising. It did manage to beat out its main competitors, but when the tallies were totaled, it only made $14 million, putting it in second place behind The Game Plan, The Rock's light comedy that held on to the top spot for the second week in a row with $16.3 million. The blame is being laid on unexpectedly harsh reviews contradicting the positive reaction from test audiences.

AP's Box Office Results

1. The Game Plan, $16.3 million
2. The Heartbreak Kid, $14 million
3. The Kingdom, $9.3 million
4. Resident Evil: Extinction, $4.3 million
5. The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising, $3.7 million
6. Good Luck Chuck, $3.5 million
7. Feel the Noise, $3.4 million
8. 3:10 to Yuma, $3 million
9. The Brave One, $2.3 million
10. Mr. Woodcock, $2 million

LA Weekly's got a report that Warner Bros. president of production Jeff Robinov has said that they will no longer be making films with a female lead, thanks to the apparent underperformance of The Brave One and The Invasion.

This is paralyzingly stupid.

What else needs to be said?

Open in limited release at the moment, soon to be everywhere, is Michael Clayton, the latest George Clooney saga about doing the right thing. The odds are that it's going to get a Best Supporting Actor nomination for Tom Wilkinson. True, it's a showy 'crazy prophet' kind of role, but he makes an incredibly magnetic performance out of it.

We start with a gloriously rambling speech by Arthur Edens (Wilkinson), then a broken Michael Clayton (Clooney) staring wistfully at horses and a sweaty and nervous Karen Crowder (Tilda Swinton) hyperventilating in a bathroom, We soon learn that Karen is the head of the in-house legal team for UNorth, a pesticide company with a fifteen-year multi-billion dollar class-action lawsuit pending against them, and Clayton, in his own words, is "not a miracle worker, I'm a janitor" for the law firm representing her company. She's also well-rehearsed and a little high-strung, as there is understandably a lot of tension in her position, and it's only magnified by the fact that Arthur Edens, who has been spearheading their case for over a decade, stripped naked during a deposition and went off on a rant about how much he loves one of the plaintiffs.

Understandably, this is an embarrassment for the law firm, and Clayton is sent in to diffuse it. Edens is off his meds, for one thing, and he also vanishes out from under Clayton's nose, and thus it becomes a game of trying to corral the wild-card with enough insider information to blow the case wide open. Trouble is, Clayton is a recovering gambler who's busy drowning in debt thanks to his failed restaurant venture with his drug-addict brother, so if this case explodes this way, his firm could go under and his only source of income would be lost. Both Karen and Michael have a hell of a lot to lose if the truth about UNorth's guilt actually comes out, but they use vastly different methods to deal with the problem.

Writer/Director Tony Gilroy gives us a mood that is downbeat and sullen, and the pacing is slow enough that it's appropriately jarring when the big things start to happen. Clooney gives a quiet and compelling performance as Clayton, a failing businessman and disenchanted lawyer none too happy with how his life is unfolding. I honestly don't think he smiled once throughout the whole film. Wilkinson's broken and ranting Arthur Edens is a fantastic and energetic portrayal of how bad things have gotten in the world when one has to go crazy to do what's right, and urging us to "make believe it's not madness."

Swinton might also win a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her part as the corporate climber so desperate to hold on to her perch that she goes to drastic extremes, and then finds herself ultimately consumed by panic that she'll be discovered. In fact, the most interesting part of the film is that we get to see very little cartoonish villainy, but rather a seemingly realistic portrayal of how corporate crime can just start to snowball beyond anyone's control, not to mention how tricky it can be for the goon squad to pull off the dirty deeds so they look perfectly clean. Incredible how we're almost rooting for the two high-end thugs (Robert Prescott and Terry Serpico) when they're desperately trying to find Clayton after a job half-done.

At first, the conclusion seemed a bit too pat for me, as if we were suddenly in every other movie in the world where the good guy comes through in the end (although it's not a total victory by any means), but upon further reflection, it might be just what was required. There's an hour and forty-five minutes of this dark malaise about the world we're observing, encapsulated by senior partner Marty Bach's (Sydney Pollack) response to Clayton when he questions whether or not they're on the right side. Bach simply replies "This whole case stunk since day one! Fifteen years in, I gotta tell you how we pay the bills?"

After something like that, perhaps the point of such an ending was to really convey just how satisfying it has to be to do the right thing, regardless of the consequences, by finally having Clayton let some Clooney out to show us just how good he actually is at this job he hates.

Overall, an enjoyable film. It never feels quite as heavy as it thinks it is, but it's certainly a good way to spend a couple hours.

Best Performance: I'll give it to Tilda Swinton, just because it's not nearly as boisterous a role as Wilkinson's, and as such, I bet Wilkinson had more fun with his part.
Water Cooler Line: "I'm Shiva, the God of Death!" (there's also a line about Lithuanian mouths that's great, but it's not really repeatable here)
Rating: 4 stars out of 5.

Film Threat has stumbled across an ingenious way to raise breast cancer awareness - by exploiting the obsession with breasts themselves. They've created a list of the 50 Best Breasts in Movie History, although to be honest, it seems more like the 50 Best Breasts We Could Find Good Youtube Videos For. Notably absent would be Angelina Jolie, Salma Hayek, Jennifer Love Hewitt... I'm sure you'll think of more, but it's a pretty classic list, and since it's for a charity, there's no guilt! Enjoy!

A quick rundown of the trailers I saw in front of Michael Clayton:

The Bucket List: Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman play old guys who try to complete a list of "things to do before I kick the bucket." Freeman is once again King of the Narrators, trading on The Shawshank Redemption cred, and Nicholson is apparently his usual lovable bastard self. Still, the trailer makes it seem a bit trite, and Rob Reiner's direction may confirm that, but it could be saved by the power of its leads.

Rails and Ties: Kevin Bacon runs over a kid's mother with a train. Then he and his wife, Marcia Gay Harden, wind up taking the boy in. Not quite as exciting as the first sentence would suggest, and it seems like "a touching story about the importance of family," although with a dark and moody tone. Go for it, if you're into that kind of thing.

Lions for Lambs: A politically-charged drama, featuring Tom Cruise as an apparently Republican Congressman haggling with reporter Meryl Streep while soldiers fight in Afghanistan and Robert Redford tries to punch public apathy in the face. The preview, however, kinda felt like I was watching the pundit shows, and every dramatic line felt like something I'd heard a hundred times on the news. With any luck, this will cut through the chaff and get people on their feet again and involved in what happens in this country, but it'll likely be dismissed as another polemic.

Latino Review has some explosive clips from the set of The Incredible Hulk, the latest adaptation of one of Marvel Comics' flagship characters.

The new version stars Edward Norton as the much put-upon Dr. Bruce Banner, who must control his emotions at all time, lest he let the green goliath known as the Hulk out to rampage against the puny humans who would dare try to hurt him. Co-starring with Norton are Liv Tyler, playing the role of Betty Ross, the one woman who tries to stick by Banner, and William Hurt as General Thaddeus Ross, Betty's father and a man obsessed with trying to kill the Hulk. This makes for an interesting character dynamic, and the worst potential father-in-law ever. The normally subtle Hurt is an odd choice for the role of the boisterous army commander, but if he can get an Oscar nomination for less than ten minutes of screen time in A History of Violence, he certainly earns the benefit of the doubt.

Everyone involved with the film seems to feel the need to make it clear that this is a different film than the Hulk film Ang Lee made back in 2003, starring Eric Bana and Jennifer Connelly. This may, in fact, mark one of the quickest reboots of a franchise in history - it took the 007 franchise 20 whole films before they finally tried something different.

Lee's film was not well received, despite it's respectable box office take, mostly due to its ponderous pace and the fact that there is no Hulk for the whole first half of the film. Truth be told, however, this was likely due to the fact that the technology of creating the Hulk was actually being pioneered by this crew, and the astronomical cost of doing such a thing means they probably couldn't do as much of it as they'd hoped. The casting of Lee's film was great, but the script was curious. Nick Nolte was perfect as Bruce's insane and abusive father, but the final act where he transformed into some weird glowing jellyfish of power was... as misguided choice, to put it mildly. The gamma poodle didn't help, either. They championed it as "coming straight out of the comic books," but not everything that sees print is worth saving. They've been putting out an issue a month since the 1960s - you're bound to have some duds.

This is what is concerning about this new film. It's being directed by Louis Leterrier, who gave us Transporter 2 and Unleashed, but according to the panel at the San Diego Comic-Con, Norton is not only starring, but he wrote the script, and he cited his main references as the classic 1970s television show "The Incredible Hulk," starring Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno, as well as the run of Hulk comics penned by Bruce Jones.

The Bruce Jones connection is potentially dangerous. The general impression is that they're going with the good part of his run on the title, which was Banner on the run, barely keeping a step ahead of the government, while getting aid from a mysterious benefactor. It was good for keeping tension up, and it's something that could be very filmable. The trouble is that when it came time for Jones to deal with the Hulk's supporting cast, he systematically ruined them all, from Betty Ross to the Abomination, turning him from the tragic figure he was into a one-note wife-beating villain.

The Abomination is in this film as well, although he starts out as a spy named Emil Blonsky, played by Tim Roth. Roth should be able to bring the necessary depth to Blonsky, who is caught in a gamma radiation accident and trapped in the form of a hideous green beast, and thus unable to ever be with his beloved wife Nadia ever again, but if they go with the Jones version, there'll be no tragedy, just ugliness.

Another cause for concern is the fact that most comic-book film franchises tend to falter when they try to put more than one villain into the story (a notable exception being Batman Begins). In addition to Blonsky, there's another villain by the name of The Leader, aka Samuel Sterns, to be played by Tim Blake Nelson. Nelson is an excellent choice for the lowly soul whose own gamma treatment mutates him into a twisted genius, but will the synergy be there between the two villains, or will it be a haphazard pairing, a la Venom and Sandman in Spider-Man 3? That remains to be seen.

In the meantime, enjoy watching stuff blow up. Tis the magic of the movies.