The Hulk

Newsnight Review discussed film-maker Ang Lee's The Hulk.

(Edited highlights of the panel's review taken from the teletext subtitles that are generated live for Newsnight Review.)

KWAME KWEI-ARMAH:
The big question was why did Lee do this movie. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon a classic in our time. I found the film to be quite trite actually. I thought all of the dialogue was expositional. It was like all the screen writers were writing it so it could be easily translated across the globe. Very little beneath the surface. It felt like a video game. It's great for my kids. They'll love it. For me, I found myself scratching my head, thinking why was the film made. Even though it took the most money in June, stocks in marvel went down 10% for fear it would not go down well. It has not served its master well.

MARK LAWSON:
It has it seemed to me the problem that the comic book is a quick form. He slows it down. It's more than an hour before we see the Hulk.

PROFESSOR JOHN CAREY:
The human story is very slow. I like it better than Kwame. He's batting helicopters out of the sky. A tank, battling another tank. These are fantastic liberations. It's an ambivalent film about anger. On the one hand it's saying anger is liberating. You can get your own back on the bullies. Everyone wants to do that. On the other hand really you should turn the other cheek. When Glenn is hitting him, he won't let anger out. And the evil father wants him to be angry. It teeters on this. It's not bad. Who agrees about anger? It recognises we disagree.

BONNIE GREER:
I hated the film when I was watching it. I thought get me out of here. But the next day I thought it's interesting what Ang Lee is trying do - first of all there are too many narratives. There's too much going on. Isn't it interesting he's putting a bad dad in a film. The core audience will be 18 to 20- year-old guys. There's a father/son issue. And a father daughter issue. The end where they're sitting there, talking, it's long and boring, but it puts in questions, that I thought were interesting.

MARK LAWSON:
It's long, boring, but does ask some questions!. Father and son, you say, and there's hours of that stuff, but all American movies are about fathers and sons.

BONNIE GREER:
When you have big giant creatures leaping in the screen you don't generally have that in it, with discussions in it. This is the director of the Ice Storm with the family issue in the middle of it. Fascinating.

MARK LAWSON:
Frankenstein is there. That was there in the original comic. Frankenstein and Jekyll and Hyde and Beauty and the Beast is clearly there in the film. These myths give it power.

KWAME KEI-ARMAH:
It's interesting you say that. I found it was Jekyll and Hyde without the danger. I thought it was King Kong without the sex. It was all of these myths without the quintessential ingredients that makes me think it was wonderful.

BONNIE GREER:
It has the most interesting film dissolves I've ever seen. He would walk past a pole and it would be dissolved into another scene. Technically on that level it was amazing.

PROFESSOR JOHN CAREY:
The special effects were terrific.

MARK LAWSON:
You believed in it?

PROFESSOR JOHN CAREY:
It's not meant to be believed in. It's not sinister like Jekyll and Hyde.

BONNIE GREER:
It's also Ang Lee's calling card to the industry. Saying I can make this kind of picture. He's a jobbing director and he's trying something. There are beautiful moments in this. There are. The whole thing is too long.