Word on the street is that the movie got chopped up quite a bit in the editing room
That would explain a lot. But even so, editing really shouldn't be this bad. The movie had terrible pacing and that really kills it for film audiences. I knew what was going on, but a lot of other people sure wouldn't.
I actually thought this was better than Iron Man, because I was one of the few that thought Iron Man was overrated.
I will agree that Iron Man was overrated but I will not agree that The Incredible Hulk was better. The thing that made Iron Man so good was Robert Downey Jr. defining the Tony Stark character very well. Ed Norton is a good actor, but didn't feel that Bruce Banner was very fleshed out as an interesting character. He felt rather nondescript, and I couldn't care or be interested in him in any way other than just generally.
Action is better for The Incredible Hulk, but (This is just my opinion) when a hero is 100% CG it makes it difficult to feel like he is in any real danger. I can still suspend my belief enough though- like I said, I had a lot of fun watching The Incredible Hulk, but that's really about it.
At least this new Hulk seems to be catering to the geeks and people who have realized that comic book movies CAN be taken seriously.
That was the problem everyone had with Hulk though- it was taken TOO seriously. The story of two adults who have had problems with their fathers all their life was too depressing for a lot of people, and the film tried to look at some real issues that are within the world (Which is something a lot of comic books lose when they're transferred to the big screen).
I will agree that Ang Lee was being kind of silly thinking he could do something new with the superhero movie genre and have a good reception for it, but I think comic book fans are being too hard on Hulk the same way a lot of critics are being too hard on The Incredible Hulk. They're looking for things that arn't there but don't see what the film ends up doing very well.
Just for discussion's sake, I guess, I'll put in some stuff I wrote on another forum. You can skip this if you're a tl;dr kinda guy though. Some of it is just repetition of what I said above anyway.
1. Story/Characters were actually interesting.
In Ang Lee's Hulk, I found myself actually caring about the characters. I never imagined in a million years that would be moved by a superhero movie, so I was amazed at what Ang Lee had done. This, however, was a mixed bag. I realize Lee chose the wrong audience to do this with, as most of the people going to watch a movie like Hulk are more than likely expecting an insipid mish-mash of action sequences, and that's exactly what people got with T.I. Hulk.
2. Story was receptive to all audiences.
In T.I. Hulk, the background story is explained through a series of pictures at the beginning of the movie, and if you miss any of this, you'll not have a clue of what the hell is going on screen until about a half an hour in when they explain some of this stuff, and most of it is given piece-by-piece. It's incredibly annoying to me when comic book movies are too self-indulgent in their source material, and T.I. Hulk makes this mistake all over the place. I watched this movie with my father, someone who you would never imagine being at a Superhero movie, and he was constantly asking me questions at the beginning of the movie because he was really confused as to what was going on. Around the middle and end parts he was fine, but then there was the very end where Tony Stark appears and alludes to the formation of The Avengers. Most people don't know what the hell he's talking about- not everyone reads comics or knows about the superhero teams. Please, please, film directors: Be receptive to all of your audience. There's even less of a reason to make this one confusing because this was a reboot, not a sequel.
Don't worry though, my dad enjoyed the film, mostly. :P
3. Style.
Ang Lee's Hulk had a distinctive comic book style that I had never seen done before with films, and I know this was very subjective, but I found it to be really interesting and innovative way to make the movie seem fresh. Not much else to say here, I know a lot of people didn't like it, but I liked it because of it making a deep impression as a standalone movie.
Now I'm aware of a lot of the counterpoints, so I'm going to say the things I liked about T.G.Hulk better: The Action and The Humor. I don't think any further explanation is necessary.
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