and his men, who have followed Banner to Sterns’ office. After Banner is carted away, the fully healed Emil Blonsky appears and demands that Sterns inject him with Banner’s gamma-irradiated blood. Blonsky is transformed into a grotesque “abomi- nation,” and subsequently goes on a rampage, forcing Banner to face the decision of whether to transform, yet again, into the Hulk. THE INCREDIBLE HULK also concludes with a “teaser” scene, as did IRON MAN, but it is placed prior to the end credits sequence rather than at its tail end. In the scene, General Ross is revealed to be sitting in a bar, very drunk, when IRON MAN’s Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) enters. Stark tells him that he is assembling a “team” that might be able help Ross with his “unusual problem.” Given that both THE INCREDIBLE HULK and IRON MAN bear the Marvel Studios logo and were released just a few weeks apart, the overlap of stories is no great surprise. What is ambiguous about the scene, though, is whether the Tony Stark as depicted in the scene is the pre- or post-IRON MAN personal- ity. While the film was released after IRON MAN, and drawings of the pulse cannons shown during THE INCREDIBLE HULK’s opening credits bear the corporate logo of Stark Industries, this informa- tion in itself doesn’t resolve the ambiguity in his character in the teaser scene. In any case, the scene promises further adventures to come, most likely in the form of a film featuring The Avengers. Ang Lee’s HULK also promised further adven- tures, but as the plot-driven summary of THE IN- CREDIBLE HULK makes clear, in contrast to Ang Lee’s psychoanalytic approach, in which Banner


is filled with repressed Oedipal rage, director Louis Leterrier and screenwriter Zak Penn dispense al- most entirely with the story of the Hulk’s origin, restricting it to the film’s first couple minutes dur- ing the opening credits sequence. They opt in- stead for the shorthand of a scientific experiment gone wrong. Their version thus becomes an ac- tion-oriented approach to the Jekyll/Hyde arche- type, in which Banner, as a hunted fugitive, is unable to keep the chains on his adrenaline-trig- gered beast within. The Blonsky character, even- tually hulkified into a nemesis called the Abomination, is perhaps too suggestive of an ath- lete resorting to “performance enhancing” drugs in order to bolster his physical performance, with predictably disastrous results. Minimally an origin story, Universal’s revamp reveals an adherence to the “continuing adventures of” formula that made the 1970s television show so successful (Bill Bixby receives a brief hommage during a scene in which Bruce Banner is shown watching a rerun of THE COURTSHIP OF EDDIE’S FATHER, and Lou Ferrigno not only plays a minor role in the film as well, as he did in 2003’s HULK).


Universal’s Blu-ray presentation is outstanding. Framed at 2.35:1, the image is vividly textured and three-dimensional, with extremely sharp detail. Although various shades of green bathe many scenes, fleshtones are accurate, and colors are consistently bright and saturated. The disc fea- tures a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack that takes full advantage of surround sound ambience, with sounds bouncing nicely from channel to chan- nel. With the volume loud, the Hulk’s roar (also


Irradiated blood removed from the angered Banner helps transform adversary Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth) into the Hulk-like Abomination.


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