I wasn’t very enthralled by the trailers for The Incredible Hulk until one of the last TV spots appeared that, I don’t know, just made me a little more curious. I’d read good things about the film and decided that there were worse ways of spending an evening.

I’ve got to say that I really enjoyed it. It’s not as good as Iron Man and is very different to Ang Lee’s more ponderous version and, overall, I’d say it’s a better film for it. It doesn’t try to be so clever which is probably a good thing considering the subject matter. Man turns into green monster when he gets angry and smashes everything up. I’m not a big fan of the comic but the film really worked for me.

Edward Norton is a bit pretentious. That’s not to say that I don’t like him as an actor (and I don’t know him as a person) but if you ever listen to the commentary on Fight Club, you’ll find it’s very amusing – mainly because he tries to be very clever and say things and Brad Pitt and David Fincher just laugh at him when he gets things wrong. So I was probably just as surprised as most other people when he was cast in the role of Bruce Banner aka The Incredible Hulk. Edward Norton? Doing a comic book film? Well, I bought into it that’s for sure. He does bring a certain level of quiet pathos to Banner’s tormented scientist and it’s quite probably because he’s not an “action hero” that it works. The downside is that occasionally – just occasionally – he can be a bit boring to watch but there’s a reason for this.

Tim Roth. Tim Roth plays Emil Blonsky, a Royal Marine on loan to SOCOM who happens to be a Ukrainian raised in Britain. Or something. After being injected with a dubious Super Soldier serum (and then dosing himself up on Banner’s Gamma irradiated blood), he also transforms into the Hulk-like Abomination. Roth is superb in this role and is absolutely captivating. He’s really, really good. To be fair, all of the cast are: Liv Tyler as Betty Ross, William Hurt taking over from Sam Elliot as General “Thunderbolt” Ross and a whole host of supporting actors (some of whom may or may not go on to be Super-Villains in future films just as the Spiderman films introduced supporting characters like Curt Connors for exactly the same reason)¹.

Most of my original reservations about the film, based on the trailer, were that the last act would be one giant punch up between the dual CGI creations of the Hulk and the Abomination. This, unsurprisingly (there is no way you can spoil this film – it’s highly predictable although it doesn’t suffer because of that) is exactly how it plays out. Fortunately it’s not quite as bad as I was expecting but it lacks a certain something because you can’t help but be aware that you’re not actually watching humans but CGI creations. In some ways it’s a shame that they didn’t get a human to play the Hulk but I guess I can understand why they didn’t. Sort of.

A word about Louis Leterrier, director of OTT action films The Transporter 1 & 2. He proves without a doubt that he’s got what it takes to helm a $150m summer blockbuster and fair play to him because I think he pulled it off well. It will be interesting to see if Marvel Studios keep him on for the inevitable sequel. I don’t know enough about the comics to know where they’re likely to take the character but I’m more interested now in what might follow than I was this time last week.

¹There’s even a cameo by Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark (Iron Man) later on which paves the way for an Avengers film just like Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury cameo at the end of Iron Man.