History Film / Hulk

The 2003 film directed by Creator/AngLee is based on Creator/MarvelComics' ''ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulk''.

Dr. David Banner (Paul Kersey) was a researcher for the U.S. military [[BioAugmentation finding ways to enhance soldiers genetically]]. Denied permission to use human test subjects, he [[ProfessorGuineaPig began experimenting on himself]], and later on his son Bruce, who inherited ''something'' from his father. Everything ends when Lt. Colonel Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross (Todd Tesen) discovers David's experiments. Then Banner sets off the military base's nuclear—and green—self-destruct mechanism before ''something happens'' with him and Bruce's mother, Edith (Cara Buono)...

Years later, Bruce "Krenzler" (Creator/EricBana) is an [[EmotionSuppression emotionally-repressed]] scientist at Lawrence Berkeley working on using a combination of gamma radiation and {{nanomachines}} for medical purposes. They can get the test animals to heal, but they keep exploding in cancerous growth. Adding to his stress are his coworker and ex-girlfriend Betty Ross (Creator/JenniferConnelly) and her ex Glenn Talbot (Creator/JoshLucas), who's trying to buy Bruce and Betty's lab from them on her father ''General'' Ross's (Creator/SamElliott) behalf. Bruce [[TakingTheBullet takes the bullet]] for a lab tech who [[FreakLabAccident got trapped with a gamma-ray emitter about to go off and nanomachines in the air]], and... wakes up later wholly sound. Well, ''better'' than expected; all of his minor aches and pains are now gone—still, he somehow survived when every frog that went through this exploded, and Talbot, Ross, and the weird new janitor (Creator/NickNolte) are all very interested in what Bruce has done.

* ActionFilmQuietDramaScene: A bizarre example, as it's more along the lines of "Action Film Quiet Drama First-Two-Thirds-Of-The-Movie," followed by a final act almost entirely comprised of action. It's not quite sure what sort of movie it wants to be—it's an Creator/AngLee film, after all—leading to common criticisms that it has too much action to qualify as a family melodrama, but not ''enough'' to be a SummerBlockbuster.

** Bruce's father, Brian, was renamed "David," likely as a MythologyGag to ''Series/{{The Incredible Hulk|1977}}'' series where Bruce (sort-of) underwent this himself, going by his first name, which was changed from "Robert" to "David." It might've also been {{RetCanon}}ed, seeing as Brian's ''ComicBook/HouseOfM'' counterpart had David as his middle name.

** Bruce's adoptive mother's full name is Monica Krenzler. She's still alive during the film's main events, revealed to be an agent—presumably for Atheon— who was assigned to raise Bruce. She meets with Talbot early on and briefly reappears near the end, watching Bruce and Betty on CNN after Betty calms the Hulk in San Fransisco.

** The novelization reveals the full name of Bruce's lab assistant is Jake Harper. It mentions Harper once shook hands with a certain [[ComicBook/AntMan Dr. Henry Pym]] when the latter congratulated him for his cellular regeneration doctorate.

** [[TheChessmaster Talbot]] arranged several things behind the scenes—namely the Berkeley Lab hiring Betty for her to work with Bruce and the mental hospital releasing David Banner. Talbot also has Bruce under constant surveillance.

** According to concept art and the animation director Colin Brady in the Official Illustrated Screenplay, David's mastiff, poodle, and pitbull are respectively named Smokey, Lily, and Sammy. Brady also reveals the dogs' respective roles and personality traits: Lily is the antsy leader; Sammy is like a lion, constantly biting; and Smokey wrestles like a bear.

* AllPsychologyIsFreudian: Oh yeah. This adaptation plays up Hulk's screwed-up psychology more than most, so Bruce has daddy issues out the wazoo.

* AndStarring: The film's opening cast roll ends with "and Creator/NickNolte".

* AntiVillain: General Ross, as opposed to his ''Film/{{The Incredible Hulk|2008}}'' version. Considering the [[ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulk Hulk comics']] long history, neither is precisely inaccurate to the comics. Here, he's a concerned general who deeply loves his daughter and is just trying to stop the perceived Hulk menace. However, Ross goes out of his way to pursue and distrust Bruce [[SinsOfOurFathers just because David is his father]]. The novelization has Ross slowly see Bruce as more of an innocent victim, and acknowledge that Bruce did nothing wrong to deserve any of the grief in his life.
* ArchnemesisDad: David to Bruce. After performing dangerous tests on himself, some of it passed on to Bruce through his conception. He tried to murder Bruce out of mercy but mistakenly struck down [[spoiler:his wife]]. Thirty years later—following his release from prison—he tracks down Bruce and attempts to rebuild their relationship while [[spoiler:secretly plotting to drain Bruce's alter-ego's powers to reconstruct his decaying cellular structure and gain his revenge on the military.]] A very, very bad fellow, though not without his sympathetic moments.

** David Banner extracts bioluminescence properties from jellyfish, implied to be why the Hulk is green. But bioluminescence isn't about having green skin, it's the ability to emit light from your skin, and the Hulk's skin doesn't glow, not even in the dark. All he has is green-pigmented skin.

** Even if super-jumping is a power the Hulk has in the comics, the jumps he makes in this film don't work. Something of that much mass would weigh a few tons, yet he jumps like reduced gravity laws apply to him—gravity doesn't work that way. [[note]]Eventually {{Hand Wave}}d by WordOfGod: Hulk doesn't jump so much as [[VoodooShark push himself with his]] [[SuperStrength Super Strong]] [[VoodooShark legs]]... but differently than regular people [[ShapedLikeItself push with their legs to jump]].[[/note]]

* BadVibrations: [[InvertedTrope Inverted]]. After HulkingOut, ripples are seen in a puddle next to an unconscious Talbot as the Hulk leaps away in huge bounds, on his way to save Betty.

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: Bruce and Betty are still apart in the end, and the government—mainly Ross—has Betty under constant surveillance for her protection. However, Bruce is still alive and trying to help people. Considering everything, Betty's relationship with her father is much better than it was in the beginning.]]
* BookEnds: Both the film's beginning and end show a green-colored shot.
* BullyingADragon: Early in the film, Hulk uses Talbot as a melee weapon to beat two other people—an [=MP=] and Talbot himself—into unconsciousness. After the army captures Bruce, Talbot—wearing a cast and neck brace—thinks shocking Bruce with a cattle prod repeatedly to make him change into the Hulk so Talbot can get a blood sample is a good idea. Luckily for Talbot, this attempt fails, or he probably would've ended up in intensive care or the morgue. Unluckily for him, his next effort ''does'' work [[spoiler:and he lands himself in the morgue]].

* ChewingTheScenery: David Banner, just before his transformation. Figurative and literal, as that page's image shows.

* CoolDownHug: Betty is the only person that the Hulk doesn't consciously threaten, and subsequently the only one to calm him down enough to revert back to human form.

* DeathGlare: David Banner, when Ross shuts down his experiments. [[PapaBear Ross]] to Bruce Banner, much to the latter's confusion as he's never met Betty's father before. Bruce, of course, does this whenever he's about to start HulkingOut.

* DialogueReversal: Betty's first line in the film is that she found Bruce. After Betty calms the Hulk in San Fransisco, Bruce says to her, "You found me." It doubles as a MeaningfulEcho.

* DoingInTheWizard: The explanation of Bruce's transformation into the Hulk in this film, and why the Hulk grows bigger the angrier he gets: The [[{{Nanomachines}} nanomeds]] in his system heal tissue in response to trauma and the mutation Bruce inherited from his father's experiments keep them from becoming lethal. The upside is that Bruce emerged from it with a healthy tween's body, but the downside is that they also respond to ''psychological'' trauma—they keep buffing tissues until you get an enormous angry green WMD when he gets angry. And since he [[spoiler:witnessed his father kill his mother while trying to kill ''him'']], he's got emotional trauma to spare.

* {{Doppelganger}}: Betty has a striking resemblance to [[spoiler:Bruce's mother, Edith Banner]].
* DreamingOfThingsToCome: In Betty's dream, [[spoiler:Bruce]] picked her up and set her down when she was a child. The same thing happens during Betty's first encounter with the Hulk. The difference is that [[spoiler: Bruce is a threat to Betty in her dream, but as the Hulk, he's instead a protector to her in real life.]] In the Peter David novelization, Betty has other dreams, and she dismisses the possibility of them foretelling the future.

* {{Expy}}: [[spoiler:David Banner]] seems to be the stand-in for the Absorbing Man at the end. [[spoiler: also Zzzax, very briefly.]]
* FearsomeFoot: A few shots during some transformation scenes show Bruce's feet growing so large that his shoes and socks tear off.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: Mrs. Krenzler's parting words to Bruce about him having something special inside himself that he's bound to share with the world. Betty's dream and David warning Bruce to watch his temper also qualify.

* GenreBusting: The movie has many hints of science fiction, horror, psychological drama, and neo-noir.

* GuineaPigFamily: Besides using himself as a test subject, David also used his son Bruce, who inherited some of his father's modifications. The film deconstructs this trope in how David gets torn between treating Bruce as a test subject and finding a cure for him, and seeing Bruce as proof of what he tried to accomplish.

* HateSink: Talbot seems purpose-made to make the audience loathe him. The film's [[BigBad real threat]] is Bruce's evil, obsessed father, David, the root cause of the whole Hulk problem. General Ross is [[AntiVillain a man trying to do what's right to stop a genuine menace]], even if he tries to persecute Bruce out of prejudice toward David. Talbot is just a smug corporate bastard wanting fame and glory, endangering everyone by going over Ross's head to unleash the Hulk, bullying Bruce whenever he can and being a dickish romantic foil, and contributing little to the story besides repeatedly getting Bruce into Hulk-mode and [[VeryPunchableMan having it backfire onto him satisfyingly.]]

** [[spoiler:Talbot gets blown up after he [[EpicFail fails miserably]] attempting to kill the Hulk with a grenade launcher.]]
** [[spoiler:David Banner gets what he wanted so much: his son's dormant power—too bad it's too much for David to handle and his body becomes so unstable that he gets blown up by the military.]]
* HumanoidAbomination: Hulk, natch. [[spoiler:David joins this trope near the end and even becomes a borderline EldritchAbomination just before dying.]]

* IdiosyncraticWipes: Editing did ''many'' wipes to mimic comic book panels shuffling around each other, often showing the same scene from multiple viewpoints. A wipe was done by chroma-keying the background behind a random fern at one point.

* JustPlaneWrong: A retroactive variant. Among the Army assets that Ross sends after the Hulk after he escapes Desert Base is a group of what are clearly [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing%E2%80%93Sikorsky_RAH-66_Comanche RAH-66 Comanche attack helicopters]], which were in development during the film (as were the F-22 Raptors seen later). Unfortunately, the U.S. government canceled the project the year after the film was released, and the RAH-66 never entered service.

* LeFilmArtistique: The film uses many split screens, flashbacks, wipes, and surreal imagery to convey the impression of a mentally-damaged individual.
* LegoGenetics: David injects many animals' DNA like starfish and jellyfish into himself, and Bruce inherits them. However, they never manifest until his accident with gamma rays.
* LeftHanging: Betty's "dream" of when she was younger, and her father left her—to deal with David breaking into the lab—with someone, who was doing... something with her.

* LukeIAmYourFather: Yes, the new janitor at Bruce's lab is his long-lost father, David.
* MadeOfIron: After Hulk hurls Talbot through a wall, the man is still conscious, and it takes a second hit for him to go down. Though he is still ''severely'' hurt, the scope of his injuries goes unspecified. His arm is in a sling, and his neck and knee are in braces, but he shouldn't be in one piece, let alone alive, walking, or wielding a high-tech drill syringe, let alone firing a grenade launcher.

** After Betty and Hulk meet and share a tranquil moment, David's mutated dogs arrive and interrupt them, instigating a drawn-out brawl between the dogs and the Hulk as he tries to protect Betty from them.

* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: [[spoiler:David Banner, after accidentally killing Edith. He also feels belated guilt over passing on the mutation to Bruce and tries to find a cure before Ross shuts him down.]]

** There is one use of the TV show's tagline in [[spoiler:Spanish]], "You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."

* OffingTheOffspring: At first, David tries to kill toddler Bruce after Ross shuts him down and finds no other way to cure him. By the end, David wants to kill Bruce so he can absorb Bruce's Hulk powers back into himself to stabilize his mutated body, arguing that he gave Bruce life in the first place and should take it back.

* OscarBait: A ''rare'' superhero film example before Film/TheDarkKnightTrilogy and Film/{{Logan}}. It stands in stark contrast to most CriticProof superhero movies, including ''Film/{{The Incredible Hulk|2008}}''. Though it pleased the critics, this formula for a superhero film didn't work well for ''Hulk'' at the box office, where it made a record drop in revenue from the first to the second week. It was so bad that Marvel rebooted the film franchise only five years later.

* ParentalIssues: ''The'' central theme of the film—watch ''Hulk'' and then count how many sub-tropes from that page show up in some form.
* ParentsAsPeople: General Ross wanted to be part of Betty's life but couldn't because of his job. He also disapproved of her relationship with Bruce, but only because he knew about Bruce's abusive father and wanted to protect Betty. By the film's end, General Ross is monitoring Betty's house, phone, and computer if Bruce ever attempts to contact her, but the two of them make an effort to stay on good terms.
* ProfessorGuineaPig: Dr. David Banner resorted to using himself as a test subject for his BioAugmentation research after the army forbade him to use human test subjects.
* PsychoPoodle: One of [[ArchnemesisDad David Banner's]] dogs is a French Poodle he later mutates, turning it into a man-eating poodle from hell before siccing it on Bruce's LoveInterest Betty Ross.

* RevengeBeforeReason: Talbot wants revenge on Bruce for his beating just as he wants Bruce's DNA. He tortures Bruce into becoming the Hulk, and when it goes wrong, he decides to kill him.

* RightHandAttackDog: David Banner has a pit bull, poodle, and mastiff—obedient and vicious, even after they're mutated.
* RockMonster: David briefly transforms into a rock man during his fight with the Hulk. He gets rammed into and merged with a huge boulder and thrown into a lake, transforming into a water elemental.

* SequelHook: The [[TropicalEpilogue end scene in South America]] shows Bruce trying to help others and deal with his condition—surprisingly, ''Film/{{The Incredible Hulk|2008}}'' film picks up on this plot point and could act as this film's spiritual sequel. The subsequent [[Film/TheAvengers2012 Avengers film]] calls back to this by having him in a similar situation, hiding and providing help to India's poor.
* SeriesContinuityError: The order of the scenes leading up to the dog fight: David sends the dogs after Betty; then Betty arrives at her cabin, and David calls Bruce. After transforming, Bruce finds Betty without prior knowledge of her whereabouts and somehow finds her before the dogs do. The novel rearranges the scenes correctly: David calls Bruce first, so Bruce's scuffle with Talbot and his second transformation happen simultaneously with David unleashing the dogs. Then the Hulk sniffs the air, using his heightened senses to "pull Betty's scent" from it to find her, like in the illustrated screenplay. On the other hand, additional materials have the Hulk use Bruce's memory of the cabin to guess Betty might be there instead of her house as her father's men would surround the latter.

* SoProudOfYou: Ross tells Betty that he has a great deal of pride in his daughter's accomplishments.

** Seriously, will General Ross ever get that shooting = Bruce turning into Hulk? Bruce spends the whole movie trying to lay low and keep things under control. Then the military catches him, tries experimenting on him, and Bruce becomes the Hulk; they WORSEN matters by hitting him with heavy artillery, increasing his rage.
** Talbot earns some stupid points too. He believes that only turning Bruce into the Hulk would give him access to the DNA when the film earlier showed the key to Bruce's power lies in his blood—as David demonstrated on his dogs—regardless of whether Bruce transforms or not. It's stupid for that reason, but even then, the Hulk's skin is too thick and continually regenerating, so Talbot can't get any in pieces either.

* TurnOutLikeHisFather: Ross doesn't think it's a coincidence that Bruce entered the same field that his father did, meaning they're either working together or "I was going to say damned." [[spoiler:When we later discover that David Banner murdered his wife, it adds a PapaBear subtext to Ross's concern given that Bruce is working with and dating his daughter.]]
* TwoKeyedLock: Combined with NoOSHACompliance as the locks are close enough for David to activate the SelfDestructMechanism on the base after stealing both keys.
* VoodooShark: The film thoroughly explains Bruce's transformation into the Hulk every step of the way. But then his father—who has taken the same meds and undergoes the gamma-ray bathing—turns into the Absorbing Man, for some reason. It's implied David Banner transformed so differently because his genetic modifications were self-administered rather than naturally-born like Bruce's. Still, it is a hugely different process to go from the somewhat plausible "growing tons of muscle" to the fantastical "turn yourself into water, metal, concrete, electricity..."

* AllThereInTheManual: The film's official website and a deleted scene give more details regarding the nanomeds. The illustrated screenplay also reveals more behind-the-scenes information on the movie, like the dogs' names and personalities.

* SequelHook: The end scene in South America shows Bruce trying to help others and deal with his condition—surprisingly, ''Film/{{The Incredible Hulk|2008}}'' film picks up on this plot point and could act as this film's spiritual sequel. The subsequent [[Film/TheAvengers2012 Avengers film]] calls back to this by having him in a similar situation, hiding and providing help to India's poor.

* AndStarring: The opening cast roll ends with "and Creator/NickNolte".
* {{Angst}}: Boatloads of it, many of them Freudian. Bruce's insane father—who also [[spoiler:murdered his mother]]—is the source of his mutation and still wants to continue his 'experiment.' At the same time, the authorities hound Bruce because he could turn into a giant green monster at any moment.

* BerserkButton: Betty Ross to Bruce, if anyone is stupid enough to threaten or hurt her, or keep him from protecting her.

[[caption-width-right:300:Gotta [[{{Pun}} hand it]] to you, Hulk.]]

->''"I don't know who I am. I don't know what I'm...becoming. But I know one thing for sure: [[YouWouldntLikeMeWhenImAngry you wouldn't like me when I'm angry]]."''

Years later, Bruce "Krenzler" (Creator/EricBana) is an [[EmotionSuppression emotionally-repressed]] scientist at Lawrence Berkeley working on using a combination of gamma radiation and {{nanomachines}} for medical purposes. They can get the test animals to heal, but they keep exploding in cancerous growth. Adding to his stress are his coworker and ex-girlfriend Betty Ross (Creator/JenniferConnelly) and her ex Glenn Talbot, who's trying to buy Bruce and Betty's lab from them on her father ''General'' Ross's (Creator/SamElliott) behalf. Bruce [[TakingTheBullet takes the bullet]] for a lab tech who [[FreakLabAccident got trapped with a gamma-ray emitter about to go off and nanomachines in the air]], and... wakes up later wholly sound. Well, ''better'' than expected; all of his minor aches and pains are now gone—still, he somehow survived when every frog that went through this exploded, and Talbot, Ross, and the weird new janitor (Creator/NickNolte) are all very interested in what Bruce has done.

* ContinuityError: The order of the scenes leading up to the dog fight: David sends the dogs after Betty; then Betty arrives at her cabin, and David calls Bruce. After transforming, Bruce finds Betty without prior knowledge of her whereabouts and somehow finds her before the dogs do. The novel rearranges the scenes correctly: David calls Bruce first, so Bruce's scuffle with Talbot and his second transformation happen simultaneously with David unleashing the dogs. Then the Hulk sniffs the air, using his heightened senses to "pull Betty's scent" from it to find her, like in the illustrated screenplay. On the other hand, additional materials have the Hulk use Bruce's memory of the cabin to guess Betty might be there instead of her house as her father's men would surround the latter.

Dr. David Banner was a researcher for the U.S. military [[BioAugmentation finding ways to enhance soldiers genetically]]. Denied permission to use human test subjects, he [[ProfessorGuineaPig began experimenting on himself]], and later on his son Bruce, who inherited ''something'' from his father. Everything ends when Lt. Colonel Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross discovers David's experiments. Then Banner sets off the military base's nuclear—and green—self-destruct mechanism before ''something happens'' with him and Bruce's mother, Edith...

* SinsOfOurFathers: General Ross's hatred of Bruce stems from what David Banner did before being sent to prison and that [[OverprotectiveDad Bruce was dating his daughter]]—despite being a ControlFreak, Ross falls on the "nature" side of "nature vs. nurture," one of the film's multiple subtexts. David Banner has a mutual hatred of Betty since she's Ross's daughter and happens to be involved with Bruce.

Dr. David Banner (Creator/NickNolte) was a researcher for the U.S. military [[BioAugmentation finding ways to enhance soldiers genetically]]. Denied permission to use human test subjects, he [[ProfessorGuineaPig began experimenting on himself]], and later on his son Bruce, who inherited ''something'' from his father. Everything ends when Lt. Colonel Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross discovers David's experiments. Then Banner sets off the military base's nuclear—and green—self-destruct mechanism before ''something happens'' with him and Bruce's mother, Edith...