Line #96 Film/Hulk


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hulk_movie_poster.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:300:''[[TagLine All his life, something has lived inside him. All it needed was a way out.]]'']]
3
4	->''"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]]."''
5	-->-- '''Bruce Banner'''
6
7	Based on Creator/MarvelComics' ''ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulk'', Creator/AngLee directed the 2003 film.
8
9	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 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'' to him and Bruce's mother, Edith (Cara Buono)...
10
11	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.
12
13	See also the [[VideoGame/{{Hulk}} game based on this movie]].
14
15	----
16	!!These tropes are unique:
17	* ActionFilmQuietDramaScene: A bizarre example, as it's more like "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.
18	* AdaptationNameChange:
19	** 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, as Brian's ''ComicBook/HouseOfM'' counterpart had David as his middle name.
20	** Bruce's mother was also renamed "Edith" from "Rebecca."
21	* AdaptationPersonalityChange: David Banner started as a hard-working but loving father—unlike in the comics—however, David eventually becomes antagonistic, primarily for different reasons.
22	* AllThereInTheManual:
23	** Desert Base is in Nevada.
24	** Ross goes from a colonel to a general in the prologue.
25	** Bruce's adoptive mother's full name is Monica Krenzler. She's still alive during the film's main events and is 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.
26	** Betty's mom died from brain cancer a week after the Desert Base incident.
27	** The novelization divulges Bruce and Betty's teenage years.
28	** An adolescent Betty and her father lived at Fort Meade, Maryland, for some time after her mother's death. It's where she first met Talbot while he was visiting his uncle, Colonel Talbot. She and Ross were stationed in Italy two years prior for a few months.
29	*** Betty and her dad hadn't spoken for over half a decade. They had a heated argument over her break-up with Talbot and getting accepted to Berkeley on scholarship as a high-school sophomore.
30	** The novelization reveals the full name of Bruce's lab assistant, 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.
31	** The unfortunate frog subjected to the nanomeds and gammasphere was dubbed "Freddie" by Harper; it's the 11th one lost to the gamma radiation experiment. There's another frog in the gammasphere during the fateful accident, which Harper dubs "Rick."
32	** [[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.
33	** A female doctor who tends to Bruce after the accident has the surname "Chandler."
34	** According to concept art and the animation director Colin Brady in the Official Illustrated Screenplay, David's mastiff, poodle, and pitbull are 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.
35	** Bruce tells Betty his belief that [[HaveWeMet he probably saw or knew her when they were both kids]] growing up in the desert. The novelization reveals they did meet during childhood; Bruce saw Betty while looking out his window when Ross arrested David.
36	* AlienBlood: The Hulk-dogs have green blood.
37	* AllPsychologyIsFreudian: Oh yeah. This adaptation plays up Hulk's screwed-up psychology more than most, so Bruce has daddy issues galore.
38	* AlphaAndBetaWolves: Lily the poodle is the Alpha to the pit bull and mastiff, Sammy and Smokey, the Betas.
39	* AndStarring: The film's opening cast roll ends with "and Creator/NickNolte."
40	* {{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.
41	* AntiVillain: General Ross, as opposed to his ''Film/{{The Incredible Hulk\|2008}}'' version. Considering the [[ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulk Hulk comics']] long history, both are somewhat accurate to the comics. Here, he's a concerned general who deeply loves his daughter and tries 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 Bruce did nothing wrong to deserve any of the grief in his life.
42	* 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.
43	* ArtisticLicenseBiology:
44	** David Banner extracts bioluminescence properties from jellyfish, which implies 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.
45	** The film also relies on LegoGenetics. The intro shows David Banner experimenting with jellyfish, starfish for their regenerative properties, sea cucumbers for their recycling of nutrients, lizards for their resistance to poisons, and transplanting all those into human DNA to create a superhuman being.
46	* ArtisticLicensePhysics:
47	** Even if super-jumping is a power the Hulk has in the comics, his jumps in this film don't work. Something of such mass would weigh a few tons, yet he jumps as if 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]]
48	** The liberal use of NotTheFallThatKillsYou and SoftWater. [[note]]Granted, Hulk is NighInvulnerable with a HealingFactor.[[/note]]
49	** The Raptor that the Hulk hitches a ride on appears to reach escape velocity and drift away into space right when the Hulk passes out from lack of oxygen, although it's hard to tell if it's just sloppy editing. An F-22 couldn't even reach near that altitude before its engines would stall without oxygen, let alone go fast enough in a vertical climb to reach outer space.
50	* AttackBackfire: [[spoiler:[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BgLr6ilRZc?t=1m02s Talbot's death.]] He fires a GrenadeLauncher only for the round to ricochet off the Hulk and embed itself in the wall behind Talbot, who barely has time for an OhCrap reaction before getting blown up.]]
51	* 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.
52	* BeardOfEvil: David Banner sports a big, scraggly beard in the present day after his 30 years in prison.
53	* BeastAndBeauty: Hulk and Betty.
54	* BigBad: David Banner destroys Bruce's life by experimenting on himself and his son out of an obsession with advancing humanity beyond its limits, thus creating the Hulk. He intends to drain Bruce's powers to stabilize and strengthen himself and get his revenge on the military.
55	* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: Bruce and Betty are still apart, 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 in the beginning.]]
56	* BookEnds: The film's beginning and end show a green-colored shot.
57	* BullyingADragon: Early, 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; otherwise, he probably would've ended up in intensive care or the morgue. Unluckily for him, his next effort works [[spoiler:and he lands himself in the morgue]].
58	* ButtMonkey: Talbot.
59	* TheCameo: Creator/LouFerrigno (the Hulk from the TV show) and Creator/StanLee (Hulk's creator) appear as security guards.
60	* CanonForeigner: Bruce's adoptive mother, Mrs. Krenzler.
61	* TheChessmaster: Talbot, in the novelization.
62	* ChewingTheScenery: David Banner, just before his transformation. It's figurative and literal, as that page's image shows.
63	* ComicBookMoviesDontUseCodenames: Since the film is more dramatic, it doesn't use codenames.
64	* CompositeCharacter: David Banner's powers combine the Absorbing Man and electrical elemental Zzzax from the comics. The detail of his form being unstable and deteriorating without the Hulk's power is similar to Half-life.
65	* CoolDownHug: Betty is the only person the Hulk doesn't consciously threaten and, subsequently, the only one to calm him down enough to revert to human form.
66	* DarkerAndEdgier: Compared to the source material.
67	* 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. Bruce, of course, does this whenever he's about to start HulkingOut.
68	* DevelopingDoomedCharacters: The frequent reaction to the scenes before the Hulk appears.
69	* DialogueReversal: Betty's first line in the film is that she found Bruce. After Betty calms the Hulk in San Fransisco, Bruce tells her, "You found me." It doubles as a MeaningfulEcho.
70	* DistantPrologue: The prologue takes place in the 1960s and 70s.
71	* 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.
72	* DoomedHometown: Bruce returns to the military base he grew up on, now a desolate ghost town used to camouflage the ElaborateUndergroundBase beneath. What's left gets destroyed by an artillery strike aimed at the Hulk.
73	* {{Doppelganger}}: Betty resembles [[spoiler:Bruce's mother, Edith Banner]], strikingly.
74	* DreamingOfThingsToCome: In Betty's dream, [[spoiler:Bruce]] picked her up and set her down as 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.
75	* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: David Banner is a monster, make no mistake about it—but he genuinely loved his wife and was devastated when [[spoiler:he accidentally killed her]].
76	* EveryHelicopterIsAHuey: General Ross coordinates the far more high-tech Hulkbusters from one on at least one occasion.
77	* {{Expy}}: [[spoiler:David Banner]] is the stand-in for the Absorbing Man at the end. [[spoiler: Also, Zzzax, very briefly.]]
78	* FearsomeFoot: During some transformation scenes, a few shots show Bruce's feet growing so large that his shoes and socks tear off.
79	* FilmNoir: The film has heavy hints of noir with the cinematography and lighting.
80	* {{Foreshadowing}}: Mrs. Krenzler's parting words to Bruce are about having something special inside himself that he's bound to share with the world. Betty's dream and David's warning Bruce to watch his temper also qualify.
81	* FreudianExcuse: Bruce and Betty. The film could have easily been called "Daddy Issues: The Movie."
82	* GeneticEngineeringIsTheNewNuke: Genetic tampering, nanobots, ''and'' radiation.
83	* GenreBusting: The movie hints at science fiction, horror, psychological drama, and neo-noir.
84	* GentleGiant: The Hulk, only to Betty. The film's soundtrack even has a track with this as its title.
85	* GoForTheEye: Talbot wants a sample of the Hulk's DNA, but the drills won't penetrate his skin, so Talbot gets his mooks to trap the Hulk in sticky foam and prepares to jab a nasty-looking drill syringe in the Hulk's eye.
86	* 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, finding a cure, and seeing Bruce as proof of what he tried to accomplish.
87	* HannibalLecture: David Banner says one intensely.
88	* 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.]]
89	* HealingFactor: What both Bruce and David Banner's experiments were trying to create—one of the Hulk's secondary superpowers. Specifically, they used [[LegoGenetics starfish DNA]].
90	* HoistByHisOwnPetard:
91	** [[spoiler:Talbot gets blown up after [[EpicFail failing miserably]] to attempt to kill the Hulk with a grenade launcher.]]
92	** [[spoiler:David Banner gets what he wanted so much: his son's dormant power. It's too bad it's too much for David to handle, and his body becomes so unstable that he gets blown up by the military.]]
93	* HumanoidAbomination: Hulk, natch. [[spoiler:David joins this trope near the end and becomes a borderline EldritchAbomination just before dying.]]
94	* HumansAreBastards: [[spoiler:David Banner]] rants to Bruce that humanity has gone wrong.
95	--> '''David''': Think of all those men out there, in their uniforms! Barking and swallowing orders! Inflicting their petty rule over the entire globe! Think of all the harm they've done! To you! To me! To humanity! And know this, that we can make them, and their flags and their anthems and their governments disappear! In a flash! You and me!
96	* IdiosyncraticWipes: Editing did ''many'' wipes to mimic comic book panels shuffling around each other, often showing the same scene from multiple viewpoints. At one point, a wipe was done by chroma-keying the background behind a random fern.
97	* IndecisiveMedium: The film occasionally shows multiple images in a format resembling a comic book page.
98	* ItsQuietTooQuiet: When Betty steps out of her cabin after hearing a strange noise outside, there's not a creature stirring—not a single one.
99	* IOweYouMyLife: Played with, as Ross says that he's "indebted" to Bruce for saving Betty's life.
100	* JumpScare: The dream scene where the Hulk's reflection bursts through a mirror and grabs Bruce tends to catch many first-time viewers off-guard.
101	* JustPlaneWrong: A retroactive variant. Among the Army assets Ross sends after the Hulk after he escapes Desert Base is a group of [[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.
102	* KarmicDeath: [[spoiler:Talbot.]]
103	* KnockoutGas: Stopped with a sneeze from the Hulk.
104	* LargeHam: Nick Nolte is having fun playing a wacko, and he finishes a hammy speech—with plenty of [[MilkingTheGiantCow gesturing]]—by ''literally'' ChewingTheScenery.
105	* LeFilmArtistique: The film uses many split screens, flashbacks, wipes, and surreal imagery to convey the impression of a mentally damaged individual.
106	* 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.
107	* LeftHanging: Betty's "dream" of when she was younger, and her father left her—to deal with David breaking into the lab—with someone doing... something with her.
108	* LogoJoke: The Marvel logo features comic-book images of the Hulk in its pages; it's shaded green, the Hulk's traditional color, and it bubbles out of the frame after forming, reflecting the biological experiments carried out.
109	* LukeIAmYourFather: The new janitor at Bruce's lab is his long-lost father, David.
110	* MadeOfIron: After Hulk hurls Talbot through a wall, the man is still conscious and takes a second hit 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.
111	* MadScientist: David Banner's amorality is pretty apparent throughout the film with his willingness to use human test subjects for his experiments—including his infant son—but it's not until near the end that the full extent of his instability is on display.
112	* MagicPants: Except for one scene where Bruce ends up naked after calming down, it appears in full effect, and—in homage to the comics—they're purple.
113	* MaterialMimicry: After consuming nanomeds and blasting himself with gamma radiation, David Banner can become whatever he touches, but he mainly takes after the elements in the climax, going through electrical, rock, and water-based forms in quick succession.
114	* MercyKill: [[spoiler:After Ross shuts down his attempt to find a cure for Bruce, David tries to kill Bruce under this trope. Unfortunately, Edith gets in the way.]]
115	* MilitariesAreUseless: [[spoiler:David Banner's philosophy after the military completely denied his work.]]
116	* MilitaryBrat: Betty, as the novelization elaborates.
117	* MindScrew: The film's broad symbolism can be baffling, especially the dogs and [[spoiler:David's transformation.]]
118	* MoodWhiplash:
119	** After Betty and Hulk meet and share a tranquil moment, David's mutated dogs arrive and interrupt them, instigating a drawn-out brawl between them and the Hulk as he tries to protect Betty from them.
120	** After David's rundown of his past to Betty, Talbot forces Bruce to transform, leading to the Hulk's escape from Desert Base and the army chasing him to San Fransisco.
121	** After David turns on a dime during his talk with Bruce at the island base, he bites into a thick electrical cable, becomes an electrified being after Ross turns on the power, and causes a city-wide blackout. Then Bruce transforms, and David takes him to their showdown at Pear Lake.
122	* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: [[spoiler:David Banner, after accidentally killing Edith. He also feels belated guilt over passing the mutation to Bruce and tries to find a cure before Ross shuts him down.]]
123	* MythologyGag:
124	** "Puny human!" and Bruce's dad having his name in the [[Series/TheIncredibleHulk1977 TV series]].
125	** One use of the TV show's tagline in [[spoiler:Spanish]] is "You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."
126	** The mushroom cloud in Bruce's memory invokes the gamma explosion from the comics that spawned the Hulk.
127	** Danny Elfman's score occasionally samples the live-action series's score.
128	* NatureVsNurture: The film focuses on what makes Bruce a product of his father.
129	* NeverTrustATrailer: The trailer made it seem like a regular action movie. Considering the Hulk takes 45 minutes to appear, it focuses more on drama.
130	* NiceJobBreakingItHero: It's General Ross's fault that David couldn't cure Bruce. It also happens for a particular value of "hero" at the end. With the superpowered Bruce and David Banner throwing down and Bruce overloading his father's absorbing powers, Ross decides the best solution is to hit them with a gamma bomb. As gamma radiation awakened Bruce's—and David's, but Ross doesn't necessarily know that—powers in the first place, all it does is remake the Hulk.
131	* NoOneCouldSurviveThat: Lampshaded at the end. Although General Ross thinks there's no way Bruce could have survived an atomic explosion, he has his daughter under total surveillance just in case he's wrong, while Betty hopes Bruce doesn't contact her if he did survive.
132	* NoSell: [[spoiler:Talbot shoots a grenade at the Hulk. The grenade bounces off his skin and flies back to kill Talbot.]]
133	* NoSenseOfPersonalSpace: David sits too close to Betty on the couch to get hold of her scarf as a scent tracker for his future Hulk-dogs.
134	* NotYourProblem: David considers Betty to be this to him before siccing the dogs on her in the novelization; he thinks she should be God's problem instead of his.
135	* NuclearWeaponsTaboo: The government uses gamma bombs as an alternative to nuclear weapons detonated inside the United States.
136	* 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 to 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.
137	* OhCrap: Talbot gets one when his grenade embeds itself in the wall behind him.
138	* OneWingedAngel: Although [[spoiler: David Banner]] gains his powers midway through the movie, they kick in at the climax, robbing him of all human semblance—for the catalyst, see ChewingTheScenery, particularly that page's image.
139	* OscarBait: A ''rare'' superhero film example before Film/TheDarkKnightTrilogy and Film/{{Logan}}. It starkly contrasts 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.
140	* OverclockingAttack: How Bruce defeats his father.
141	* PaintingTheMedium: Certain shots are framed in comic book panels to make it resemble a comic book-based film.
142	* ParentalAbandonment: General Ross imprisoned David for his experiments ([[spoiler:and killing his wife]]) and put Bruce in the foster care system.
143	* ParentalIssues: ''The'' film's central theme is to watch ''Hulk'' and then count how many sub-tropes from that page appear in some form.
144	* 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 monitors Betty's house, phone, and computer if Bruce ever attempts to contact her, but the two of them try to stay on good terms.
145	* ProfessorGuineaPig: Dr. David Banner resorted to using himself as a test subject for his BioAugmentation research after the army forbade him from using human test subjects.
146	* 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.
147	* PuppyDogEyes: The Hulk has these whenever Betty is concerned, especially near the end in San Fransisco.
148	* RevengeBeforeReason: Talbot wants revenge on Bruce for his beating, just as he wants Bruce's DNA. He tortures Bruce into becoming the Hulk and decides to kill him when it goes wrong.
149	* RideTheLightning: David absorbs enough electricity to become a monster made of lightning. He grabs the Hulkified Bruce, and they travel miles inland on his coattails, fighting in the clouds.
150	* RightHandAttackDog: David Banner has a pit bull, poodle, and mastiff—obedient and vicious, even after their mutation.
151	* RockMonster: David briefly transforms into a rock man during his fight with the Hulk. He gets rammed into, merged with a huge boulder, and thrown into a lake, transforming into a water elemental.
152	* SeanConneryIsAboutToShootYou: Hulk is about to crush you!
153	* 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.
154	* 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, and his heightened senses "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.
155	* SignatureStyle: Critics and viewers alike received the film better if they were aware of director Ang Lee's other work, ''Film/CrouchingTigerHiddenDragon'', which has many similarities: SceneryPorn; an abundance of [[ActionFilmQuietDramaScene Quiet Drama Scenes]]; a somewhat inspired—if bizarre—application of {{Wuxia}}, and {{Tragedy}}.
156	* SinsOfOurFathers: General Ross's hatred of Bruce stems from what David Banner did before being sent to prison and that [[BoyfriendBlockingDad 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.
157	* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: The film is deeply cynical.
158	* SlidingScaleOfParentShamingInFiction: David Banner is a Type IV.
159	* SlidingScaleOfVisualsVersusDialogue: The film focuses on visuals with some dialogue.
160	* SmugSnake: Talbot.
161	* SoProudOfYou: Ross tells Betty he has great pride in his daughter's accomplishments.
162	* StrongAsTheyNeedToBe: Hulk's size also varies with his strength.
163	* StrongFamilyResemblance: According to Ross in the novelization, Betty is her late mother's spitting image.
164	* TanksForNothing: Four tanks confront the Hulk out in the desert. He flings the first one away, rips the turret off the second [[NoEndorHolocaust before shaking out everyone inside]], and uses it to beat the crap out of the third, and he bends the fourth's cannon muzzle so that it aims right at the gunner.
165	* TheyHaveTheScent: David uses Betty's scarf to give his hulked-out dogs her scent and send them after her.
166	* TitleDrop: By Bruce, after fighting the Hulk-dogs and returning to normal.
167	-->'''Bruce:''' "My father sent them. He ''is'' my father. He wanted me to change. He wanted me to change into that mindless ''hulk''."
168	* TooDumbToLive:
169	** Will General Ross ever get that shooting = Bruce turning into Hulk? Bruce spends the movie trying to lay low and keep things under control. Then the military catches him and tries experimenting on him, and Bruce becomes the Hulk; they WORSEN matters by hitting him with heavy artillery, increasing his rage.
170	** 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 that the key to Bruce's power lies in his blood—as David demonstrated on his dogs—regardless of whether Bruce transforms. 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.
171	* TranquillizerDart: Bruce is staying with Betty in her forest cabin. She has the army tranquilize Bruce the second he steps out of the cabin.
172	* 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.]]
173	* TwoKeyedLock: Combined with NoOSHACompliance, the locks are close enough for David to activate the SelfDestructMechanism on the base after stealing both keys.
174	* 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. The film implies 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 from the somewhat plausible "growing tons of muscle" to the fantastical "turn yourself into water, metal, concrete, electricity..."
175	* YouWontFeelAThing: As Talbot prepares to shove a nasty-looking drill syringe into the Hulk's eye, he quips, "This might give you a bit of a sting here, Bruce."
176	* YouWouldntLikeMeWhenImAngry: Homaged when Talbot roughs up Bruce, making him growl, "Talbot...You're making me angry!" before HulkingOut. At the movie's end, Bruce gives the complete line as a PreAssKickingOneLiner in Spanish; he also says the whole line to Talbot in one of the film's trailers.

Context Film / Hulk