The Amazing Bulk is a mockbuster movie directed by Lewis Schoenbrun. It takes place in a bizarre green-screen world, where a scientist gets transformed into a bulky purple CGI humanoid. It must be seen to be disbelieved.
Dr. Henry "Hank" Howard (played by Jordan Lawson) is a scientist working for the government, directly under General Darwin (Terrence Lording), to create a Super Serum. Hank is eager to prove himself, as he's dating the General's daughter, Hannah (Shevaun Kasti), and believes this will help him earn her father's blessing. Things go awry when Hank tests the serum on himself, transforming into a humanoid monster, the Bulk, and goes on a rampage. Meanwhile, a megalomaniacal scientist named Dr. Werner von Kantlove (Randal Malone) is plotting to blow up the moon, and it soon becomes apparent that the only force that can stop him is the Bulk...
The Amazing Bulk provides examples of:
- Acrofatic: The Bulk is very fat, but that doesn't stop him from outrunning helicopters.
- Alien Blood: The titular monster has purple blood.
- Alliterative Name: Dr. Henry "Hank" Howard, the main character. This is presumably in reference to how the Hulk's alter-ego, Bruce Banner, also has an alliterative name.
- Anachronism Stew: During the chase scene, the military attacks the Bulk with a cruise missile, an archer, a Bradley IFV, a soldier with an M-16, a pirate ship, a Hind gunship, the Greek God Zeus, a superhero, Davey Crockett, Robin Hood, the Red Baron, and an F-15 jet fighter carrying a nuclear bomb.
- Artistic License – Economics: General Darwin can somehow afford a mansion on the salary of a military general.
- Art Shift: Nothing about the movie's ungodly weird setting is consistent. Especially at the Amazing Bulk chase scene where you could swear that this is came from an extremely nonsensical animated CGI Toontown video, then it comes back to live-action green-screen movie.
- Ax-Crazy: General Darwin had shades of this with his fairly menacing smile and syringe in the prison, but goes full force when trying to kill Henry.
- Barbie Doll Anatomy: Unlike Hulk, Bulk is left completely naked after transforming but lacks any visible genitalia...Despite later scenes implying that he's more than well equipped.
- Back from the Dead: Henry literally rises from his grave as the Bulk when Ray pees on his grave, and promptly bashes his head in as the film ends.
- Bad Boss: Dr. Kantlove kills one of his guards for making a mocking gesture at him.
- Batman Can Breathe in Space: Kantlove sends a monkey to the Moon in a rocket, and the Monkey can apparently breathe there without a helmet.
- Big Bad Ensemble: Dr. Kantlove, and General Darwin. It turns out that they were working with each other, until Kantlove outlived his usefulness.
- Big Bad Wannabe: Dr. Kantlove, who setting himself up to be the main villain by destroying most of the bizarre world with his missiles, and tries to blow up the moon. He failed miserably at that, and when he confronts the Bulk, he is easily defeated. Then the real Big Bad reveals he used Dr. Kantlove as a pawn, and used the Bulk to get rid of him.
- Bigger Is Better in Bed: One scene later in the movie goes through great pains to describe just how much Bulk lives up to his name...despite Bulk having Barbie Doll Anatomy every time we see him.
- Bottomless Magazines: Ray and Lisa don't ever stop to reload their guns while they're trailing the Bulk. Of course, when Ray catches Henry lying shirtless in an alley, he's out of bullets.
- Card-Carrying Villain: Dr. Kantlove really seems to enjoy what he does.
- Chase Fight: 90% of the Bulk's screen time is spent running away from something. Cops chase after him, while he runs around green-screen city, knocking around cars, phone booths, and poles by slightly brushing aside them. At one point he chases after Dr. Kantlove's mooks, killing them by stepping on them. The "epic climactic" scene in the movie is him running all over the CGI world, being pursued by the military, and being attacked by random things like Zeus, Robin Hood, and a pirate ship, while he runs and runs until he runs into a kamikaze communist man riding a nuclear bomb.
- Chroma Key: The entire movie is like this, and not particularly well.
- Corrupted Character Copy: Happens with both the Bulk and Darwin.
- Unlike the Hulk, the Bulk is an out-and-out villain who just happens to turn his wrath on other bad guys at times.
- General Darwin is a more corrupt version of General Thaddeus Ross and will do more corrupt actions in contrast to Ross having more of an Anti-Villain nature.
- Curse Cut Short: Impressively fails at even this. Henry clearly starts to say "holy shit" as a missile hits the castle he's in, but the explosion isn't loud enough to muffle the fact that he clearly just cuts himself off before finishing the word.
- Cutaway Gag: After the Bulk breaks through Dr. Kantlove's defenses and kills his guards, he says "This is worse than the time the flying saucer broke down, and that little green alien came to the door asking to use the phone," with visuals illustrating this event.
- Deranged Animation: Any scene with animated stuff (99% of the movie) is bizarre as heck. Contrasting the mundane and muted costume design of the live-action actors are colorful toy-like backgrounds containing things like a gecko typing on a laptop, a leprechaun, and a monkey playing with a toy rocket.
- Disc-One Final Boss: After the Bulk kills Kantlove, it's revealed that Darwin is the real Big Bad.
- Disney Villain Death: General Darwin falls down off the balcony with Henry and they both die.
- Disposable Sex Worker: The opening scene has a mugger blowing out a prostitute's brains before the Bulk shows up to deal with him.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Hey, doesn't that spacecraft rhythmically inserting and removing a stick-shaped portion of itself into a hole in another spacecraft look sort of like something else? It's kind of subtle. Luckily, the filmmakers understood the audience would have difficulty comprehending this clever gag, so they made the scene go on for three minutes.
- Downer Ending: As laughable as it is, the ending is this. Although the Kantloves both die, Hank is killed in his Bulk-form, and his girlfriend is left mourning his death. General Darwin dies as well, but he still basically got what he wanted with Hank's death, given that he never wanted Hank to marry his daughter and ordered him to be killed to begin with. This leaves Hank's girlfriend with both her boyfriend and her father dead. Ray and Lisa, as ineffective as they are, are arguably less corrupt than Darwin and Kantlove, since they merely want to arrest the Bulk for a murder he committed, and their efforts end up with Lisa killed and Ray becoming a depressed and drunken mess by the end of the film. Even though the Bolivian Army Ending cuts with the Bulk somehow bursting from his grave, implying Hank is alive, it still results in Ray getting his head smashed, likely killing him as well.
- Drowning My Sorrows: After Lisa's death, Ray is completely drunk the next time we see him.
- Every Car Is a Pinto: If the Bulk so much as brushes against a car with his knee, it blows up.
- Everything Is Trying to Kill You: Among the things coming for the Bulk at the end, we once again have pirates, tanks, communists, jets, the Nautilus, Robin Hood...
- For the Evulz: Dr. Kantlove's motivation for nuking most of the world. That or generic villainy. General Darwin seems to be this too enacting most of the plot while smiling and laughing evilly. The Air Force Pilot sounds like he gets too much pleasure from dropping a random communist suicide bomber on top of a nuke.
- Full-Frontal Assault: Implied to be the case since Bulk loses his clothes whenever he transforms. Thankfully he's depicted without any visible "parts" so the worst the viewer gets are shots of his butt when he runs away.
- General Ripper: General Darwin is an exaggerated example. Goes with General Failure as well; he doesn't seem to mind Dr. Kantlove blowing up the world as he was using him for funding, and only had him killed by the Bulk only because he had no further use for the madman. Most of the destruction from the Bulk are because he wanted the super serum, and had no problems sending his CGI military blowing up everything around them trying to kill the Bulk, including dropping a seemingly unwilling CGI suicide bomber. He seems more concerned with a "deadbeat son-in-law," and accumulating dust in his house; he believes dust bunnies are plotting to take over.
- Generic Doomsday Villain: Dr. Kantlove. While General Darwin is primarily motivated by personal glory, Kantlove doesn't seem to have any particular reason for any of his exploits.
- Giant Foot of Stomping: One of Dr. Kantlove's mooks gets trampled by the Bulk as does Kantlove himself, whose foot for that shot only is about twice the size of a person.
- Going for the Big Scoop: A pair of news reporters in a helicopter fly down to get some pictures of the big purple thing rampaging throughout the city. The Bulk grabs their chopper and it blows up.
- Herr Doktor: Kantlove is a rather broad German stereotype.
- High-Class Glass: Dr. Kantlove wears a monocle, which is presumably meant to make him seem educated and upper-class.
- HULK MASH!-Up: Dr. Hank Howard turns into a giant purple rage-monster after injecting himself with his own Super Serum.
- Improbable Infant Survival: During the final chase between Bulk and the military. The kids on the soccer field, as well as all the other characters in the scenes Bulk runs through, remain unaffected by the explosions being caused.
- Informed Attribute: A blindfolded Lolita Kantlove feels up the Bulk's crotch and describes how big his equipment is... even though the Bulk has no visible genitalia.
- In Medias Res: The opening scene takes place chronologically around a third of the way into the movie's actual story; when we get there, we get to see that scene from the Bulk's perspective.
- Invincible Hero: Bulk gets a nuclear bomb dropped on him, and he survives unscathed. Averted when Henry in his normal form "dies" from falling off a balcony.
- Lack of Empathy: General Darwin doesn't seem to care too much for the world or his daughter, doing everything he does at their expense, and eager to use and kill what he considers to be a deadbeat son-in-law, even in front of her.
- The Loins Sleep Tonight: General Darwin claims that Dr. Kantlove suffers from erectile dysfunction. He financed Darwin's operations in the hopes that his experiments would lead to a treatment.
- The Man Behind the Man: It's revealed that Darwin was using Kantlove for his own purposes the entire time.
- Mad Scientist: Doctor Kantlove, obviously.
- Meaningful Name: Dr. Kantlove. One guess what his biggest problem is.
- The Mockbuster: To The Incredible Hulk (2008). Kind of.
- Mood Dissonance: An instrumental version of the somber, minor-key folk song "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" used as a soundtrack for the wackiest chase scene ever.
- Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Doctor Kantlove, who seems to spend much of his time causing death and destruction for kicks.
- Nigh-Invulnerability: The Bulk has this. Normal bullets (fired by either a random mugger or the cops) don't do anything, swords and spears have zero affect, and even when the military is shooting missiles at him it doesn't work. Finally, General Darwin has a nuke dropped on the Bulk, and it seems like he's dead - only for Hank to emerge and reunite with his wife somehow. Finally, Hank and Darwin get into a fight and fall off a ledge, and it seems the Bulk is gone for good, possibly because he was killed in his human-form... but the stinger at the end has him reach out from his grave and smash Ray in the head, meaning he's somehow still kicking around.
- Nonhumans Lack Attributes: The Bulk, thankfully. Lolita’s final scene implies otherwise, though.
- Nuke 'em: General Darwin tries to kill the Bulk by dropping a nuclear bomb on him. It fails miserably.
- Obviously Evil: General Darwin is far too openly sinister about his projects. It's no surprise at all that he turns out to be the real Big Bad.General Darwin: [with a slasher smile holds a syringe] What's up, Doc? Hehehahahahaha!!!
- Off-the-Shelf FX:
- One shot of Bulk's hands are actual Hulk Hand toys recolored purple!
- Almost every background in the final chase scene is clearly taken from some stock animation source. And Bulk himself looks like a standard Poser model with a heavy amount of tweaking.
- Professor Guinea Pig: In order to prove the effectiveness of the Super Serum he created, Henry willingly ingests it, unwittingly transforming himself into the Bulk.
- Public Domain Soundtrack: The William Tell Overture and "When Johnny Comes Marching Home". Your guess is as good as ours.
- Riding the Bomb: For some reason, what appears to be a communist commissar clings onto a nuclear bomb being dropped on the Bulk.
- Roger Rabbit Effect: The director claims this is what he was going for. Whether it's true or not is anyone's guess.
- Say My Name: Ray, after Lisa dies.
- Shooting Superman: You'd think the detectives would realize that the Bulk is bulletproof at some point and call for backup instead of continuing to waste bullets on him for about five minutes.
- Shout-Out: There are numerous references to the films of Stanley Kubrick. Most prominently, the name of Dr. Kantlove, the kamikaze communist riding the bomb, and the use of "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" in the soundtrack are all homages to Dr. Strangelove. There is also a scene of satellites in space reminiscent of 2001: A Space Odyssey, the use of the William Tell Overture is a reference to A Clockwork Orange, and the name of Dr. Kantlove's assistant is a nod to Kubrick's adaptation of Lolita.
- Slasher Smile: General Darwin gives one when he sees Henry imprisoned.
- Smug Snake: General Darwin seems far too pleased with himself for his petty evil actions.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: The intense final chase is a double example, first set to the William Tell Overture before switching to an instrumental version of "When Johnny Comes Marching Home".
- Speak Ill of the Dead: After Henry's funeral, a drunken Ray stumbles up to his grave and spits, "I hope you're in Hell."
- Super Serum: The creation of one is what causes Henry to transform into the Bulk.
- Unexplained Recovery: As The Other Wiki so eloquently puts it, "Howard arrives at Darwin's home, having inexplicably survived the bombing."
- Unfriendly Fire: When Darwin seemingly kills the Bulk, he blames his death on the (conveniently dead) Kantlove.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Neither Dr. Kantlove nor Lolita acknowledge the inexplicable CGI monkey playing with a toy rocket in the control room. Later, on the way to Kantlove's castle, Hank casually walks past a leprechaun with a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. The final chase scene tops both of these inexplicable things big time.
- Villainous Breakdown: General Darwin gets enraged seeing Henry alive, and angrily tries to kill him.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: General Darwin tries to do this to Henry after he got the serum, and after he used Henry to kill Dr. Kantlove, who outlived his usefulness to the General.
- Your Size May Vary: There is absolutely no coherency about the size of the Bulk. Sometimes, he's about as tall as an unusually but not impossibly large man; other times, he's big enough to hold a news helicopter in his hands like it was a toy.
