History Film / Hulk

* AntiHero: Surprisingly averted with the Hulk. Throughout the film, his seemingly senseless rampages in the labs and military bases are all his attempts to destroy the gamma research before they fall into the wrong hands. He overpowers soldiers but never attempts to kill them.

* ComicBookMoviesDontUseCodenames: Since the film is more dramatic, codenames are entirely averted.

* KnockoutGas: Averted with a SneezeOfDoom by the Hulk.

* MadScientist: David Banner's amorality is pretty apparent throughout the film, what with his willingness to use human test subjects for his experiments (including his own infant son) - but it's not until near the end that the full extent of his megalomania is on display.

* ElementalShapeshifter: After injecting himself with Bruce's reformed DNA, David Banner becomes a powerful and diverse shapeshifter, but he mainly takes after the elements in the climax, going through electrical, rock, and water-based forms in quick succession.

* AttackBackfire: [[spoiler:[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSGXERUKBj4 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 being blown up.]]

->''"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]]."''

* HumanoidAbomination: Hulk, natch. [[spoiler:David joins this trope near the end -- and arguably even becomes an outright EldritchAbomination just before dying.]]

** Even if super-jumping is a power that the Hulk has in the comics, the jumps he makes in this film do not work. Something of that much mass would weigh a couple of 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-[[VoodooShark having legs]]... but in a different way than regular people [[ShapedLikeItself push with their legs to jump]].[[/note]]

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

** "Puny human!" and Bruce's dad having his name in the [[Series/TheIncredibleHulk TV series]].

Years later, Bruce "Krenzler" (Creator/EricBana) is an emotionally repressed researcher at UC Berkeley working on using a combination of gamma radiation and {{nanomachines}} for medical purposes; they're able to get the test animals to heal, but they keep exploding in cancerous growth. Adding to his stress are his co-worker and ex-girlfriend ComicBook/BettyRoss (Creator/JenniferConnelly), and Glenn Talbot, who's trying to buy Bruce's lab from Betty on behalf of her father, ''General'' Ross. Bruce is forced to [[TakingTheBullet Take 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 normal. Well, ''better'' than normal; all of his minor aches and pains have somehow healed themselves. Still, somehow he survived when every frog who went through this exploded -- and Talbot, Ross, and the weird new janitor (Nick Nolte) are all very interested in what Bruce has done.

* AdaptationPersonalityChange: David Banner started as a hard-working, but loving father, unlike in the comics. However, David does eventually become antagonistic, mostly for different reasons.

* {{Angst}}: Boatloads of it, many of them Freudian. Bruce's insane father (who also murdered his mother) is the source of his mutation, who still wants to continue his 'experiment.' At the same time, the authorities hound Bruce because any moment, he could turn into a giant green monster.

** David Banner extracts the properties of bioluminescence from jellyfish, and it's implied to be why the Hulk is green. But bioluminescence isn't 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 skin with green pigment.

** Even if super-jumping is a power that the Hulk has in the comics, the jumps he makes in this film do not work. Something of that much mass would weigh a couple of tons, and yet he jumps like gravity is reduced for 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-[[VoodooShark having legs]]... but in a different way than regular people [[ShapedLikeItself push with their legs to jump]].[[/note]]

* DistantPrologue: The prologue takes place in the 1960s and 1970s.
* DoingInTheWizard: The explication of Bruce's transformation into the Hulk in this film, and why the Hulk can notably become bigger as he becomes angrier, is that his [[{{Nanomachines}} nanomeds]] heal tissue in response to trauma, and the mutation Bruce inherited from his father's experiments keep them from going malignant. The good side of this is that Bruce came out of it with the body of a healthy tween. The bad part is that they also respond to ''psychological'' trauma, so when he gets angry, they keep on buffing tissues until you get a big angry green WMD. And since he [[spoiler:witnessed his father killing his mother while trying to kill ''him'']], he's got psychological trauma to spare.

* DreamingOfThingsToCome: In Betty's dream, she was picked up and set down [[spoiler:by Bruce]] when she was a child. The same thing happens during Betty's first encounter with the Hulk. The difference is that, in her dream, [[spoiler: Bruce is a threat to Betty, but in real life as the Hulk, he's a protector instead.]]
* ElementalShapeshifter: After injecting himself with Bruce's reformed DNA, David Banner becomes a powerful and diverse shapeshifter, but he really takes after the elements in the climax, going through electrical, rock, and water-based forms in quick succession.

* FreudianExcuse: Bruce and Betty both. The film could have just as easily been called "Daddy Issues: The Movie."

* IdiosyncraticWipes: ''Many'' wipes were done in an attempt 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.

* JumpScare: Many first-time viewers tend to be caught off-guard by the dream scene where the Hulk's reflection slams through a mirror and grabs Bruce.

* MadeOfIron: Talbot gets punched through a wall by Hulk and is still conscious, and takes a second hit to go down. Though RealityEnsues that he is still ''severely'' hurt, the extent of his injuries isn't specified: his arm is in a sling, and his neck and knee are braced, 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.

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

** The mushroom cloud in Bruce's memory invokes the gamma explosion that turned him into the Hulk in the comics.

* NoSenseOfPersonalSpace: David Banner sits too close to Betty on the couch to get hold of her scarf, as a scent tracker for his Hulk Dogs.
* NuclearWeaponsTaboo: Gamma bombs are used as an alternative to nuclear weapons being detonated inside the United States.

* PaintingTheMedium: Certain shots are framed in comic book panels to make it look like that the film is based on a comic book.
* ParentalAbandonment: David was imprisoned for his experiments ([[spoiler:and killing his wife]]), and Bruce was taken away to be adopted.

* ParentsAsPeople: General Ross wanted to be a part of Betty's life but couldn't because of his work. He also disapproved of her relationship with Bruce, but only because he knew about Bruce's abusive parents and wanted to keep her safe. By the end of the film, Betty's house, phone, and computer are being monitored in case 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 refused to let him test on human subjects.

* SequelHook: The scene in South America at the end, showing Bruce trying to help others and deal with his condition. Surprisingly, ''Film/TheIncredibleHulk'' film picks up on this plot point and could act as a sequel to this film's general elements. 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.

* VoodooShark: Bruce's transformation into the Hulk is thoroughly explained 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 treatments 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..."

* YouWouldntLikeMeWhenImAngry: Homaged when Talbot is roughing up Bruce, causing him to growl, "Talbot, you're making me angry!" before HulkingOut. At the end of the movie, Bruce gives the complete line as a PreAssKickingOneLiner in Spanish.

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 "Thunderbolt" Ross discovers David's experiments, and Banner sets off the military base's (nuclear and green) self-destruct mechanism before ''something happens'' with him and Bruce's mother...

Years later, Bruce "Krenzler" (Creator/EricBana) is an emotionally repressed researcher at UC Berkeley working on using a combination of gamma radiation and {{nanomachines}} for medical purposes; they're able to get the test animals to heal, but they keep exploding in cancerous growth. Adding to his stress are his co-worker and ex-girlfriend ComicBook/BettyRoss (Creator/JenniferConnelly), and Glenn Talbot, who's trying to buy Bruce's lab from Betty on behalf of her father, ''General'' Ross. Bruce is forced to [[TakingTheBullet Take 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 completely normal. Well, ''better'' than normal; all of his minor aches and pains have somehow healed themselves. Still, somehow he survived when every frog who went through this exploded -- and Talbot, Ross, and the weird new janitor (Nick Nolte) are all very interested in what Bruce has done...

* ActionFilmQuietDramaScene: A particularly strange example, as it's more along the lines of "Action Film Quiet Drama First-Two-Thirds-Of-The-Movie," followed by a final act that's almost entirely comprised of action. It's not entirely 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'' action to be a SummerBlockbuster.

** Bruce's father, Brian, was renamed "David", likely as a MythologyGag to ''Series/TheIncredibleHulk'' where Bruce himself (sort-of) underwent this, going by his first name, which was changed from "Robert" to "David". It might also have been {{RetCanon}}ed, seeing as Brian's ''ComicBook/HouseOfM'' counterpart had David as his middle name.
** Bruce's mother was also renamed from "Rebecca" to "Edith".
* AdaptationPersonalityChange: David Banner started out as a hard-working, but loving father, so unlike in the comics. Though David does eventually become antagonistic, mostly for different reasons.

* {{Angst}}: Boatloads of it, many of them Freudian. Bruce's insane father (who also murdered his mother) is the source of his mutation who still wants to continue his 'experiment', and Bruce is hounded by the authorities because any moment he could turn into a giant green monster.

* AllPsychologyIsFreudian: Oh yeah. This adaptation plays up Hulk's screwed-up psychology a lot more than most so Bruce has got daddy issues coming out the ass.

* AntiHero: Surprisingly averted with the Hulk. His seemingly senseless rampages in the labs and military bases throughout the film are all attempts to destroy the gamma research before they fall into the wrong hands. He overpowers soldiers but never attempts to kill them.
* AntiVillain: General Ross, as opposed to his ''Film/TheIncredibleHulk'' version. Considering the long history of [[ComicBook/IncredibleHulk Hulk comics]] neither is exactly inaccurate to the comics. He's portrayed as a concerned general who deeply loves his daughter and is just trying to stop the Hulk menace, but goes out of his way to pursue and distrust Banner [[SinsOfOurFathers because of who his father is]].
* ArchnemesisDad: David to Bruce. After performing dangerous tests on himself, some of it was passed on genetically when Bruce was conceived. He attempted to murder Bruce but failed, striking down his wife in the process. 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 powers and alter-ego in order to rebuild his own decaying cellular structure and gain his revenge on the military.]] A very, very bad dude, though not without his sympathetic moments.

** David Banner extracts the properties of bioluminescence from jellyfish, and it's implied to be the reason why the Hulk is green. But bioluminescence isn't having green skin, it's the ability to emit light from your skin, and the Hulk's skin clearly doesn't glow, not even in the dark. All he has is skin with green pigment.
** 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 and lizards for their resistance to poisons, and trying to transplant all those into human DNA to create a superhuman being.

** Even if super-jumping is a power that the Hulk has in the comics, the jumps he make in this film just do not work. Something of that much mass would weigh a couple of tons, and yet he jumps like gravity is reduced for him. Gravity does not work that way. [[note]]Eventually {{Hand Wave}}d by WordOfGod: Hulk doesn't really jump so much as [[VoodooShark push himself with his]] SuperStrength-[[VoodooShark having legs]]... but in different way than regular people [[ShapedLikeItself push with their legs to jump]].[[/note]]

** 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 whether it's just sloppy editing is hard to tell. An F-22 couldn't even reach close to that altitude before its engines would stall from lack of oxygen, let alone go fast enough in a vertical climb to reach space.

* BadVibrations: Reversed from the usual; after HulkingOut, ripples are seen in a pool of water next to an unconscious Talbot as the Hulk leaps away in huge bounds.

* BerserkButton / CoolDownHug: Betty Ross is both to Banner. The former if anyone was stupid enough to threaten or hurt her, while the latter as she is one of the few people that could calm him down long enough to turn back into his human form.
* BigBad: David Banner, who is responsible for destroying Bruce's life by experimenting on himself and his son out of an obsession with advancing humanity beyond its limits, creating the Hulk. He intends to drain Bruce's powers to regenerate himself and get his revenge on the military.
* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: Bruce and Betty are still separated at the end, and Betty is under constant surveillance from the government for her own protection. However, Bruce is still alive and trying to help people, and with all things considered, Betty's relationship with her father is much better than it was in the beginning of the film.]]
* BookEnds: Both the beginning and the end of the film show a shot of the color green.
* BullyingADragon: Early in the film, Hulk-Bruce uses Glenn Talbot as a melee weapon to beat two other people into unconsciousness. After Bruce is captured, Talbot, who is wearing a cast and neck brace, decides that shocking Bruce repeatedly with a cattle prod to try to get him to 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 Talbot, his next attempt ''does'' work [[spoiler:and the morgue is exactly where he ends up]].

* CanonForeigner: Bruce's foster mother Mrs. Krenzler.

* ComicBookMoviesDontUseCodenames: Since the film is more dramatic, codenames are completely averted.
* CompositeCharacter: David Banner's powers are a combination of the Absorbing Man and electrical elemental Zzzax from the comics. The fact that his form is apparently unstable and he will deteriorate without the Hulk's power is similar to Half-life.

* 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.

* DoingInTheWizard: The explication of Bruce's transformation into the Hulk in this film, and why the Hulk notably has the ability of becoming bigger and bigger as he becomes angrier, is that his [[{{Nanomachines}} nanomeds]] heal tissue in response to trauma, and the mutation Bruce inherited from his father's experiments keep them from going malignant. The good side of this is that Bruce came out of it with the body of a really healthy tween. The bad part is that they also respond to ''psychological'' trauma, so when he gets angry they just keep on buffing tissues until you get an big angry green WMD. And since he [[spoiler:witnessed his father killing his mother while trying to kill ''him'']], he's got psychological trauma to spare.

* DreamingOfThingsToCome: In Betty's dream, when she was a child she was picked up and set down by [[spoiler: Bruce]]. This also happens during her first encounter with the Hulk when he picks her up and places her on top of her car. The difference being that, in Betty's dream, [[spoiler: Bruce is shown as a threatening presence to Betty, while as the Hulk, he's not a source of danger but a protector.]]
* ElementalShapeshifter: After injecting himself with Bruce's reformed DNA, David Banner becomes a very strong and diverse shapeshifter, but he really takes after the elements in the climax, going through electrical, rock, and water-based forms in quick succession.

* FreudianExcuse: Bruce and Betty both. The film could have just as easily been called "Daddy Issues: The Movie".

* GenreBusting: The movie had 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 is torn between actually trying to find a cure for his son and treating him as a test subject -- and indeed, the proof of what he was trying to accomplish.

** While the Hulk is fighting the mutated dogs, the poodle bites and pulls on the crotch of Hulk's shorts until he yanks the poodle off. If one thinks about it, it's HilariousInHindsight because Hulk's reaction might remind someone of how it feels to be on the receiving end of a [[{{Wedgie}} melvin wedgie]].
** To make the bull mastiff let go of his leg, Hulk lifts it up by its legs and punches it in the groin.
** When Talbott's men shoot sticky foam to contain the Hulk, it's first sprayed at Hulk's crotch.
** Hulk does this to himself in one of the film's truly funny moments, during the scene when the tanks are attacking him. When he tears the turret off one of them, he's standing over the barrel and racks himself.
* HannibalLecture: Said one by David Banner in an intense fashion.
* HateSink: Talbot seems purpose-made to make the audience loathe him. The [[BigBad real threat of the film]] is Bruce's evil, obsessed father David who is the root cause of the entire Hulk problem, and General Ross is [[AntiVillain a man trying to do what's right to stop a genuine menace]], even if he goes out of his way to persecute Bruce out of prejudice. Talbot is just a smug corporate bastard who only wants fame and glory, endangers everyone by going over Ross's head to unleash the Hulk, bullies Bruce whenever he can and being a dickish romantic foil, and contributes little to the story besides repeatedly getting Bruce into Hulk-mode and [[VeryPunchableMan have it satisfyingly backfire onto him.]]
* HealingFactor: What both Bruce and David Banner's experiments were trying to create; a secondary superpower of the Hulk. Specifically, they used [[LegoGenetics starfish DNA]].

** [[spoiler:Talbot is blown up after his attempt to kill the Hulk with a grenade launcher [[EpicFail fails miserably]].]]
** [[spoiler:David Banner gets exactly what he wanted so much, his son's dormant powers... too bad it's too much for him to handle and his body becomes so unstable that he gets blown up by the military.]]

* JustPlaneWrong: A retroactive variant. Among the Army assets that Ross sends after the Hulk after he breaks out of the 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 still in development at the time of the film (as were the F-22 Raptors seen later). Unfortunately for the film, the project was cancelled the year after the film was released and the RAH-66 never entered service.

* LeFilmArtistique: The film utilizes a lot of split-screens, flashbacks, wipes and surreal imagery to convey the impression of a mentally damaged individual.
* LegoGenetics: David Banner injects the DNA of of many animals like starfish or jellyfish into himself, and Bruce inherits these. 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 a soldier, who was doing something with her...
* LogoJoke: The Marvel logo features comic-book images of the Hulk in its pages; it's shaded green, the Hulk's traditional colour; and after it fully forms it bubbles out of the frame, reflecting the biological experiments carried out.
* LukeIAmYourFather: Yes, the new janitor at Bruce's lab is his long-lost father David.
* MadeOfIron: Talbot gets literally punched through the wall by Hulk and is still conscious, and takes a second hit to go down. Though RealityEnsues that he is still ''severely'' hurt - the extent of his injuries isn't specified, his arm is in a sling and his neck and knee are braced - 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.

* MercyKill: [[spoiler:After Ross shuts down his attempt to find a cure for his son, David Banner tries to kill Bruce under this trope. Unfortunately his wife gets in the way.]]
* MilitariesAreUseless: [[spoiler:David Banner's philosophy after his work was completely denied by the military.]]

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

** The score by Danny Elfman occasionally samples the score of the live action series.

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: It was General Ross' fault David was unable to cure Bruce. Also happens for a certain value of "hero" at the end. With the super-powered Bruce and David Banner throwing down and Bruce over-loading his father's absorbing powers, Ross decides the best solution is to hit them both with a gamma bomb. As that wasn't exactly how Bruce's (and David's, but Ross doesn't necessarily know that) powers were awakened in the first place, all it does is remake the Hulk.

* OffingTheOffspring: At first, he David tried to kill baby Bruce, after Ross shuts him down and finding no other way to cure him. Though 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 him life in the first place and should give it back.

* OscarBait: A ''rare'' superhero film example before Film/TheDarkKnightTrilogy and Film/{{Logan}}. Stands in stark contrast to most CriticProof superhero movies including ''Film/TheIncredibleHulk''. Though this pleased the critics, this formula for a superhero film did not work well at all for ''Hulk'' at the box office, where it made a record drop in revenue from first to second week. It was so bad that film franchise was rebooted after only four years.

* PaintingTheMedium: Certain shots are framed in comic book panels to give the feeling that the film is based on a comic book.

* ParentalIssues: ''The'' major theme of the film. Watch ''Hulk'' and then count how many sub-tropes from that page show up in some form.

* PsychoPoodle: One of the dogs of [[ArchnemesisDad Dr. David Banner]] is a French Poodle, which he later injects with the mutation serum so it turns 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 much as he wants Bruce's DNA. He tortures Bruce into becoming the Hulk, and when it goes wrong, he decides to just kill him.
* RideTheLightning: David Banner 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.

* SequelHook: The scene in South America at the end, showing Bruce trying to help others and deal with his condition. Surprisingly, ''Film/TheIncredibleHulk'' film picks up on this plot point, and could in fact act as a sequel to the general elements of this film. The subsequent [[Film/TheAvengers2012 Avengers film]] calls back to this by having him in a similar situation, hiding and providing help to the poor in India.

* SinsOfOurFathers: General Ross's hatred of Bruce arises from what David Banner did before being sent to prison. Well, that and the fact that [[OverprotectiveDad he was dating his daughter]]. Ross, despite being a ControlFreak, falls on the "nature" side of "nature vs. nuture", one of the film's multiple subtexts.

* TanksForNothing: Four tanks confront the Hulk out in the desert. The first one he flings away, the second he rips off the turret ([[NoEndorHolocaust before shaking out everyone inside]]), and uses it to beat the crap out of the third, and for the fourth he bends the cannon muzzle so that it aims right at the gunner.

** Talbot earns some stupid points too, he believes that only turning Bruce into the Hulk would give him access to the DNA when earlier it showed that the key to Bruce's power lay within his bloodstream as David demonstrated on his dogs. Regardless if he transforms or not. Not only is it stupid for that reason, but even then the Hulk's skin is too dense and constantly regenerates so he can't get any in pieces either.
* TurnOutLikeHisFather: Ross doesn't think it's a coincidence that Bruce entered the exact same field that his father did, meaning either they're working together after all, 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' concern given that Bruce is dating his daughter.]]

* VoodooShark: Bruce's transformation into the Hulk is thoroughly explained 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 treatments were self-administered rather than naturally born like Bruce's, but it is a hugely different process to go from the fairly plausible "growing tons of muscle" to the fantastical "turn yourself into water, metal, concrete, electricity..."

* YouWouldntLikeMeWhenImAngry: Homaged when Talbot is roughing up Bruce, causing him to growl, "Talbot, you're making me angry!" before HulkingOut. At the end of the movie, the complete line is given as a PreAssKickingOneLiner in Spanish.

* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: The film is deeply cynical.
* SlidingScaleOfVisualsVersusDialogue: The film focuses on the visuals with little dialogue.

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

* GreenEyes: Betty, in this case lampshading her role as Banner's LoveInterest. Bruce's eyes turn green when he's about to start HulkingOut.

** While the Hulk is fighting the mutated dogs, the poodle bites and pulls on the crotch of Hulk's shorts until he yanks the poodle off.

!!This film provides examples of:

Years later, Bruce "Krenzler" (Eric Bana) is an emotionally repressed researcher at UC Berkeley working on using a combination of gamma radiation and {{nanomachines}} for medical purposes; they're able to get the test animals to heal, but they keep exploding in cancerous growth. Adding to his stress are his co-worker and ex-girlfriend ComicBook/BettyRoss (Creator/JenniferConnelly), and Glenn Talbot, who's trying to buy Bruce's lab from Betty on behalf of her father, ''General'' Ross. Bruce is forced to [[TakingTheBullet Take 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 completely normal. Well, ''better'' than normal; all of his minor aches and pains have somehow healed themselves. Still, somehow he survived when every frog who went through this exploded -- and Talbot, Ross, and the weird new janitor (Nick Nolte) are all very interested in what Bruce has done...

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: Bruce and Betty are still separated at the end, and Betty is under constant surveillance from the government for her own protection. However, Bruce is still alive and trying to help people, and withal things considered, Betty's relationship with her father is much better than it was in the beginning of the film.]]

* BerserkButton / CoolDownHug: Betty Ross is both to Banner. The former if anyone was stupid enough to hurt her, while the latter as she is one of the few people that could calm him down long enough to turn back into his human form.

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: Bruce and Betty are still separated at the end, and Betty is under constant surveillance from the government for her own protection. But Bruce is still alive and trying to help people, and Betty's relationship with her father is much better than it was in the beginning of the film.]]

** While he's fighting the Hulk Dogs, the poodle bites and pulls on Hulk's crotch until he yanks the poodle off.

* PsychoPoodle: One of the dogs of [[ArchnemesisDad Dr. David Banner]] is a French poodle, which he later injects with the mutation serum so it turns into a man-eating poodle from hell before siccing it on Bruce's LoveInterest Betty Ross.

** The film also relies on LegoGenetics.

* TurnedOutLikeHisFather: Ross doesn't think it's a coincidence that Bruce entered the exact same field that his father did, meaning either they're working together after all, 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' concern given that Bruce is dating his daughter.]]

* TheCameo: Lou Ferrigno (the Hulk from the TV show) and Creator/StanLee (Hulk's creator) appear as security guards.

[[quoteright:300:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hulk_2003_2223.jpg]]