MRM : The Incredible Hulk - The MCU’s split personality

Next up is the one part of Phase 1 that really kinda feels out of place, in more ways than one.

First of all, it's not the Bruce we know now, it's a different guy, Edward Norton is playing Banner in this one and the Hulk is full CGI with none of Norton in the characters face.

One of the things that follows and haunts this film are all the stories of how difficult Norton was to work with on set, it's stuck to this film and that's not good press for the MCU.

The one thing I will give them is all the Hulk history they toss in, Ferigno (who also voices The Hulk in this film) and Bixby appear in the film and we even get some bars of, The Lonely Man song from the original series, all of that is awesome and appreciated.  Although, as Bruce left the computer lab, I'd have had Ferigno say, "hope you found what you're looking for, Dr Banner."  And Bruce just smile at him with a nod of thanks.  The film had really good 2nd string and even 3rd string characters, they should have done just a bit more with it.  Stanley and his pizza place was awesome.

Doctor Bruce Banner is still on the run from General Thunderbolt Ross (and his yet unnamed, Hulkbuster squad), and currently hiding out in South America working at a soda pop factory.  Ross sends in his stealth-like troops (like bulls in a china shop) and the Hulk erupts once more.  After recovering, Banner somehow makes it from Central America to Virginia in less than 30 days with no money and no transportation, that seems a bit of a stretch, I'd have made it 60 days, roughly.

One of the parts of this that is out of place is the conversation between Ross and Blonski, when they talk about the bio-enhancement division of WWII, the Super Soldier program and Ross tries to really downplay and makes sure not to mention Steve Rogers or Cap, that was off.

Ross decides to ramp Bronski up with what's left of some form of the super soldier serum, they never explain what it is and where it came from.  If they had this, what where they working on?  Seriously.

Bruce's reunion with Betty Ross is good, the chemistry between the two is good, they play up the tension well, scientists afraid to let "the thing" loose.  But Betty's new beau calls the government over Banner, they never said why or played into the reasons around it, was he a plant?  Designed to get near Betty?  Lots of holes around this part.  The character is credited as Doc Samson but I can't see this guy becoming the Marvel hero of the same name at all, Ty Burrell is a good actor, but poor job in this, but I'd like to see Doc Samson in a future film or part of the upcoming She-Hulk series.

The campus battle is a good one, excellent action, as well as college reporter "Jack McGhee" and his friend "Jim Wilson" getting footage of parts on his cellphone, another nice nod to the original show, but could have been better.  Wilson is a character from Hulk's past in the comics and was one of his good friends/allies in the animated series of the 80's.

Watching this film today, really makes one wonder how General Ross made it to Secretary of Defense, or might be an intentional mockery of how the incompetent rise to the top through lies and political favor.

Banner finally hooks up with "Mr Blue" aka Dr Samuel Sterns (The Leader) and he tries to use an infusion process to clear Banners gamma poisoning, and appears to work.  Bronski wants the reverse, he wants the raw power of the Hulk in him, Sterns goes through with it, creating the Abomination.  In the fury, parts of the gamma serum drip down onto Sterns head and we see him begin his own transformation but never have seen the result so far.

The battle between Hulk and the Abomination is the fight that Roffalo's Banner references to in The Avengers when he says, "I broke Harlem", showing that he still blames himself for something he was actually trying to clean up.

The end credit scene between Ross and Stark felt very forced, like it wasn't part of the original plan.  Especially given the end of, Iron Man 2, where Stark was told that he was rejected from the group, so why did he approach Ross instead of Fury... for the joke about the "nice suits"?  

Bottom line, this was just made as an Incredible Hulk film, not sure it was seriously ever thought that it would be a master part of the MCU and not sure why they decided to keep it, almost none of this films plots ran through to later films and we never have seen Betty Ross again.  Although we do finally see the Abomination pop up in Shang-Chi, hmm… I wonder how he escaped captivity...

Overall, the film gets 🌟🌟 and a half out of five, and a HUGE part of that is in the respect they show for the original television show, although I'd cast Liv Tyler as Betty Ross again.  As far as an MCU film it gets only half a star because so much of what they started in this film has yet to make it into the current MCU.

There is a lot that I'd have done different and I'll get more into it in my blog on, My MCU Universe that I'll release on New Years Day 2022.