Taglines: Unleash the hero within.
Hulk movie storyline. Scientist Bruce Banner (Eric Bana) has, to put it mildly, anger management issues. His quiet life as a brilliant researcher working with cutting edge genetic technology conceals a nearly forgotten and painful past. His ex-girlfriend and equally brilliant fellow researcher, Betty Ross (Academy Award winner Jennifer Connelly), has tired of Bruce’s cordoned off emotional terrain and resigns herself to remaining an interested onlooker to his quiet life.
Which is exactly where Betty finds herself during one of the early trials in Banner’s groundbreaking research. A simple oversight leads to an explosive situation and Bruce makes a split-second decision; his heroic impulse saves a life and leaves him apparently unscathed — his body absorbing a normally deadly dose of gamma radiation.
…And yet, something is happening. Vague morning-after effects. Blackouts. Unexpected fallout from the experiment gone awry. Banner begins to feel some kind of a presence within, a stranger who feels familiar, slightly dangerous and yet darkly attractive.
All the while, a massive creature — a rampaging, impossibly strong being who comes to be known as the Hulk — continues its sporadic appearances, cutting a swath of destruction, leaving Banner’s lab in shambles and his house with blown out walls. The military is engaged, led by Betty’s father, General “Thunderbolt” Ross (Sam Elliott), along with rival researcher Glenn Talbot (Josh Lucas), and both personal vendettas and familial ties come into play, heightening the danger and raising the stakes in the escalating emergency.
Betty Ross has her theories, and she knows the shadowy figure lurking in the background, Bruce’s father, David (Nick Nolte), is somehow connected. She may be the only one who understands the link between scientist and the Hulk, but her efforts to stop the military threat, deploying every weapon in its attempt to capture the monster, may be too late to save both man and creature.
Acclaimed Oscar-winning filmmaker Ang Lee (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) turns his masterful eye to adapting the classic Marvel Comics character for the big screen. Setting out to faithfully transfer the Hulk comic book character from four-color paneled page to motion picture screen, Lee combines all the elements of a blockbuster visual effects-intensive Super Hero movie with the brooding romance and tragedy of Universal’s classic horror films. Staying true to the early subversive spirit of the Hulk as envisioned by its creators (Stan Lee and Jack Kirby) while also tuning the tale to current dangerous times, Lee presents a portrait of a man at war with himself and the world, both a Super Hero and a monster, a means of wish fulfillment and a nightmare.
Committed to bringing the Hulk to authentic life, director Lee and his effects teams logged countless hours to assure a creature true to the essence of Kirby’s powerful seminal artwork and Lee’s mythic stories. Designers and artists returned to the original Hulk character conceptions to honor the Marvel traditions and place the creature in a motion picture world — grounded in reality, dictated by time-honored practice and colored by comic book convention.
Hulk (2003)
Directed by: Ang Lee
Starring: Eric Bana, Jennifer Connelly, Sam Elliott, Nick Nolte, Josh Lucas, Brooke Langton, Sasha Barrese, Cara Buono, Kevin Rankin, Celia Weston, Mike Erwin
Screenplay by: Michael France, David Hayter, James Schamus
Cinematography by: Frederick Elmes
Production Design by: Rick Heinrichs
Art Direction by: John Dexter
Film Editing by: Tim Squyres
Costume Design by: Marit Allen
Music by: Danny Elfman
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sci-fi action violence, disturbing images, partial nudity.
Distributed by: Universal Pictures
Release Date: June 20, 2003
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