INCREDIBLE HULK MOVIE: You will believe that a good Hulk movie CAN be made.

I went and saw the new Incredible Hulk movie on Friday night. I went to the 7pm show and was surprised at just how empty the local movie house was. I think a combination of the very nice weather and relatively low key promotion for this film so far didn't encourage people to flood this film as much as the publicity build up forIron Man did for that movie (I dont even know if there were any Thursday midnight preview showings for Hulk in my area, for example).

So, what did I think?

Awesome, simply awesome.

Finally, 'Hulk smashed' and it made sense. Don't get me wrong, I didn't even really hate the first Hulk movie as much as many of you did, but I left the theater feeling sleepy by the end of it and that was the problem there: it was just too cerebral for Summer box office fare. Sure the first Hulk smahed and had it out with the military, but that seemed to be lost in all the self introspective blah blah blah going on throughout. That and there was no real effective adversary for the Hulk to fight (if you dont include a trippy Nick Nolte mind expansion sequence, that is).

That is what this new Hulk movie got right. Well actually, it got alot of things right:

Good casting of the principles: Ed Norton was believable as Banner; Tim Roth was appropriately evil as the Abomination (before and after the transformation); Liv Tyler was good at being the primarily eye candy that her part allowed for (not given much else to do); William Hurt was very good as the obsessive General Ross.

Decent plotting: The story kept moving forward and I never once caught myself looking at my watch/cellphone. The backstory was effectively done during the opening credits which effectively got it out of the way. Banner got his chance to reflect on his situation repeatedly and it didnt feel to me that it was at the expense of the flow of the story. Heck there was even time for a nearly half hour fight scene at the end, and this after two entertaining fight scenes earlier in the film.

Special Effects: The CGI team behind this film deserve to take a bow for their efforts: the film included several slow panning shots of the monster and showed decent detail while doing so. The effects during the fight scenes made them very enjoyable, although a couple of times we were given Matrix-like sequences which are almost obligatory by now.

All in all, this film did not disappoint the fanboy in me and even had an easter egg or two to get me stoked about the future. By now everyone has heard that Robert Downey Jr reprises his Tony stark role briefly for this film: he does and it is a marginal scene, but it helps keep the ball rolling on building momentum for a future Avengers movie. There was also a brief scene that suggested at least one more gamma powered adversary might be on the way for the Hulk in any future sequel (watch for the last scenes with the scientist friend of Banner in the movie-more specifically what seems to be happening with his head).

The downside to all of this is now that Iron Man and the Hulk have come and gone, all we are left with in the foreseeable future is a new Punisher movie; Mehh, I'm not getting too excited about that project and any future Marvel Universe projects will be up to a year away, when we will then get a new Wolverine movie, a new Captain America movie, and even a new Thor movie somewhere down the road.