HULKING AMBITIONS… PUNY MOVIE. So I saw “The Hulk” (or is it just “Hulk,” a la “Madonna”?) yesterday. Some scattered thoughts.

1) It was worth it for me, because I’m really interested in all the nifty directorial tricks Ang Lee came up with. And because I paid matinee price.

2) Very much not recommended for people uninterested in film technique.

3) Did anyone at all understand the ending? Not the very end–the bit with the electricity. Seriously, that may have been the most opaque plot sequence in any movie I’ve ever seen.

4) Jennifer Connelly had a lot more chemistry with David Bowie.

5) The ’60s look so much more like the future than we do! Earlier today, I told Ratty, “The ’60s look WAY more like ‘The Future’ than today does. Because everything is so sleek and space-age and atomic. But it turns out that The Future isn’t sleek and space-age and atomic, it’s fundamentalist and grubby and chaotic and unpleasant and held together with duct tape and guesswork. And I fit better with that than with space-age atomic, I think.” I liked that the Hulk movie captured both moments–the space-age ’60s and the wreckage left behind.

6) The political aspects of the movie were… confused. On the one hand, the military-industrial complex was portrayed (watch out for punnage!) with complexity. On the other hand, I’m pretty sure we were supposed to find Bruce Banner and Generic Girlfriend’s refusal to give their scientific results to the military heroic. And their reasoning for not turning their work over to the US military was that the US wouldn’t share the results with everybody. The relevant military technology involved making supersoldiers, soldiers whose wounds would heal themselves via “nanomeds.” Hello?? This was one of several moments when my personal suspension of disbelief un-suspended. I am not thrilled with people who think the US can only have supersoldiers if everyone else has them too. Um… I won’t give you supersoldier technology unless the Chinese can have it too? Not unless Iran gets it? Not unless Russia gets it? What the…?!

7) Speaking of, I wasn’t upset by the Rube Goldberg-esque explanation for Bruce Banner’s eventual Hulkosity. a) I don’t buy the idea that gamma rays on their own would Hulkify him, so I’m definitely in the market for a more complicated origin;

b) I’m prepared to believe that something as weird as the Hulk would only arise through a series of the kinds of bizarre accidents and coincidences that happen out here in real reality; but

c) it did kind of annoy me how much of the responsibility for the Hulk’s fury was shoved onto his genes. There was a definite tinge of “Gee, Officer Krupke!” for the “Gattaca” age to that stuff. Isn’t it more dramatically appealing if he’s just, you know, really really angry?

8) I predict that this movie is going to influence a lot of filmmakers. Lee is just super-innovative. He squanders it all–he adamantly refuses to use his odd techniques to enhance the movie’s drama or characterizations. But the innovative dissolves, the comic-book stylings, the split-screen effects–I loved them all. I wanted someone to use them right. And soon, someone will, because Lee showed the way. Anyone interested in formal stuff (= how form does or could express meaning) should check out “Hulk.” Lee doesn’t do it right, but he prepares the way for someone who will.