‘Hulk’ won’t wrestle with dark side of psyche

In theaters

HULK, directed by Ang Lee; written by John Turman, Michael France and James Schamus, 137 minutes, rated PG-13.

If ever there was a movie that needed a strong finish, it’s Ang Lee’s “Hulk,” a film whose interminable first hour is such a hackneyed, uneventful bore that audiences might need their own nanomeds gamma rayed – if that’s even possible – to get through it.

The film, from a script John Turman, Michael France and James Schamus based on Stan Lee’s long-running 1962 Marvel comic-book series and, in turn, the 1978-1982 television show with Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno, is a long-winded disappointment that finds its footing only at the end. But by that time, it might as well be wearing clogs.

The film comes on the heels of Ang Lee’s “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” an outstanding movie whose rich story was wedded so perfectly to its characters and its unforgettable action that it transcended the genre to become a work of art.

Stumbling from the start without ever fully recovering, “Hulk” never comes close to reaching such heights. It’s a movie whose few gripping moments and technically superb set pieces are quashed by a mother lode of bad choices, not the least of which is that Lee and company don’t give us a character we ever really come to know, or, for that matter, give a damn about.

In the movie, Australian actor Eric Bana is Bruce Banner, an emotionally detached research geneticist who, as a child, was his father’s favorite lab rat. Indeed, in an extended series of flashbacks, we see how the mad scientist, David Banner (Paul Kersey/Nick Nolte), stuck needles into just about everything, from frogs to lizards and eventually to his own son, all in an effort to achieve cellular regeneration.

Now, as an adult, Bruce’s blood is so temperamental, it reacts disastrously when he’s accidentally zapped with a lethal dose of gamma radiation. Instead of dropping dead, as his former girlfriend and fellow scientist Betty Ross (Jennifer Connelly) knows he should have, Bruce becomes a ticking time bomb waiting to erupt into the Hulk the moment he gets ticked off.

Fueling his rage are all sorts of demons – his horrific childhood memories; his crazed father; a competing scientist (Josh Lucas); and Betty’s military father, “Thunderbolt” Ross (Sam Elliott), a five-star general whose ferocious growl could jump-start the earth’s core.

With much of the film framed to look like the pages of a comic book, “Hulk” isn’t lacking style: Lee has the sense to keep the action interesting, at least when there’s action to be had, and he has the sensibility to make his slightly cartoonish-looking Hulk appear graceful, particularly when he leaps across vast terrain and becomes airborne.

But until the energetic final 30 minutes, the film is too restrained for its own good, which runs counter to its intent, and there’s rarely a sense of joy, in spite of Bruce’s admission that he likes to morph into the Hulk and go on a rampage.

Instead of exploring this potentially interesting and telling side of Bruce’s psyche, Lee glosses over it and thus leaves audiences with a Hulk who may appear sturdy on the surface, but who is never as complex as the computer code that generated him.

Grade: C-

On video and DVD

Talk to Her, written and directed by Pedro Almodovar, 112 minutes, rated R. In Spanish with English subtitles.

After an interminable wait, in which it seemed that nobody in Hollywood would have the nerve to make a film about brain-dead ballerinas, gored female bullfighters and the men who love them, Pedro Almodovar comes through with “Talk to Her.” What a relief to report it turned out so well.

From Almodovar’s own script, the film stars Javier Camara as Benigno, a sensitive male nurse who finds himself obsessively caring for Alicia (Leonor Watling), a broken ballerina struck by a car whose comatose beauty now rests in the antiseptic confines of a hospital bed.

Secretly, Benigno loves Alicia with a blinding passion, talking to her and fussing over her with the absolute certainty that she’s aware of his presence and might one day awaken to fall in love with him. Marco (Dario Grandinetti), on the other hand, is less certain about how he now factors into his relationship with Lydia (Rosario Flores), a female bullfighter who was gored by a bull just as she and Marco were falling into love.

Now in a coma, Lydia hovers somewhere between life and the afterlife, with Marco unsure how to proceed. Should he walk away from Lydia, who almost certainly will never recover? Or should he follow Benigno’s example and remain at this woman’s side?

Leave it to Almodovar to throw in an 11th-hour stunner that turns the film’s issues of morality on their side and sweeps them into a bedpan.

Employing elements of pure, undiluted melodrama to nudge its characters toward uncomfortable truths about themselves and the world in which they live, ‘Talk to Her” is about friendship, faith and the price of love.

It may not be the director’s edgiest work, but it certainly is his most adult. It joins the rest in being that rare original, going so far as to tuck into the middle of the action a mini silent movie called “Shrinking Lover,” which is so audacious, it’s as outrageous as anything Almodovar has conceived.

Grade: A-

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays and Fridays in Style, Thursdays on WLBZ 2 and WCSH 6, and are archived on RottenTomatoes.com. He can be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.