X-Men Origins Wolverine (2009)

X-Men Origins Wolverine (2009)

 

Release Date: May 1, 2009

After X-Men: The Last Stand made X-Men 4 a rather unenviable proposition in terms of both where the franchise could go from there and whether the results would be any good, the decision was taken to go back and explore the origins of various X-Men characters. Of course, Wolverine was first out of the gates, and also the last, as the film’s poor reception led to the X-Men Origins spin-off series being canned.

The film starts in 1845, (if it had been set 40 years later, we’d know that the Doc’s alive!) with young James Howlett being put to bed by his father. The bedtime routine is disturbed by a drunken visitor bursting into the house and murdering James’ father. It is at this time James’ mutant abilities manifest themselves, as he grows bone claws between his fingers and impales the intruder with them. As the intruder dies, he reveals that he is James’ real father, and the grief-stricken James runs away from home, accompanied by his older brother Victor. The two mutant brothers fight together through various wars in a neat opening monologue, with Victor, or Sabretooth as he is better known, becoming increasingly bloodthirsty and ruthless, to the point that he is sentenced to death by firing squad for trying to rape a Vietnamese woman. Logan, as he now calls himself, is also punished for trying to stop Sabretooth, but of course the execution fails, because if it didn’t, the film would only last about ten minutes. The brothers are tracked down by the villain of X-Men 2, Colonel Stryker (since this is a prequel, he hasn’t been promoted yet.) Stryker recruits the two to join his group of mutant commandos, with the group’s other members being the teleporting William (I refuse to call him Will. I. Am, his name is William and you will like it!), Deadpool, who has swords and never shuts up, Agent Zero, who has guns and can jump really high, Blob, who skin is so thick it renders him an immovable object, and Bradley, who can… Drumroll please… turn lightbulbs on and off with (does spooky voice) the power of the mind.

If this weren’t a prequel, the kid from X-Men 2 who changed TV channels by blinking would be on the team too.

The group are sent to Africa to get a meteorite, which they find is being used as a paperweight. This is all the excuse the team needs to start committing war crimes, but Logan bails and severs ties with Sabretooth while he’s at it. Six years later, Logan is living in a log cabin with his girlfriend Kayla, while working as a lumberjack. “I’m a lumberjack and I’m okay, I sleep all night and I work all day!” Anyway, Stryker returns and tells Logan that someone has killed Deadpool and Merry, sorry I mean Bradley. Logan refuses to help track down the killer, so Sabretooth appears and kills Kayla. This prompts Wolverine to go back to Stryker and agree to be the test subject for having the Adamantium from the African paperweight grafted to his bones. His new codename for Weapon X is Wolverine, which you should know already, since it’s in the title. The operation is a complete success until Stryker demands that Wolverine’s memories be erased. While he searches for the big red erase memories button, Wolverine escapes. All too late, Stryker remembers that there is no big red erase memories button, but he does have the Deus Ex Machina gun, equipped with Adamantium bullets…

Wolverine runs into the Canadian wilderness, and is found by an elderly couple who are concerned that a screaming crazy naked man just ran into their barn. Despite their reservations, the couple give him food, clothes and shelter, until Zero blows up their house in an attempt to kill Wolverine, which works about as well as you’d expect. Since he’s already killing Sabretooth, Wolverine adds Stryker to the list of people to kill, and visits William and Blob for help. After Wolverine beats him in a boxing match, Blob tells him that Stryker is kidnapping mutants and doing experiments on them in his evil lair, the Island, and that a mutant named Gambit escaped from the Island and will take him there. No, I don’t know why Stryker is hiding in a mediocre Michael Bay film either.

Wolverine and William go to recruit Gambit, but since there’s only room for two party members at a time, William kindly gets himself shanked by Sabretooth so that Gambit can tag along with Wolverine. On the Island, Wolverine finds that Kayla was working for Stryker all along, and that her death was faked by Sabretooth because Stryker wanted Wolverine’s powers for his ultimate creation, Baraka from Mortal Kombat. Baraka uses Deadpool’s body as a base and has swords in his arms. Naturally, his mouth has been stitched shut, so he has no mouth, and he must scream. He can also teleport and shoot laser beams from his eyes. I’ll admit I didn’t know Baraka could do that. It must have been in Mortal Kombat Vs DC, because I haven’t played that one. Sabretooth shows up and he and Wolverine team up to fight Baraka, with the fight ending when Wolverine chops Baraka’s head off. Yeah, Wolverine’s Fatality is a bit lame. I mean, Sub-Zero can rip people’s spines out of their backs, how is Wolverine supposed to match up to that? Sabretooth runs away, and Wolverine finds an injured Kayla, who says she really did love Wolverine and wasn’t brainwashing him. Suddenly, Stryker arrives with the Deus Ex Machina gun and shoots Wolverine until he loses his memories. Stryker prepares to shoot Kayla as well, but she uses her powers to tell him these are not the droids you are looking for and makes him go away before dying of her injuries. Stryker doesn’t stop walking until he is arrested by the military for murdering an officer who was concerned Stryker had gone mad with power. Of course he had, have you ever tried going mad without power? It’s boring. Nobody listens to you!

After the credits, Wolverine is drinking in a bar in Japan, when the waitress asks him if he is drinking to forget. Wolverine answers that he is drinking to remember. Don’t you see? People normally forget things when they drink, but it’s funny because Wolverine has forgotten everything already, which means that he can’t forget anything else! Now LAUGH!

Yes! Like this!

Remember when I mentioned the Wolverine shilling in X-Men: The Last Stand? It’s even worse now, as you would imagine since it’s his film. The other characters are portrayed as being inferior to Wolverine in every way, and he’s the only capable of getting anything done. Near the end of the film, Stryker even spells out to Sabretooth that Wolverine is better than him without explanation, just saying that he couldn’t survive Weapon X because Stryker says so. Would it have really been that hard just to include a throwaway line about Sabretooth having a weaker healing factor than Wolverine, which is why he wouldn’t be able to survive Weapon X? Since Wolverine is practically invincible, there’s no reason to care about him since he can’t lose. That’s also a problem with the prequel concept in general. We know Wolverine, Sabretooth and Stryker will survive, because they’re in the earlier films, and we know that the other characters aren’t in the earlier films, so they have to die or otherwise be out of the picture, so there’s no tension. There are ways of getting around this issue, but X-Men Origins Wolverine’s plot is clichéd and uninteresting, and filling in the gaps in Wolverine’s past hurts the character because the mysteries surrounding him were more interesting when they were mysteries. It wasn’t worth spelling out what happened.

A side effect of X-Men: The Last Stand was crowbarring in as many mutant characters as possible, with the cost of some being portrayed in name only. That happens again here, and again it’s worse. The main offender this time is Deadpool, who in the comics is a huge fan favourite, yet is portrayed terribly in the film. To be fair, Ryan Reynolds does a pretty good job with the 5 minutes or so of screen time he has (even if I was imagining his lines being spoken with Nolan North’s Deadpool voice, but that’s on me), but the main source of controversy is the climax of the film when Baraka shows up and has assimilated the other characters’ powers, as if he’s a mutant Mega Man. This character is a radical departure from a highly recognizable and unique character, immediately defined by his motor mouth and awareness of the fourth wall. Specifically, he knows he’s in a comic/TV show/video game (Delete as appropriate), and this trait has given him a large fanbase. Making such a drastic change with such a popular character is a big risk, and here it didn’t pay off. Making Deadpool shut his mouth is the final insult, kicking the fandom while it’s down. 

Yes, the sad music returns, but this time there's a hint of hope. Fitting, considering the recent announcement of a Deadpool film that ignores this one. Now don't screw it up!

Gambit is at least portrayed more faithfully, but he gets similarly shafted in terms of screen time, despite advertising materials playing him up as a prominent character. In the end, he just flies a plane, which isn’t anything Gambit had to do. Giving Gambit a minor role anyone could do is a waste.

Sabretooth is divisive. Considered in the context of this film alone, he’s fine. Sabretooth provides a strong contrast with Wolverine, relishing his animalistic bloodlust while Wolverine tries to hold back and retain his humanity. In the context of the wider series however, he’s a problem. The Sabretooth of this film is completely different to the one from the first film. The original one is enormous and looks ragged like a beast, whereas this one is smaller and better dressed. More importantly, in the first film he shows no signs of recognizing Wolverine. This film establishes that they were half-brothers who fought in various wars together for over a hundred years, and Sabretooth didn’t forget the film’s events, so he really should be able to recognize Wolverine. The easy amnesia seems to have been the only attempt to make X-Men Origins Wolverine tie in to the earlier films, and it’s a mess.

How did this...

... turn into this?

 

At least we can fall back on the effects, I’m sure you’re thinking right about now. But alas, we cannot. The effects look really poor this time, and I can’t figure out why. The first three films had very good effects, X-Men: The Last Stand especially, so why are they so much weaker here? Wolverine’s claws in particular look like they have a plastic sheen over them which wasn’t there before, and makes them look so much less convincing now.

At the end of X-Men: Days of Future Past, events in past films are undone as a way of being able to continue the franchise past where The Last Stand left off. X-Men Origins Wolverine is not mentioned in Days of Future Past. They just pretend it never happened, which says a lot about this film. It’s so bad that erasing it from existence was too much acknowledgement that it ever existed in the first place.

Yami Marik of Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series is here to provide a second opinion on the movie, just in case I wasn't persuasive enough. He's probably funnier too.

Next Time: Suiting up once again.

Bonus: A 90% finished version of the film was leaked online a month before its release. This, combined with the swine flu epidemic, led to the film being considered a box-office disappointment, though it still did decently despite the above setbacks.

Punisher: War Zone (2008)

Punisher: War Zone (2008)

Release Date: December 5, 2008

Having seen that most of the other characters have gotten sequels by now, the Punisher decided he wanted one too. If the previous Punisher film wasn’t dark enough for you, then step right up, because you’re in for a treat!

Frank Castle is keeping as busy as always with his work cleaning up the criminal underworld. Next on his hit list is the Russoti family. He crashes a party they’re holding at the family mansion and wrecks the joint in a scene that’s somewhere between McBain and the climax of Scarface. Among the victims is the patriarch of the family, who gets beheaded with a Rosa Klebb style knife-in-shoe trick when Frank decides to do his impression of Raiden from Metal Gear Rising. Absent from the event is son Billy, who had been planning on killing his father anyway, but the Punisher has saved him the effort, allowing him to carry on with his crime ring at the recycling plant. Unfortunately for him, Frank finds out about that and kills everyone there too, including a mole planted in Russoti’s operation by the FBI. Oops. The only survivor is Billy, but it’s not for lack of trying on the Punisher’s part, as he threw Billy into a machine for crushing glass bottles.

After finding out about the innocent man he killed, Frank tries to make amends with the man’s wife and daughter. The daughter befriends Frank, but the wife refuses to accept his blood money and threatens him with a gun before sending him away. (“Who punishes the Punisher?” she asks. Presumably, it’s the same person who watches the Watchmen.) Meanwhile, Billy’s face was destroyed by the machine, requiring extensive facial reconstructive surgery that the surgeon is reluctant to let him see the results of, but Billy insists. (“The mirror. The mirror!”) After seeing the result, and killing the surgeon for not making Billy's new face the greatest in all of Koridai, Billy renames himself Jigsaw and goes to the asylum to release his brother Loony Bin Jim. LBJ’s first act upon being released is to eat the orderly’s liver. Iron helps us play!

Look at that poor man’s face. It’s the kind of face not even a mother could love.

Since he can’t punish the dead mole, Jigsaw goes after his family instead, but luckily Frank was smart enough to see this coming and decided to lurk in the area to protect the wife and daughter. During the hostage situation, Jigsaw’s minions kill two police officers, prompting the police to call a temporary truce with the Punisher to stop Jigsaw. Jigsaw then kidnaps the wife and daughter, as well as the Punisher’s arms dealer friend Microchip, and holds them hostage in his evil lair, guarded by the Mafia, the IRA, the Triad, the Ballas and Grove Street. The Hispanic news team will be arriving any minute now… The police aren’t impressed, because while Jigsaw has an army, they have a Punisher. Even so, the police send the Russian Mafiya, who are mad at Jigsaw for framing their boss’ son, as decoys to soften up the first wave of goons before letting Frank loose.

Frank finds Jigsaw and LBJ on the top floor, holding the wife and daughter and Microchip hostage. Jigsaw wants to play a game, so he gives Frank the choice to save either the wife and daughter, or Microchip, but whoever isn’t saved will be killed. Frank chooses to kill Lyndon Baines Johnson instead, prompting Jigsaw to kill Microchip. Frank avenges his friend by stabbing Jigsaw through the side with a spear and pushing him into the fire in the centre of the room. Puny ‘Saw! If you’re wondering why the room has a spear and fire in it, it’s a boss room. Bosses have it in their contract that they have to fight the hero in the room containing their greatest weakness. Frankly, I’m surprised that Frank didn’t beat Jigsaw by throwing Loony Bin Jim’s severed head at him over and over.

I mentioned earlier that this film is a lot darker than the previous one. It’s darker than panthers fighting in a mine shaft during a power cut. Unfortunately, it’s so dark and bleak that it’s hard to give a monkey’s about any of it. There is an attempt at humanising Frank via his relationship with the little girl, but it seems to ring hollow here. The previous film did a better job in this respect with Frank’s neighbours, as they repay him near the end by refusing to betray him. At least it’s cute. Odder are the attempts at humour, and other strange scenes that clash with the grimdark tone. Scenes like Loony Bin Jim throwing himself at mirrors, Jigsaw shooting the little girl’s dolls and the Punisher breaking his own nose with a pencil (! Uh, sir, you’re supposed to be doing that to the bad guys) leave a viewer scratching their head at the absurdity of it all. There is one exception however. Jigsaw and Loony Bin Jim recruiting the ethnic stereotype gangs with an extremely xenophobic yet patriotic speech is so unbelievably ridiculous that it’s impossible to take offence at it. This sort of pitch black comedy would be right at home in the comics.

Another thing that should be pointed out is that this is definitely the most gruesome of the films reviewed so far, and I don’t really see anything else threatening its position. It’s almost as if the filmmakers watched the first two Blade films, the previous title holders for most gruesome Marvel film and said “Challenge accepted.” The influence of 80s action films is strong here, with scores of gang-bangers and ethnic stereotypes being blown to bloody chunks by an implacable man of few words and less personality, causing a veritable bullet storm. Here, the Punisher is an unstoppable juggernaut who makes Thomas Jane’s Punisher look like a limp-wristed sissy with the safety permanently on his pea shooter. The gratuitous ultraviolence on display is simply too much at times, between beheadings, head and face asplodings, thankfully obscured liver eating, and whatever made half of Microchip’s mum’s head melt and the other half an unrecognisable black thing.

Punisher War Zone’s grit and darkness is its undoing. There was a softer edge to the previous film, a feeling of hope, however slight, that things would improve. Here, it feels too cynical and nihilistic.

Next Time: Exploring the past of Everyone’s Favourite Mutant! ™

Bonus: Comedian Patton Oswalt is a big fan of the film, as can be seen here. Even if I didn’t enjoy this film, I’m glad someone out there did.

The Bro-Force, Part 2

The Bro-Force, Part 2

This is just an idea for a silly story I had in which a group of heroes led by Tony Stark get into hijinks. After that weird bit at the end of the Iron Man review, I decided it would be fun to expand the Bro-Force and do a few stories with them. This part details Tony Stark's recruitment of Bruce Banner to the team.

As he entered the apartment he was living in, Bruce Banner took off his jacket. He had had a long day of doing odd jobs around town for money and was ready to relax. Bruce turned the light on, and was shocked to find a dapper, well-dressed man sitting in his armchair.

“What are you doing here?” Bruce asked. He was angry at the intruder, but he tried to remain calm. It would not do to transform and ruin his living quarters, not to mention that his apartment was on the first floor, and old Mrs Simmons downstairs would likely die of fright if the Hulk fell through her roof.

“My name is Tony Stark. You may have heard of me, I’m kind of a big deal.” Tony got up and offered his hand, which Bruce reluctantly accepted in a handshake.

“I’m here to ask if you want to be involved in the Avengers Initiative. It’s a group for people like us who are… a little bit special, you might say. I took notice of what you did in New York, and that’s some power you’ve got there. We need more people like you if some other ne’er do well like Abomination shows up and fancies his chances.”

“How do I know this isn’t a trap by the US military?” Bruce demanded, for he was understandably wary.

“If you’ve been reading the papers, you may have seen the recent story that my company doesn’t make weapons anymore.” Tony explained. “As you can imagine, we’re not on the best terms because of that. So, you in?”

Bruce pondered. “The Hulk poses a big risk. There could be severe collateral damage if he comes out. Although, Sterns wasn’t able to get the cure to work, and he’s not in a position now to come up with anything else, so the best I can do is come to terms with the Hulk. He’s here to stay, so all I can do really is try to control him and make good use of him.”

“Excellent!” Tony clapped his hands together and got out of the armchair. “Funny story, the guy who recruited me came to my house in the middle of the night with an eye patch, I thought he was trying to steal my TV! It’s a really nice TV. 70’, surround sound, high definition, the works.”

Bruce stepped aside to let Tony leave his apartment, but the billionaire philanthropist didn’t make any movements after standing up.

“While I’m here, I’ve got my own little group I’m doing and I wondered if you want to be in that too.”

“Another one?” Bruce sighed. “This better not be a scam of some kind.”

“It’s not a scam. I’m loaded, what do I need your money for?” Tony pouted. “I have so much money, do you know what I did last week? I got this huge vault, filled it with money and jumped in there like Scrooge McDuck. Great fun. Anyway, this other group is a little something I call The Bro-Force. It’s this little club where we just have some fun, drinks, ladies, you know the drill.”

“I’m not really interested in that sort of thing, sorry.” Bruce said. “As a side effect of my condition, I can’t engage in intercourse, lest I kill the other person.”

“That an issue, huh?” Tony said. “I could see what I could do if there are some drugs to slow your heartbeat or something, or you could come and be a wingman. I heard you have quite a way with the ladies.”

“What?” Bruce laughed.

“A little bird told me that you hid from Emil Blonsky in Brazil by climbing through a woman’s window while she was coming out of the shower. That takes chutzpah. I wanna see the look on Coulson’s face when he hears the story. I talked to him before this and he said “I don’t think Bruce will be interested, Tony. He’s too intense.” Oh, and Stan Lee’s still mad at you for getting him ill.”

“That’s what happened with that bottle.” Bruce said to himself before speaking more loudly. “Since we’ll be working together, it pays to have a good relationship with your colleagues. I’ll come to your Bro-Force once, to see what it’s like.”

“Good, I’ll take you there right now.” Tony reached for his mobile, and made a call for his limo to pick him up. He then opened his wallet and took out a twenty dollar bill, which he handed to Bruce. “This is because I got bored waiting for you to come back and drank the beer in your fridge.”

Bruce frowned. The nerve of this guy! Who does he think he is?

The Incredible Hulk (2008)

The Incredible Hulk (2008)

Release date: June 13, 2008

The previous Hulk film of 2003 was reasonably well received by critics, but was poorly received by audiences. As you can see from my review of the film, I wasn’t a fan. Hulk broke box office records for the largest drop in gross from a film’s first week of release to its second thanks to toxic word of mouth. As you can imagine, a sequel wasn’t a particularly attractive prospect, so the big red reboot button was pressed, and Hulk was brought into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Bruce Banner is a fugitive being pursued by the US military accused of stealing military secrets after an experiment causes him to transform into big green rage monster when he gets angry. Bruce is hiding in South America, which is coincidentally the same place he went to wait for the poor reception of the previous Hulk film to die down. Bruce is working in a drinks bottling factory, but is tracked down when he cuts himself and his blood contaminates one of the drink bottles, causing Stan Lee to fall ill when he drinks it. The military goes to capture him, led by sadistic soldier Emil Blonsky, but Bruce is able to give them the slip. Blonsky takes out his frustration on Bruce’s pet dog, which should make it clear that Blonsky is the bad guy, just in case anyone had any doubt over him.

Bruce has also been searching for a cure with the help of his online pen pal, Mr Blue. Surprisingly, Mr Blue is a willing helper and doesn’t consider that Mr Pink, Mr Orange and the rest of the gang would appreciate the Hulk’s strength during the bank robbery. Unfortunately, the cure in X Men 3 didn’t work, so Mr Blue needs Bruce to give him data on the experiment that created the Hulk. Bruce goes to his old workplace only to find that all data on him and the experiment has been deleted, but fortunately his colleague and love interest Betty Ross kept a backup. Unfortunately, the army shows up again and this time, Blonsky has been injected with the Super Soldier Serum, which gives him super speed and strength. Hulk smashes a lot of very expensive military vehicles, before Blonsky tries to goad the Hulk by protesting that “This is blasphemy. This is madness!” Be careful what you wish for, as Hulk smashes Blonsky by punting him into the nearest tree with a cry of “THIS. IS. SPARTA!” Bruce and Betty escape together and they learn that they can’t have sex because Bruce would transform into Hulk mid-coitus, which would either crush Betty or rip her apart with Hulk’s mighty limb, which would be a bit of a downer. In this situation, Hulk is love, Hulk is death.

Bruce and Betty go to New York to meet Mr Blue, who introduces himself as Dr Samuel Sterns. Sterns finds out that the current cure only works to stop one transformation, but on the plus side, he has mass-produced Bruce’s blood and plans to use it to eliminate disease. Bruce argues that this is too dangerous and the blood must be destroyed when the army arrive and capture Bruce and Betty. Blonsky arrives and forces Sterns to give him the blood so that he can transform himself. Sterns does just that and is rewarded when the transformed Abomination tosses him into a wall. Bruce is let out of captivity by the military to stop Abomination after he goes on a rampage. Hulk wins because he retains his smarts while transformed, while Abomination does not. In celebration, he roars his mighty roar before taking the opportunity to run away again. Now, Bruce is being pursued by Tony Stark, who wants to recruit him for the Avengers.

Meanwhile, Sterns starts to transform himself after some of Bruce’s blood gets into a cut on his head. Since the Leader, as his supervillain alter ego is known, has yet to return in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, we can assume that he decided to avoid tangling with Hulk and instead went to Springfield, where he founded the Blisstonian cult. Fortunately for us, that didn’t pan out.

The main problem with the previous Hulk film was that it took itself far too seriously, and ended up being po-faced and dull as a consequence of that. Fortunately, The Incredible Hulk has learned from its predecessor’s mistakes. This film is faster paced, and more happens during its running time. Since the Hulk’s origin was still relatively fresh in the public consciousness with the previous film being only 5 years old at the time, the decision to quickly cover the origin story in the opening credits, allowing the film to go straight into the new story is a stroke of genius which allows the film to avoid wasting half an hour rehashing what the audience already knows. Another bonus is that this film is 45 minutes shorter than the previous one, which means it doesn’t drag nearly as much. The film also isn’t afraid of injecting the odd bit of humour from time to time, with the highlight in this regard being Betty freaking out over the taxi driver’s dangerous driving.

Improvements have also been made to the two most important areas. First, there are more action sequences this time, and there’s no need to wait over an hour for them. The action scenes are also more exciting this time, because Hulk isn’t way out of the military’s league any more. They get some nice technology that actually manages to damage Hulk, like the soundwave vehicles provided by Stark Industries. The scenes are also more creative in how Hulk uses the environment, with Hulk doing things like breaking a car in half and using the halves as boxing gloves, like in The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction on PS2. With regards to putting up a fight, Blonsky is a better opponent for Hulk than his dad was, and their fight is more even. The fight between Hulk and his dad fluctuated between one getting curbstomped and the other getting curbstomped, depending on what form Hulk’s dad was in at the time.

The quieter, more introspective scenes from Hulk are still present, but they aren’t the focus this time. They are also better integrated into the film and tie into what actually happens, as opposed to being dreams, illusions or subconscious metaphors. This means that the viewer can better care about them this time instead of reaching for the remote to press fast forward. The most effective of these scenes would be when Bruce suffers PTSD in the shower from looking at the shower head as the water gushes out, seeing it as a helicopter gun turret from the previous day, and collapsing into the foetal position. We get a better idea of how the Hulk has done a number on Bruce’s emotional wellbeing because in this case, less is more.

Given its relative obscurity in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as well as it being mostly ignored outside this film, I wasn’t expecting a whole lot from The Incredible Hulk, but it turned out to be a pleasant surprise. While it definitely leans more towards the Hulk Smash side of the equation, there are moments of levity to be found in amidst the destruction. The Incredible Hulk gives audiences what they wanted and expected from the previous film, and despite what intellectual film scholars may tell you, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that in my view. Goodbye for now.

Stan Lee Spotter: As was mentioned previously, Stan Lee appears as the man who gets ill from drinking from the bottle tainted with Bruce Banner’s blood. Lou Ferrigno, who played Hulk in the 70s TV series, appears as a security guard Bruce bribes with a pizza. He also voices Hulk for this film.

Next Time: Welcome Back, Frank