question for ed norton: if your bruce banner is reasonably conversant in spanish, why is his portuguese so abysmal after living in rio for several months? is it because he’s trying to learn the language from sesame street muppets and dubbed episodes of the courtship of eddie’s father?

even suspending my disbelief to accept an oddly peaceful rocinha (with a tremendous opening aerial shot that almost looks like a model), liv tyler as a university professor (albeit showing uncommon good taste in dating a psychiatrist), and bill hurt’s baggy class As (i’m thinking he didn’t like the regulation stiff polyester pants) wasn’t enough to make me like the movie. oh, i enjoyed the incredible hulk well enough during its hefty 114 minute run time, but less than 48 hours later i can’t really think of anything memorable about the flick.

fanbois seem to think it’s better than ang lee’s 2003 version, and maybe it’s just that i prefer jennifer connolly to liv tyler (let’s face it, while her high point may have been labyrinth - okay, maybe a beautiful mind - she still shows more range in a yawn than tyler does watching her long lost love get pelted by mortar fire at her father’s direction), but i don’t see the improvement. ed norton is good, but then, he’s always good, and gives a workmanlike rendition of banner that does little to shed light on banner’s inner conflict and less to explain why he’s still enamored of tyler’s betty ross.

i should probably mention tim roth, though, because he’s great as the increasingly unstable emil blonsky. in a fan-friendly backstory move, hurt’s character (evil not-quite-genius general ross) spends several minutes explaining to blonsky the genesis of the project that resulted in banner/hulk before repeating his hubris on blonsky’s willing (and unfortunately british) bare bod. blonksy digs the power (having happily informed us all he’d rather have a good fight than a promotion), seeks out more, and ends up all cgi-bump-and-spiky. there’s too much of him as the abomination and not enough as blonsky, but what we get is a gritty tooth-gnashing of a performance that leaves most of the scenery surprisingly unchewed.

but even roth can’t save the movie, and in the end, the most incredible thing was what rickson gracie can do with his stomach.