Reel Critic:

A well-publicized failure at the box office, real or perceived, usually stops a movie franchise right where it stands. It takes a mighty concept or character to survive the public flogging when a movie fails not only to perform as expected, but, in some cases like Ang Lee’s “Hulk,” manages to anger the very audience that once eagerly anticipated its release.

With that in mind, the producers of “Hulk” have tried to bury that previous incarnation and try their luck once more with, this time, “The Incredible Hulk.”

Bruce Banner (Ed Norton), aka “The Incredible Hulk,” is hiding out in Brazil searching for a cure for the Gamma radiation sickness that fuels his epic rages. There, Banner is well out of sight from the U.S. military that seeks him out in order to exploit his unique powers as a military weapon. But, Banner’s location is accidentally exposed through his e-mails with a fellow scientist back in the States.

Quickly, an elite military unit led by Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth) arrives to capture Banner and secure his volatile and highly valuable bloodstream. That they manage to trigger Banner into transforming into the Hulk comes as no surprise to anyone except the troops who are kept in the dark about the real nature of the mission. The Hulk escapes, but not before cracking a number of heads and smashing darn near everything within reach.

After surviving their initial encounter, Blonsky volunteers for a top secret “super soldier” experiment in an effort to satiate his desire to remain a world-class warrior and capture the uncontrollable green beast. Of course, the experiments go awry, and the once-reviled Hulk is required to save the day from the creature Blonsky has now become, The Abomination.

“The Incredible Hulk” is a complete franchise reboot. The canvas has been wiped clean with a new cast, writer and director given the task that they run as far away from the previous film’s artistic ambitions and pretensions.

Despite a frenzy of action, there is not much here that will quicken the pulse. There is a real sense that all the dramatic connective tissue has been cut from the film. Too much of it is special-effects creations crashing into each other without a compelling story line to keep us intrigued. A number of elements in the film, like Blonsky’s obsession and Banner’s fear of coming unhinged, feel incomplete. However, the performances, especially Roth’s wild turn as the crazed Blonsky, are all very good.

After Marvel’s inventive and witty “Iron Man,” this feels like a mostly average outing with few real surprises. What we are left with is far from a disaster, but there is little in it that you might describe as “incredible.” The film is intermittently entertaining but not very satisfying. With too many dramatic gaps, “The Incredible Hulk” fails to deliver what has been so unique to Marvel Comics, and irony of ironies, Ang Lee’s “Hulk,” a real humanity to accompany its whiz-bang thrills.

?BOB HARRIS has been hooked on movies since he was 13 when his brother got a job in a multi-plex and Bob saw all the movies he wanted for free. ?BOB HARRIS has been hooked on movies since he was 13 when his brother got a job in a multi-plex and Bob saw all the movies he wanted for free.