Reviews

In its day this was probably quite a scary, sinister film. I saw it for the first time about 15 years ago and found it amusing and entertaining as an example of the type of film that people used to be scared by back in the 60's.

A scientist living on a remote island is searching for a cancer cure, but has inadvertently created a bunch of monsters which go around sucking people's bones out. I'm afraid I couldn't view the 'monsters' with anything other than amusement as they look very much like vacuum cleaners.

Peter Cushing is there being his usual unaffected self, and the rest of the cast display the standard stiff upper lip and under-acting of the day - e.g. man blunders into cave where he is pounced on by several lurking vacuum cleaners which proceed to suck his bones out. His one comment: "Oh no!" It's good entertainment, but not scary. At least in those days they had some good, original ideas and didn't need to resort to making 8 sequels of something that was only good for one film.

Having read some reviews before I saw it, I thought this film was going to be absolutely terrible, but it was not nearly so bad as people were making out. I think a lot of people were expecting far too much in terms of depth of character, and for every detail and relationship between characters to exactly reflect the thinking of the original comic writers. Well that might have pleased the comic fanatics, but it isn't going to fill the cinemas with the easily-entertained masses.

I have never read a Hulk comic, but I am a massive fan of the 70's/early 80's TV series with Bill Bixby. Hence I disliked the first Hulk film of 2003 very much.

I was expecting more of the same with this film, but was surprised to see that it did resemble the sort of dumb-ass Hulk entertainment that I know and love much more than the first film.

Ed Norton made a quite good David Banner - same sort of down-trodden far too nice born victim, and not too far off Bill Bixby's character. He looked quite hard in American History X, but now looks like Mr Puniverse.

Tim Roth - I can never take him seriously no matter what he does, since seeing him in 'Made In Britain' screaming "Oi, I want my lunch!" at Borstal canteen staff. His character, and indeed the stupid-looking second monster - which resembled Skeletor after taking a huge overdose of steroids - were rather unnecessary and added little to the film.

The plot was OK without looking too deeply at some of the ridiculous exploits of the hulk - such as running virtually all the way from Brazil to Mexico in one night, and the usual unlikely way in which Banner's trousers can be expanded to the size of a house, yet still remain in one piece.

I do wish that they would use a human actor to play the Hulk instead of this computer-generated rubbish. The hulk in this film just looked totally unbelievable and little like anything that a human could have possibly changed into. The Lou Ferrigno hulk was (relatively) believable and far more convincing and frightening than some 15 foot tall looney-toon.

The other thing that was missing and I wish it would be reinstated is the "DING!" sound when Banner's metamorphosis commences. It just isn't the same without that.

I have given it 6/10. I'd probably watch it again if it was on TV.

A friend recommended that I go to watch this film. He is no longer my friend. Given the idea, this could have a great film if the writing had been approached in a remotely adult manner. I would say that this is the second worst film I have ever seen behind Rancid Aluminium. It certainly was the most purile, immature and shallow film I have ever seen. Even Disney films and kid's cartoons contain meaningful undertones, but this film is just shockingly mindless from start to finish. Throughout the film I just wanted Jason Statham's character to hurry up and die so that I didn't have to waste any more of my life watching it.

I am not offended by swearing of any sort, but the constant totally unnecessary barrage of foul-mouth rubbish from most of the characters became grating and very very boring after about 15 minutes, and didn't let up all the way through the film. A lot of the ideas and little 'asides' seem to have been stolen from Pulp Fiction but used very badly and with no style.

The only slightly funny part that I can recall was when someone's budgie accidentally got shot, other than that, this film ain't worth spit.

I shall not waste my time writing anything much further about how every aspect of this film is indescribably bad. That has been done in great detail already, many times over. The 'plot' started out as a very uninspiring cockney wide-boy/gangster-by-numbers bore and very quickly descended into an utter shambles. Anybody who pretends that they can see some hidden masterpiece inside this awful mess is just kidding themselves. It is now 7 or 8 years since I watched it during its 1 week run at the cinema before it was pulled, yet it sticks in my mind for being easily the most terrible film I have ever seen.

I am only making these comments, and indeed the only reason I went to see the film, is because of the amusing fact that my brother Eddie appeared in it as the second 'heavy' in the pub scene. It was his hands that thrust a zippo lighter towards Rhys Ifan's face in the bar in 'Russia' (it was actually filmed at the former Butlins holiday camp at Barry Island). My brother has absolutely no acting experience whatsoever - he had recently joined an extras' agency and this was his first part. Having seen the film, it appeared that nobody in it required any acting experience whatsoever.

I remember there were about 8 people in the whole cinema - and this was just a couple of days after it had been released. I have never heard of an other film that was so unpopular and disappeared so fast - and rightly so. In case you were thinking of renting this film on DVD, I would advise you instead to put your two pound coins in a fire until they are red-hot, then jam them into your eye sockets. This will probably be a lot less painful than watching the film.