Movie · 2003 · Science Fiction, Adventure, Action · 2h 18m · PG-13 · English
Curator score: 0.9/10 (545.3K ratings)
What if everything you were forced to keep inside was suddenly set free?
Overview
Bruce Banner, a genetics researcher with a tragic past, suffers massive radiation exposure in his laboratory that causes him to transform into a raging green monster when he gets angry.
Ratings
Curator score: 0.9/10
IMDb: 5.7/10
Letterboxd: 2.48/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 63%
Metacritic: 54
TMDB: 5.6/10
Director
Ang Lee
Production
Marvel Enterprises, Universal Pictures, Good Machine, Valhalla Motion Pictures
Cast
Eric Bana, Jennifer Connelly, Sam Elliott, Josh Lucas, Nick Nolte, Paul Kersey, Todd Tesen, Cara Buono, Kevin Rankin, Celia Weston, Mike Erwin, Lou Ferrigno, Stan Lee, Regi Davis, Craig Damon, Geoffrey Scott, Regina McKee Redwing, Daniel Dae Kim, Daniella Kuhn, Michael Kronenberg
Curator Review
Verdict
A messy but genuinely ambitious superhero film that treats Bruce Banner’s rage as trauma rather than just spectacle. It’s uneven and sometimes overreaches, but the formal experimentation, melancholy tone, and psychological focus make it stand out from most comic-book adaptations.
Best for
Viewers who like superhero movies with a serious, art-film sensibility
Fans of character studies about repression, anger, and family trauma
People curious about bold early-2000s studio experiments
Viewers who don’t mind uneven pacing if the ideas are strong
Skip if
You want a fast, joke-heavy Marvel-style blockbuster
You need polished CGI and clean action choreography
You prefer straightforward origin stories without melodrama
You’re looking for a consistently crowd-pleasing superhero film
Overview
Ang Lee’s Hulk is less interested in punchlines or set-piece escalation than in the psychology of Bruce Banner, and that makes it one of the strangest major studio superhero films of its era. It’s a movie about inherited damage, emotional suppression, and the terror of losing control, with a visual style that often feels closer to a comic panel experiment than a conventional action movie.
Worth noting
That ambition comes with real friction. The pacing can be sluggish, the tonal shifts can feel severe, and the CGI is a product of its time in ways that are impossible to ignore. But the film’s seriousness is also its identity: it wants the monster to be a symptom, not a gimmick, and it keeps returning to the idea that anger is tied to family history and buried pain.
Bottom line
If you’re open to a superhero movie that behaves like a wounded melodrama, there’s a lot to admire here. It may not satisfy viewers looking for clean thrills, but it remains a fascinating outlier: flawed, idiosyncratic, and unusually committed to the emotional cost of transformation.
Top Letterboxd reviews
sophie (1.5★) · 2648 likes
you wouldn't like me when i'm ang lee
SilentDawn (4.5★) · 1807 likes
84
The only Hulk adaptation that will ever matter to me. Neither a figure utilized for applause moments nor cheap sympathy - Ang Lee imbues each plastic, manipulated moment with seismic reverberations of trauma and generational dissonance. Almost constantly quiet, only to quickly lash out and settle within the dust. Kevin Feige would never produce something as idiosyncratic or as tempered again.
David Sims (4.5★) · 1402 likes
freud smash
Griffin Newman (5★) · 876 likes
Half way through the movie I twisted my ankle walking to the bathroom, and then fainted in the METROGRAPH lobby. Deep appreciation to Maya and the rest of the staff there for being remarkably attentive, supportive, and considerate.
Anyway, first half of HULK still rips. Assume the second half played just as well.
(on 35mm)
matt lynch (4★) · 785 likes
it's only right that this feels so frequently out of control.
2004 · Action, Adventure, Science Fiction · 2h 7m · PG-13 · Curator 8.2/10 (2.8M ratings) · Where to watch: Netflix, Disney Plus, Hulu, fuboTV, Netflix Standard with Ads
A superhero sequel that also treats power as burden, with strong emotional conflict and a more classical crowd-pleasing shape.