Some thought on
The Incredible Hulk:
• This was actually pretty good. The whole opening in Brazil, particularly the chase, is great. In fact, director Louis Leterrier does a really good job with the action throughout, both the battle at the university and the fight at the end.
• Perhaps one of the reasons Ed Norton got the boot was because he looks very similar to Robert Downey Jr. Surely I can't be the only one that thinks they have a resemblance? His performance is pretty understated, but that fits in with his character's mindset of staying calm.
• Poor Liv Tyler doesn't get much to do though. This is pretty much the token-love interest role.
• The casting of Tim Roth for Blonsky was wrong in my view. Roth is too cerebral an actor. It would have been better with a mindless beefcake playing the role. I could have better believed he had been corrupted by the power. Also there's the whole he was Russian but grew up in England and is on secondment from the marines back story
Why not just get a Russian actor?
• This version of the Hulk seems taller, lither, and more buff than what I remember from both Avengers films. I'll have to keep any eye out when I get round to them.
• General Ross has no business lecturing the Avengers in the Civil War trailer about potential civilian casualties. At the end of this film he orders his helicopter gunner to open fire on the Abomination, raking into a (presumably) occupied block of flats with absolutely no concern for collateral damage!
• How do they actually capture the abomination at the end? Hulk subdues him by strangling him, then sods off, leaving a couple of cops and firemen to look after a monster capable of withstanding a blast from a rocket launcher.
• So Banner avoided Ross/SHIELD for five years without detection, yet in Avengers Assemble they need to get him, and find him instantly. I guess SHIELD knew where he was but just left him alone.
• When Ross gets the super soldier serum (I guess they found some spare, considering The First Avenger says it was all destroyed), he gets it out of a container that says Dr Reinstein on it – a nod to the comic origin of Captain America – although in The First Avenger he was renamed Dr Erskine. Perhaps he changed his name when he got to America?
• I'm not sure why people say the pre-credits scene with Stark and Ross doesn't make sense. At the end of Iron Man, Fury introduces the Avenger initiative. Stark tells Ross he might be able to help tackle the Hulk. Isn't it logical they might want to create the Avengers to mitigate potential threats like the Hulk? I presume this ties into the thinking that Hulk was going to be the threat in Avengers Assemble originally.
Next up:
Iron Man 2