The Incredible Hulk 4K (2008) Ultra HD 2160p REMUX

Scientist Bruce Banner desperately seeks a cure for the gamma radiation that contaminated his cells and turned him into The Hulk. Cut off from his true love Betty Ross and forced to hide from his nemesis, Gen. Thunderbolt Ross, Banner soon comes face-to-face with a new threat: a supremely powerful enemy known as The Abomination.

The Incredible Hulk 4K (2008) Ultra HD 2160p REMUX Review
The Incredible Hulk muscles up on 4K with a 2160p/HDR-enhanced transfer that's a different animal on the UHD format. The HDR-10 colors create an added dynamic to the palette. There's a depth and intensity here that's missing from the Blu-ray. While the image is a little darker, that darkness comes with an increase in firmness, color certainty, and accuracy that is obvious both in brightly lit daytime scenes -- such as at the college -- as well as shadowy low light interiors or nighttime exteriors. There's greater vitality to brighter colors, such as natural greens around the college campus, which truly dazzle, especially within a longer overview shot at the 48-miniute mark. Fireballs are intense, neon signs dazzle, green liquids in the bottling company look primed to burst out of the screen. Black levels are deep and true with only the slightest hints of crush. Skin tones do push a little warm.

The 2160p image, which is reportedly an upscale from a 2K digital intermediate, does offer a solid improvement in general textural efficiency and clarity as well as overall sharpness. The image is enjoyably filmic, lightly and consistently grainy, and a pleasure to watch come to life at home with a commendable cinematic flair and flavor. That said, it lacks the absolute tack-sharp and readily apparent intimacy of the best the format has to offer. The movie is a little soft by its nature, but the UHD does accentuate its cinematic bonafides. There's a definite jump -- and sometimes a leap -- to overall image definition. Skin textures, natural environments, even digital constructs and debris during the final battle all look very firm and largely refined. But skin and clothes and some environmental details just never do reach the format pinnacle. That said, both in terms of detail and color, as well as stability and sharpness and filmic qualities, the UHD handily bests the Blu-ray. It's not a major leap, but all of the moving pieces earn enough of a bump to make this a worthwhile upgrade that fans are sure to find delightful.

The Incredible Hulk's incredible DTS:X Master Audio soundtrack is a much easier review. This things rocks. The previous Blu-ray's 5.1 track was killer, but this takes things to another level. The bottling factory springs to life with an abundance of surround information and even some overhead support, none of it all that distinct but very much a critical part in shaping the general din -- conveyor belts, steam, alarms, clanking bottles -- that bring the environment to life. Rainfall in chapter six saturates with full surround engagement and some overhead love while little examples of atmospherics around campus or on city streets draw the listener in. Action, of course, dominates, and wow does this track deliver. For all the intensity, surround chaos, and top end madness, there's a balance to it all, a pull that brings the listener into the middle of the excitement to feel every hit, scatter from every piece of falling debris, to experience the environmental and monster-on-monster carnage. Gunfire is loud and rip-roaring but never sounds overly engineered. Bullets pop with depth, zip with speed, and impact with a rush, and no speaker and no inch around the stage is off limits. The climactic battle between Hulk and Abomination is, of course, the major highlight, and it's just a rush of sonic excitement, the sort that's really rare even amongst the most elite tracks but here just another day at the office. Dialogue is never lost in the shuffle or drowned out by the madness. This one means business, but it also brings a critical refinement to its intensity. They don't come much louder, clearer, better than this.

The crowded streets and cluttered housing on the streets of Rio De Janeiro provided some reminiscence of Jackie Chan's Police Story, where you could be sure of a chase scene zig- zagging the streets to take advantage of the wonderful opportunities presented for an exhilarating chase. And Leterrier doesn't try not to provide action junkies plenty of action- smashing moments as we root for Bruce Banner to hulk up, unfortunately of course, to satisfy our lust for some unadulterated action where everything in the way of the Hulk, gets smashed. However those expecting action from the get go will be disappointed, as there were only a small handful of action sequences, though of course they include the classic moments that comic fans had been baying for since 4 years ago. So I guess most will be left happy as we see some nifty moves by the Hulkster, which will leave a smile on your face, despite being used in limited doses. But I note though that the story cum action, looked a little bit like Superman II with the seeking of a cure and the deliberate loss of power to be with the lady love, and the duking out between super-beings on equal footing (here being gamma-powered), with a tinge of Cloverfield like moments too.

While there will be those who will gripe about the transformation mainly done in the dark and in shadows, it does prove to be effective in building some anticipation and heigntened tension as to when he will finally appear in full glory. The mainly military attacks on the big guy again brought out some back to basics adversary with Thunderbolt Ross trying to capture the Hulk, and in fact I'd appreciate that this movie didn't divert too much away from this primary objective, although it might be more of the same from the first movie. But while the Hulk has an aura of invulnerability, somehow The Incredible Hulk provided me at least, an emotional pang when he gets hurt bad, as we remember that this is a guy who just plainly wants to be left alone. And the angrier the Hulk gets, the bigger and more powerful he becomes too.

And it's not all serious here too, with well meaning humour peppered in the right places, making numerous references to the television series and characters from the Marvel universe. You'd often wonder how his pants stay on before-during-and-after transformation, well, it gets addressed here with humour. Memorable ines such as "don't- make-me-angry-you-wouldn't-like-me-when-I'm-angry" gets punned away, even the late Bill Bixby got a cameo, together with Lou Ferrigno who reprises his security guard role, and Stan Lee who's possibly in the most unmemorable cameo appearance ever. The much touted Tony Stark appearance will bring whoops of joy from newly converted fans of Robert Downey Jr, while I suspect in line with the rumoured Avengers movie, the universe now seemed more streamlined again with the references to SHIELD, and stupid me thinking that Mr Fantastic would somewhat be featured in this too. A WWII super soldier project and serum was referenced and formed the basis for Tim Roth's Emil Blonsky turned Abomination, but Captain America? I'll leave that to you to find out.

But what I really liked about The Incredible Hulk is not the action sequences, nor the references mentioned made. It was the central love story between Bruce Banner and Betty Ross. In Lee Ang's version, we don't see much of the romance between Bana and Connelly because the story didn't really call for it, save for a rescue scene, and at an in-juncture where the Hulk was stopped in his tracks by his lady love. And that was precisely the winner for me. The Hulk, for all his power and unstoppable rage, could be brought under control by his lady love, and that was used to great effect here. Beneath the green invulnerability lies the heart of a mild-mannered man who yearns to be with the love of his life, but unfortunately cannot due to the curse that Fate had brought upon him. Both Norton and Tyler managed to bring out this chemistry of lovers torned apart, one who can only admire the other from afar, and the other finally never wanting to let go of someone who had disappeared from her life for her own protection. And this version of Betty does sport a bit of a temper and feisty too, and is not really your classic damsel in distress.

Granted that most supporting characters were rather one-dimensional, The Incredible Hulk somehow managed to straddle between its intense whack-all-destroy-all moments, and tender ones when the lovers are left alone to their own devices. As with the Marvel movies to date, the doors are left wide opened for follow ups and team-ups, and here there are no less than three avenues where the next story could develop further from, and sowed the seed for other movie franchises to be developed too. It drained a little bit from the cerebral department in order to amplify the romance, and let the action go into overdrive. HUlk Smash indeed, this time likely to make a huge dent at the box office, for fans and non-fans alike to be won over, just like how Iron Man did.