Hulk smash Fritschie's puny expectations.

Saturday afternoon, I caught a matinee of The Incredible Hulk. Oddly enough, it was the same theater, same screen that I saw The Hulk when it came out five years ago. Pretty damn good flick, and a vast improvement on the last one. It's hard to describe...not a sequel and not quite a reboot. The storyline that most people are familiar with and summed all of that up in the opening credits. Kinda like what they've done with the Spider-Man sequels. But, the storyline it summarizes is from more from the old TV series instead of the last movie.

Edward Norton did a great job. His level of fame at this point in his career naturally means that it takes a short while into any of his movies to see him as the character instead of Ed Norton. Liv Tyler was good, and there was a good level of chemistry between she and Norton. Tim Roth played the bad guy very well, as always, and his transformation mirrored that of a drug addict, wanting more and more until he goes over the edge.

The biggest surprise for me was William Hurt. Don't get me wrong, I think he's a tremendous actor, It's just whenever he's tried action films, he really hasn't fit in very well. Case in point: Lost in Space. But he really owned his role in Hulk, and did a hell of a lot better job than Sam Elliott in the last Hulk.

Growing up, I wasn't much of a comic book geek. I was enough of one to be familiar with the story lines, but not enough to tell you the exact issue the events happened in. But, it was enough to be able to call bullshit on any comic book movie that strayed from the original mythology.

So, when the first Hulk movie came out, I enjoyed it for the visual style, but couldn't bring myself to watch it again because of how far removed it was from the story I was familiar with. But Marvel Comics made a brilliant power play. It took control over all of their properties and started making the movies themselves, enlisting the major studios for distribution only. The first result was Iron Man, which not only remained true to form, but also is my favorite movie of the year thus far. A teaser scene at the end of Iron Man hinted at the direction Marvel is taking these movies. A brief scene at the End of Incredible Hulk does this as well. Yep, their building up to an Avengers Movie.

Here's where the rumor mill is at so far. Next up is Thor, then Captain America, then Iron Man 2, and the Avengers soon after. Sorry DC Comics, but Marvel has just kicked your ass. With the recent reboots of Superman and Batman, not to mention the long-delayed Wonder Woman movie...it'd be really tough for you guys to work in the possibility of a Justice League movie the same way Avengers is coming along. However, I have heard word of a in-progress Justice League movie, but with all-different actors playing Supes and Batman. It may be too little, too late.