HULK (Encore... et ENCORE!)

Story details are as follows:

Character roll call: Bruce Banner, Blonsky (crazed soldier turned Abomination), General Ross, Betty Ross, Dr. Samson (Betty’s live-in boyfriend), Dr. Sterns (a cellular biologist trying to help Bruce) and Major Kathleen ‘Kat’ Sparr (Ross’s right-hand woman).

In the opening sequence, we find a man (unknown to the reader but it’s presumably Bruce Banner) walking in snow, surrounded by snow. He slouches to his knees, gun in his hand, attempting suicide. The trigger is pulled but a flash of green stops the bullet flat and it falls to the ground.

Fast forward 5 years. Banner is in Brazil working at a bottling plant staying under the radar in hiding. Living a quite, invisible, life Banner is searching for exotic flowers that he believes will help destroy the gamma radiation in his blood to end the struggle he’s lived with for the past 5 years. He tries desperately to always remain calm through the use of mediation and a pulse monitor.

Banner has a funny little run in with some Brazilian heavies who are harassing a lady co-worker. Due to Banner’s poor handle on the Portuguese language his threats aren’t threats at all, they are actually funny lines that cause the heavies to pull a WTF? Luckily Bruce stays calm enough to make it through.

While working, Bruce is cut and a drop of his blood falls into one of the bottles that gets shipped out for sale. A woman in Minnesota drinks the juice and almost dies. The gamma is detected in her blood and this alerts the military, General Ross in particular and Cabot. They organize a team, headed up by Blonsky, to find where the drink was bottled and to apprehend a white man in the area.

The team finds Banner in bed, but he is smarter and quicker than they think and he leads them on a chase around town. Coincidentally the same heavies who had a run-in with Banner earlier are out drinking and join in the chase to beat Banner’s ass. It doesn’t take long for the Hulk to rear his ugly greenish grey head and basically crush everything and everyone (literally) in his path. He escapes to smash another day. Banner heads back to the States to find help through Dr. Sterns, striving to put right what once went wrong, within himself and with Betty.

Upon arriving in the States, Banner heads to his old stomping grounds, back to where it all began, to get his data and find Dr. Sterns. Instead, he finds Betty. He quickly leaves out the back door of a restaurant when she sees him, but she chases after him until he agrees to come over to her house to talk.

After talking with Betty and her live-in boyfriend Samson, Betty is driving Bruce to the bus station, on the way he wants to stop back at the university. Big mistake, the military and General Ross finds him and a big battle ensues. Betty is injured (Hulk saves her) and they finds themselves on the run together.

In the meantime, Blonsky was crushed by Hulk, but due to the super soldier wacky sauce he’s been shooting up he heals and is stronger than ever. Ross shoots him up a little more to make sure he’s strong enough for another round with Hulk.

They head to New York to find Dr. Sterns. He has developed an “anti-dote” of sorts for Bruce that works to bring him back to normal during a “flare up.” Unfortunately, Ross and his men catch up with them and Bruce and Betty are taken into custody. Blonsky has his own ulterior motives and makes Sterns shoot him up with the super gamma serum he’s developed from Bruce’s blood. This turns him into Abomination and he begins to destroy the city.

The only one who can stop him is Bruce…Ross agrees. Monster on Monster action ensues!

SPOILERS END

It’s a well written script with a lot of action and intensity strewn throughout. It’s easy to feel the agony Banner goes through as he tries to make it through each day.

Also, something this film has that it’s predecessor lacked…humor. I found myself chuckling throughout at Bruce’s perception of what is going on around him and inside of him. It has the heavy emotional undertones but also some light heartedness that blends really well together.

Stay tuned as IESB’s Mr. E is bringing you a complete script review shortly, this was just so good we wanted to give you a rundown right now. Check back tonight for the complete write up!