New Moon is nothing if not an international advertisement for the hungry virtues of virginity and young people can’t get enough of it
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Theatre
A smart, prickly and rewarding view of sexual and emotional confusion
Cock
Restaurants
Kitchen W8 is a bargain for this area, if such sophistication is what you crave
Kitchen W8
Too long and drawn out but very entertaining with excellent special effects
This is a peculiar play and does not work for me. Some of it is very funny but there are real flaws
Alex has a strong powerful voice and was faultless, she is far better now than she was on the X-Factor
London,
Derek Malcolm's rating
Reader rating
Dir: Louis Leterrier.
Cast: Edward Norton, Liv Tyler, Tim Roth, William Hurt
Description: Scientist Bruce Banner is poisoned by gamma radiation, thereby unleashing a brutal, destructive side to his tortured personality. Desperate to tame the beast within, Bruce becomes a recluse from family and friends, especially his sweetheart Betty Ross, who could be hurt or even killed by his unstoppable alter ego. As he searches for a cure, Bruce tries to evade the clutches of General Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross and the military, who want to harness the power of the Hulk and use it for their own nefarious purposes. When a monstrous creation called The Abomination is let loose on society, Bruce must embrace his dark side to protect the people he loves.
Country: US. 2008. 112mins
Green giant: The Hulk loses his cool yet again
Taking it: Edward Norton plays The Hulk
The creators of The Hulk in the early Sixties, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, imagined him as a cross between Boris Karloff ’s Franken-stein and the Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde of Mamoulian’s classic 1931 film. Frenchman Louis Leterrier, director of the flailing Transporter movies, surprisingly makes him rather less than terrifying.
This time around, he’s just a big ape who roars a lot and can’t be damaged by bullets. At least Leterrier doesn’t press the case for sympathy as Ang Lee tried in his sadly disappointing version of the story five years ago. We know here that it’s nice Bruce Banner unwillingly transmogrified, as he was in the Marvel comic strip. We also know that he is trying his best to make his hulking other self see sense. But sentiment is kept at a premium, brought out only at the right moments.
Perhaps, though, inspiring too much fear was thought unwise for a summer blockbuster trying for a 12A certificate. In any case, it takes a lot more to frighten us these days than human beings turning into roaring monsters who pick up cars and throw them at the enemy.
We first see The Hulk as lonely scientist Dr Banner (Edward Norton), a man cut off from life and the woman he loves, and working in a bottle factory while desperately hunting for a cure for the gamma radiation that has poisoned his cells and his mind. He’s a fugitive from General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (William Hurt) who wants to exploit his power for the usual nefarious purposes, and he’s in love with the general’s pretty daughter (Liv Tyler), which makes matters even more awkward.
It’s so awkward, in fact, that when he finally gets her into bed two-thirds of the way through, he can’t do the necessary since it would make him too excited, and that would turn him from meek and mild Banner to raging Hulk within an instant. He’s probably right to think that she’d get out of bed quite fast if that occurred.
But he can’t avoid turning into the Hulk eventually, however hard he tries, and in the end he has to fight to the death with Thunderbolt’s henchman (Tim Roth), who was persuaded to undertake some nasty-looking spinal injections in order to become The Abomination. This is a creature even uglier than The Hulk, with a protruding spinal cord and scabby fur, and more than his match in unbridled rage and superhuman strength. The ensuing scrap makes a terrible mess of New York.
These are the bones of a film that looks smart, is decently designed, piles on the special effects where necessary without totally forgetting the human side of things and indulges in so much quickfire editing that we are sometimes not quite sure exactly what is happening or why.
We’ve learned by now that this is how Leterrier likes to do things, often presenting us with visuals that move backwards and forwards so fast — prompted by a thundering score — that the eye is deceived and the eardrums threatened.
Frenetic efficiency and glossy professionalism is the name of this particular game, and even an actor as good as Norton can’t quite cut it in these circumstances as a genuinely misunder-stood figure of pity.
But if Robert Downey Jr illuminated Iron Man, Norton can at least be said to light up the saggier parts of this Marvel fantasy. He plays Banner much closer to a normal human being than the more usual preening Hollywood star would.
They are putting better actors in these parts nowadays but it isn’t easy to compete with the CG virtuosity that is now de rigueur, especially when the script is cut to the bone for the sake of the action.
Nobody in the cast quite manages to make much of a mark as Leterrier’s high-octane work progresses remorse-lessly through the plot, suggesting at the end that there’s a sequel on its way.
But you don’t go to this sort of thing to be reminded of Laurence Olivier; you go for the thrills. Are there enough here? Yes, but the final fight between The Hulk and The Abomination is faintly ridiculous, as is the fact that The Hulk rescues his girl from a blaze of burning petrol with scarcely a mark on her and hair to die for.
Fantasy is all very well but the realism of the opening scenes in the bottle factory, located in a steamy Brazilian favela, make one hope that the rest of the movie wouldn’t totally relapse into phantasmagoria. That it does was possibly inevitable, but a few quieter passages would have done Leterrier’s exuberance a greater service. There’s something lacking in this film which can best be called real personality. It suffices, but not much more than that.
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