It is hard to think of superhero movies before the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), but they do exist. It is sort of like asking a Christian to imagine a world before the Protestant Reformation, or, if you want to get even more technical, the Great Schism of 1054 that divided the Eastern and Western Churches. My apologies for nerding out a little, but we are used to a myriad of options when it comes to so many aspects of our lives. However, before Iron Man (2008) inaugurated the series of movies that is still going on to this day, there was the X-Men franchise and one-off entries like Hulk (2003). When The Legionnaire covered the entirety of the MCU during the COVID lockdown, we left this one off the list because the company behind it all seemingly views it as an aberration. It is now time to correct that oversight.
Correcting that oversight takes us back several decades before the Hulk ever turns green, as the film begins with scientist David Banner (Paul Kersey) conducting genetic experiments intended to improve the human body’s ability to heal itself. Working at a military research facility under Colonel Thaddeus Ross (Todd Tesen), David is forbidden from conducting human trials, so he experiments on himself instead. After his wife, Edith Banner (Cara Buono), gives birth to their son, Bruce, David realizes that his altered DNA has been passed to the boy. He secretly searches for a cure, but Colonel Ross discovers his unauthorized work and shuts it down. Enraged, David sabotages the facility’s gamma reactor and then returns home intending to kill Bruce before the mutation can develop. Edith intervenes, and David accidentally kills her instead. The traumatized child represses the memory, while David is imprisoned and Bruce is eventually adopted by the Krenzler family. Thirty years later, Bruce Krenzler (Eric Bana) is a genetics researcher at Berkeley working with his former girlfriend, Betty Ross (Jennifer Connelly), Colonel Ross’s daughter, on nanomeds designed to repair damaged cells. Their research attracts Major Glenn Talbot (Josh Lucas), another of Betty’s former boyfriends, who wants to use their work for potentially lucrative military applications. David Banner (Nick Nolte), now released, also reappears in Bruce’s life by taking a job as a janitor at the laboratory. During an experiment, Bruce protects a colleague from an accident and absorbs a massive dose of gamma radiation. He should have died, but instead awakens feeling better than ever. David soon confronts him and reveals that he is his father, forcing Bruce to question the childhood he barely remembers. Stress, anger, and the effects of the radiation eventually trigger Bruce’s first transformation into the Hulk, an enormous green creature who destroys the laboratory before Bruce awakens at home with only fragmentary memories of what happened. Now General Ross (Sam Elliott), still haunted by what David did decades earlier, places Bruce under house arrest. David tells Bruce the truth about experimenting on himself and passing the resulting genetic alteration to his son. He has also experimented on animals using Bruce’s DNA and sends three mutated dogs to attack Betty. Back at Bruce’s home, Major Talbot confronts and assaults the scientist for not cooperating, causing Bruce to transform and escape. Bruce takes refuge at Betty’s, where the Hulk kills the creatures and saves her. Though he is safe for the moment, the military eventually captures Bruce and takes him to a secret desert base. Betty believes his transformations are tied to buried emotional trauma and tries to help him, but General Ross fears Bruce will become like his father. Major Talbot, still interested in exploiting the Hulk commercially, takes control of Bruce and subjects him to increasingly aggressive tests. He places Bruce in a sensory-deprivation tank and deliberately provokes the memories Bruce has suppressed since childhood. Bruce finally remembers his mother’s death and transforms again. The Hulk breaks free, and Major Talbot is killed when an explosive projectile he fires ricochets back toward him. Escaping into the desert, the Hulk battles tanks and helicopters while making enormous leaps toward San Francisco and Betty. She eventually meets him, and her presence calms him enough to become Bruce again. Meanwhile, David exposes himself to Bruce’s nanomeds and gamma radiation, gaining the ability to absorb the physical properties of whatever he touches. He then surrenders to the military on the condition that he be allowed to see Bruce. Father and son meet under heavy guard, where David demands Bruce’s power and rants about the government that ruined their lives. Bruce refuses him, insisting that whatever David once was to him, he is no longer his father. In response, David absorbs electrical energy and attacks, provoking Bruce into becoming the Hulk. Their battle carries them away from the base and into a lake, where David absorbs water and stone while trying to consume the Hulk’s seemingly limitless strength. Bruce finally gives him exactly what he wants, releasing so much power that David cannot contain it. General Ross orders a large bomb dropped on them, destroying David while Bruce survives. A year later, Bruce is presumed dead, but Betty still believes he is alive. He has fled to Central America, where he works anonymously as a doctor helping people in need. When armed men raid the camp where he distributes medicine, he confronts their leader and warns him not to make him angry. His eyes turn green, suggesting that the Hulk is about to re-emerge.
What did not re-emerge for me while watching Hulk was any feeling of not understanding what was happening. I am not sure what was going on in my twenty-three-year-old mind, but the film seemed too highfalutin to me at that time. Now that I am older and a practicing Catholic, I view the film through a different lens. In that regard, there is one line that stood out among the usual comic book film dialogue. In defending his actions, David claims that he wanted to go beyond God’s boundaries. In David’s view, humans are weak and breakable, and his research sought to correct that defect. What Christianity says is the opposite, to put a fine point on it. To be even more specific, there is no need to improve on that which God already made perfect. In this, though, we get into some philosophical weeds. The real problem is not whether our cuts could heal quicker or our bones could be stronger. If science were to find a way for those things to be a reality without the risk of turning people into giant, green rage monsters, then the Church would not stand in the way of such developments. I know I have said this before, but it always bears repeating: Catholicism is not anti-science. Where the Faith raises a quibble is with people not being satisfied with who they are and seeking to change themselves in such a way that detracts from their dignity as people. We will never be God, and that is what David is trying to do. The fruits of his efforts are a dead wife, decades in jail, and an estranged son. Put differently, everything he did was for selfish reasons. Pursuing a scientific goal for the benefit of many, particularly when it is in the service of life, is a godly mission.
It is kind of beneficial, too, to watch something like Hulk in light of everything that has come after it. The special effects are a little dated, but it is otherwise a solid story.
