Planet Hulk – Movie Review
Exiled from Earth by The Avengers, The Incredible Hulk finds himself on a strange new world, one where he’s enslaved as a gladiator for the amusement of the Red King, but the desperate people of Sakaar begin to suspect that the Hulk could be the prophesied savior of their world.
I’ve not read the comics on which director Sam Lui’s animated feature is based, but that didn’t stop me from understanding where the film was going. Planet Hulk hits the ground running with The Hulk (Rick D. Wasserman) waking up on a S.H.I.E.L.D. spacecraft, where a holographic display from Iron Man explains that they’ve decided that his rage and destruction is too much of a liabitiy to be left unchecked on Earth, and that he’s been sent to a distant planet devoid of intelligent life, but rich in vegetation and wildlife where he can’t hurt anyone else.
The Hulk of course becomes enraged (as he’s known to do, hence the whole exile thing) and destroys his immediate surroundings, throwing the ship off course and into a wormhole that spits him out over the planet Sakaar. He crash lands and is immediately attacked by the natives, a group of insectoid creatures who he’s in the process of thoroughly thrashing when the servants of the Red King arrive, claiming the Hulk as property of The Emperor.
The Hulk is transported to the gladiatorial arena in a large transport, and we met some of his fellow captives along the way, including a disgraced Imperial named Lavin (Michael Kopsa), Elloe (Advah Soudack), an outcast insectoid named Miek (Sam Vincent) and a large Thing-esque rock creature named Korg (Kevin Michael Richardson), all of whom are destined to battle in the arena alongside our green-skinned ‘hero’. Lavin does his best to rally his fellow slaves in a battle formation to try and survive the coming battle, but The Hulk isn’t having any of this, so while his fellow captives try to fight as one he makes for a nearby gate to attempt escape.
Hulk eventually makes to attack the Red King (Mark Hildreth) himself, but is distracted by a creature released into the arena for a short time, which he knocks unconscious. Hulk attacks the Red King and his guard Caiera (Lisa Ann Beley), revealing himself to be more than just the average threat before being blasted unconscious. The gladiators mourn on of their fallen after the battle, which fills in back story on several of the characters, even revealing that Korg and his brothers had faced both Thor and Beta Ray Bill in battle in the past before ending up on Sakaar.
Having barely survived their first battle in the arena, disgraced former priest Hiroim (Liam O’Brien) begs Hulk to stand with them, and when he does he naturally proves to be a formidable warrior. Hiroim notices that the Hulk’s spilled blood sprouts vegetation almost immediately when it hits the ground, which he thinks may hint at the Hulk being the Sakaarian, the prophesied savior of their world.
Caiera speaks privately with the Hulk, recounting the arrival of poisonous spores that’d threatened to destroy her people, and the fact that the Red King (only a child at the time) had saved her, which explains her loyalty to him. She tries to get the Hulk to leave in an escape attempt by the resistance members who oppose the King that will free Elloe and others, but the Hulk stubbornly insists that he’ll stay and see if the Red King can kill him on his own.
There are more surprises and betrayals yet to come, as well as a surprise guest that I wasn’t expecting, but as I said earlier, I’m not familiar with the source material.
Planet Hulk hits DVD and Blu-ray courtesy of Lions Gate in a loaded 2 disc package that contains 2 commentary tracks, one from director Lui, Character Designer Philip Bourassa and Key Background Painter Steve Nicodemus, the second from Supervising Producer Joshua Fine and Screenwriter Greg Johnson. Next up are 2 featurettes: A ‘making of’ called A Whole World Of Hurt: The Making Of Planet Hulk and Let the Smashing Commence! The Saga of Planet Hulk. A Spider-Woman: Agent of Sword Motion Comic, an Astonishing X-Men: Gifted Motion Comic, 2 music videos, a Wolverine & the X-Men “Wolverine vs. Hulk” Episode round out the first disc, and a digital copy of the film is included as the second disc of the set.
Planet Hulk is a fun, breezy little watch, you don’t need to know a lot of history about the character to jump right into things, and the supporting cast is sufficiently fleshed out on the fly as we’re getting to know the Hulk’s new surroundings. The animation is smooth and fluid, and the Blu-ray presentation that I watched for this review is very sharp. This is definitely a fun installment in the recent series of Marvel animated features and worth a look for comic fans.
In the parlance of the podcast, I’d give this a definite ‘Cool’.
Purchase Now – Help (Cool) Shite
Trailer
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
The Great Movie Never Made – Podcast Special
Rare Unsigned Copy – Book Review
Universal Soldier: Regeneration – Podcast Review
The Big Racket – Movie Review
The Men Who Stare At Goats – CSW Podcast Review
Slice Of Life – Book Review
Games Roundup – Week Three, March 2010
Signs of the Apocalypse Roundup – March 2010 – Week 1
Comic News Roundup – March 2010 – Week 1
TV News Roundup – March 2010 – Week 1
The Top and Bottom 5 films of 2009 – A (Cool) Shite Poll
The (official unofficial) Top 5 Video Games of 2009!
Australia’s R18+ Discussion Paper and Submissions – The Great Debate
Separation City – Paul Middleditch Interview
Kick Ass: Aaron Johnson – Interview
Planet Hulk: Josh Fine – Interview
Star Chicks – Interview
Van Diemen’s Land: Jonathan auf der Heide – Interview
Dr Who – Series 31 trailers
Predators – Movie Trailer
Predators – Featurette
The Losers – Movie Trailer
Tron Legacy – Full Trailer
erm . . . having just watched this, I can only say that it’s batting what is average for Marvel Animation. Which ain’t saying much. The battle scenes are about the only thing that make this worth watching, because the characters lack any real depth, and the one time they try to give them more than cookie cutter misfit personas, they pretty much throw the underdog of the underdogs in your face. Hypocrisy much? And let’s not forget the villain. Shock and awe were noticeably absent with their entrance. And a more two dimensional character (pun unintended, but hey, I’ll take it :b) I’ve not seen since Shaolin Soccer’s evil coach made the scene. And the premise is what really frays my suspension of disbelief. He’s exiled due to his inability to control his rage. Yet he spends the bulk of the movie calm, even stolid, while capable of entering into actual conversation with the rest of the cast. I really don’t want to give it a shite-plus, because the fights were pretty cool; gory, even. It doesn’t rate a cool overall, though, and it’s not really meh. So I return to a shite-plus. Story and characters ought to meld, not merely be there for plot convenience.