We watched “The Hulk” tonight. I enjoyed it on one level, but I think I understand why so many people said that it was a terrible movie. I don't think it was a bad movie at all. I enjoyed it. But I think the one thing that hurt the movie was that they filmed it like they were trying to reproduce a comic book. Before “X-Men” proved me right, I had said for years that there were great characters and great stories in comic books, but that they didn't translate to the big screen because directors just didn't respect the genre, and tended to talk down to the audience whenever they made a movie based on comic book characters. “X-Men” changed that. “Spider-Man” also worked because the director respected the character and didn't try to reproduce a comic book.

“The Hulk” wasn't as bad as Joel Silverman's version of Batman (which bordered on offensive to readers of the comic book), but it would certainly have benefitted from being free of the gimicky comic book style scene fades and panel-style camera shots. I had a hard time taking the movie seriously because they tried to make the movie feel like a comic book. If Ang Lee had just taken the character and the audience more seriously, and simply filmed a serious movie about a fantastic subject, it would have been fine. But I think audiences know when they're being talked down to, and I suspect that the general culture has a hard time relating to comic books because of the associated prejudices about the genre being only for kids.