Now Playing
Critics & Publications
Archives: A-Z Index
Advanced Search

Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

sort by name

sort by score

20 American Carol, An
26 Babylon A.D.
24 Bangkok Dangerous
41 Beverly Hills Chihuahua
45 Blindness
58 Body of Lies
63 Burn After Reading
58 City of Ember
15 College
82 Dark Knight, The
43 Death Race
15 Disaster Movie
43 Eagle Eye
58 Express, The
49 Family That Preys, The
57 Flash of Genius
36 Fly Me to the Moon
54 Get Smart
72 Ghost Town
55 House Bunny, The
35 How to Lose Friends & Alienate People
65 Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
57 Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D
73 Kung Fu Panda
46 Lakeview Terrace
52 Longshots, The
53 Lucky Ones, The
51 Mamma Mia!
xx Max Payne
43 Meet Dave
37 Miracle at St. Anna
35 Mirrors
34 My Best Friend's Girl
64 Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
39 Nights in Rodanthe
54 Quarantine
36 Righteous Kill
53 Rocker, The
50 Secret Life of Bees, The
53 Sex Drive
63 Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, The
36 Space Chimps
35 Star Wars: The Clone Wars
47 Swing Vote
60 Traitor
71 Tropic Thunder
70 Vicky Cristina Barcelona
93 WALL-E
27 Women, The
47 X-Files: I Want to Believe, The

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

sort by name

sort by score

xx All of Us
53 Allah Made Me Funny: Live in Concert
57 Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela, The
63 Appaloosa
68 Ashes of Time Redux
68 August Evening
62 Baghead
81 Ballast
55 Battle in Seattle
xx Beer for My Horses
xx Billy: The Early Years
63 Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story
56 Bottle Shock
50 Breakfast with Scot
61 Brick Lane
43 Call and Response
49 Children of Huang Shi, The
47 Choke
43 Choose Connor
41 Cthulhu
62 Duchess, The
85 Edge of Heaven, The
66 Elegy
xx Elephant King, The
80 Encounters at the End of the World
26 Everybody Wants to Be Italian
64 Fall, The
28 Filth and Wisdom
28 Fireproof
65 Flow: For Love of Water
37 Forever Strong
xx Frontrunners
82 Frozen River
73 Girl Cut in Two, A
73 Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
51 Good Dick
82 Happy-Go-Lucky
44 Henry Poole is Here
31 Hounddog
53 Humboldt County
72 I Served the King of England
68 I.O.U.S. A
40 Igor
64 In Search of a Midnight Kiss
xx Just Buried
62 Kabluey
63 Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
78 Last Mistress, The
xx Lower Learning
63 Man Named Pearl, A
89 Man on Wire
xx Mary
62 Mister Foe
86 Momma's Man
xx Morning Light
80 Moving Midway
53 Nights and Weekends
73 Obscene
xx Phoebe in Wonderland
55 Ping Pong Playa
76 Pool, The
82 Rachel Getting Married
56 Religulous
56 RocknRolla
55 Save Me
72 Secret, A
45 Shoot on Sight
57 Sixty Six
82 Tell No One
63 Thousand Years of Good Prayers, A
57 Towelhead
72 Transsiberian
83 Trouble the Water
xx Tru Loved
83 U2 3D
84 Up the Yangtze
52 Virtual JFK: Vietnam If Kennedy Had Lived
79 Visitor, The
46 W.
61 Wackness, The
52 What Just Happened?
66 When Did You Last See Your Father?

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Incredible Hulk, The
Universal Pictures, Marvel Studios


7.9

based on 38 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 166 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

FILM:

MPAA RATING: PG-13 for sequences of intense action violence, some frightening sci-fi images, and brief suggestive content

Starring Edward Norton, Liv Tyler, Tim Roth, Tim Blake Nelson, Ty Burrell, and William Hurt

The Incredible Hulk kicks off an all-new, explosive and action-packed epic of one of the most popular Super Heroes of all time. In the film, scientist Bruce Banner desperately hunts for a cure to the gamma radiation that poisoned his cells and unleashes the unbridled force of rage within him: The Hulk. Living in the shadows—cut off form a life he knew and the woman he loves, Betty Ross—Banner struggles to avoid the obsessive pursuit of his nemesis, General Thunderbolt Ross and the military machinery that seeks to capture him and brutally exploit his power. As all three grapple with the secrets that led to The Hulk’s creation, they are confronted with a monstrous new adversary known as the Abomination, whose destructive strength exceeds even The Hulk’s own. (Universal Studios)

GENRE(S):	Action \| Fantasy \| Sci-fi
WRITTEN BY:	Stan Lee (Marvel comic book) Jack Kirby (Marvel comic book) Zak Penn
DIRECTED BY:	Louis Leterrier
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: October 21, 2008 Theatrical: June 13, 2008
RUNNING TIME:	114 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

"Iron Man" has more wit and style, but Hulk is a neat thrill ride with an intelligent script by Zak Penn and smart, well-paced direction by the French director of "The Transporter" series, Louis Leterrier.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Five years after Ang Lee attempted a stylistically and narratively daring reimagining of what a comic-book movie could be (an example that tanked disastrously at the box office), the big green gamma-guy returns to the screen in a purer, more unadulterated, vastly more entertaining form.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Embraces its identity as a sci-fi-summer-action-blockbuster extravaganza. Along the way, it actually comes close to finding the balance that Lee was looking for.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

The Incredible Hulk is a more traditional superhero movie than its predecessor and should please those who want their not-so-jolly green giant served with helpings of action. This film provides less talk and more smashing.

Premiere Eric Kohn

By handing the directorial reigns to Louis Leterrier, the Parisian filmmaker responsible for the breathless "Transporter" films, Universal reveals its desire to emphasize spectacle over story.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Edward Norton's a more evocative actor than Eric Bana, and he supplies all the emotions required by Leterrier and writer Zak Penn.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

Until the last 20 minutes, which stumble around in an attempt to set up a sequel, The Incredible Hulk keeps slamming everything forward, satisfyingly.

TV Guide Ken Fox

The dialogue is minimal but sharp, the pace swift and the action sequences suitably loud and brutal.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Luckily, the new The Incredible Hulk is more like those 80-page special issues that comic-book publishers sold in the early 1960s for a quarter, packed with old, favorite story lines.

Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan

Loses something when it depends on its computer-generated creatures to carry the story. The effects are a mile above the previous Hulk film, but there's still a certain awkwardness to some movements, and an odd lack of definition to the massive muscles that makes them seem like gelatinous sacks of meat.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

The Incredible Hulk is weightless--as disposable as an Xbox game. It's also fairly entertaining: swift, playful without pitching into camp, and acted with high spirits.

Chicago Reader Andrea Gronvall

There's enough adrenaline pulsating throughout this bang-up Marvel Comics adaptation to erase 2003's Hulk from memory (Ang who?).

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

The result is a classic comic-book hero quest that, while not entirely novel, hews to its own rules and conventions with dignity and artfulness.

Variety Todd McCarthy

A straightforward actioner that delivers the goods with no unnecessary frills or digressions.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

The Incredible Hulk is just a luridly reductive and violent B movie -- one that clears a bar that hadn't been set very high.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

It may be that the Hulk role was not made for sensitive method actors like Norton or Bana. When '70s TV-"Hulk" Lou Ferrigno made his obligatory cameo, a palpable wave of affection swept through the Seattle preview audience.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

The Hulk himself looks more steroidal than superheroic, as if the expressive beast from the first film had been replaced by a WWE star.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

There's a certain pleasure to be had in some of the physical blowouts.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

By the time the Incredible Hulk had completed his hulk-on-hulk showdown with the Incredible Blonsky, I had been using my Timex with the illuminated dial way too often.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Closer in spirit and tone to the comic books that spawned it.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Like its monstrous hero, The Incredible Hulk gets the job done with minimal artistry and a lot of noise.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

The final confrontation between the Hulk and Blonsky, now the roaring Abomination, is like the clash of Downey and Bridges in "Iron Man," only not as exciting.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Don't run off before the credits start to roll, though: The Incredible Hulk ends with a jokey cameo by a certain movie star with his own newfound superhero franchise.

USA Today Claudia Puig

This Hulk is more viscerally angry and packs a bigger wallop than Ang Lee's talkier, more introspective version. But it's hardly the best superhero movie around. "Iron Man" was wittier and more fun.

Empire Simon Crook

A franchise rebooted with efficiency, energy and sporadic invention, although Hulk 2.0 hardly smashes it out of the park.

Village Voice Robert Wilonsky

Cheers to lower expectations, then, because The Incredible Hulk is The Pretty Good Hulk. All things considered, of course.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

The result is solid and efficient, if unadventurous, illustrating both the lure and the limitations of comic book extravaganzas.

The New Yorker David Denby

It's nothing we haven't seen done better before (by Paul Greengrass in the recent "Bourne Ultimatum," for instance), but it's good enough as kinetic entertainment.

Film Threat Zack Haddad

In the end, don't go see this if you are looking for an intellectual film. If you're into seeing some fun, mindless action in a faithful Marvel comic adaptation for a couple hours, then go see the Hulk smash some stuff.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Do we really need another Hulk movie? I was one of the few critics who actually liked Ang Lee's 2003 "Hulk," but it didn't exactly ring the cash registers or clamor for a continuation.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

Playing characters familiar to the fans, we have William Hurt as a blustering general, Tim Blake Nelson as a kooky scientist and Tim Roth as an evil soldier who morphs into a monster. All of them seem to be directing themselves.

Slate Dana Stevens

Why remake a crappy movie five years later if it's only going to be marginally less crappy?

The New York Times A.O. Scott

A middling superhero movie! I wish I could say that was incredible.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Once again, though, the film is defined by the strengths and weaknesses of the source material. While Bruce is working on anger management, you may find yourself working on boredom management, and matching his rate of success.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

The Incredible Hulk suggests only that we've bottomed out on special effects: They're not necessarily getting better -- they're just getting bigger. Technically, Leterrier's Hulk is as realistic-looking as a rampaging green giant could be. But that doesn't make him credible.

Time Richard Schickel

One has to admit that enormous moviemaking skill goes into the creation of pictures like The Incredible Hulk. The sheer craft directors such as Leterrier lavish on them is awesome to me. I can't imagine how they orchestrate -- or even remember -- all the little pieces of film they require to build their big set pieces. That thought, however, is nearly always followed by this question: Why do they bother?

Newsweek David Ansen

For me, there's a problem with The Hulk, always has been, though it hasn't seemed to bother the tale's legions of fans. When the sensitive, physically unprepossessing Banner/Norton turns into the gargantuan, muscle-bound, growling Hulk, there's a total disconnect.

New York Daily News Joe Neumaier

Roth and Hurt glower semi-engagingly, and while Norton's scrawniness works, he seems intellectually disengaged, despite his helping to craft Zak Penn's script.

The average user rating for this movie is 7.9 (out of 10) based on 166 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Andrew K. gave it an8:
Wow, Intense! I was gripping onto my arms during every fight scene!! I went into the movie not expecting much - especially after the 03 version. But wow, I was thoroughly entertained. Again, I loved the battle scenes.

Henry W. gave it a2:
I don't think I've ever seen such a boring movie.

Phil B. gave it a3:
Terrible, can't believe it received such positive reviews. The action was stilted, the script was appalling and the lead actress looked like she'd been to the plastic surgeon a few too many times, the nose and the upper lip. Worst movie I've seen in a long time, I love eddy norton, but this was atrocious.

James B. gave it a7:
Not as good as Iron Man or the Dark Knight, but man it was fun and had a lot of Hulk Smash in it!

Clark W gave it a9:
Every bit as good as Iron Man. Considering how bad the first movie was, I went in with zero expectations. I didn't have to worry though, it was fantastic. Edward Norton does for the Hulk what Robert Downey Jr. did for Iron Man, he is just spectacular. The supporting cast, led by Liv Tyler and Tim Roth, make the movie a classic. Don't be scared away by the first movie, this is one of the best superhero movies ever.

Jon B gave it a6:
The movie would have been much better had the previews not shown every important part of the movie.

Samuel J gave it a7:
It was OK. It has a typical story, average acting, and had enough action to keep me awake. It isn't the greatest movie ever but it doesn't suck. I would recommend it, but don't get too excited. And I am amazed that the CGI is worse than the previous hulk movie, which came out 5 years ago.

Incredible Hulk, The Universal Pictures, Marvel Studios

Incredible Hulk, The
Universal Pictures, Marvel Studios