The Incredible Hulk (2008)

  This is another one that I saw before I started this blog.  I've owned the DVD for a while now and I'm not sure how I missed it when I passed through the I's.  Oh well. 

Dr. Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) is hiding out in the favelas of Brazil after a lab accident involving gamma radiation.  He takes breathing lessons from a aikido master (Rickson Gracie) in an effort to control his emotions.  Because when he gets angry, bad things happen.  He knows that there are people like General Ross (William Hurt) who will do anything to get control of the monster inside of him and he can't allow that to happen.  Unfortunately, a factory accident draws the government's eye right towards him.  A team, led by professional badass Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth) tracks him all the way back to Virginia.  Banner is looking for his original research in an effort to find a cure but also finds his old flame, Dr. Elizabeth Ross (Liv Tyler), the General's daughter.  Together, they travel to New York City to consult with a professor (Tim Blake Nelson) who has supposedly been working on a cure.  Blonsky, meanwhile, has been doping himself with some leftover super-soldier serum but it's not enough.  Like any junkie, he wants more, turning himself into an Abomination.  Then, New York City gets the shit kicked out of it.  Again.

I was a big fan of this movie when it came out.  It was lightyears away better than Ang Lee's 2005 disaster.  Edward Norton does a great job of playing Banner-on-the-run, and I loved all the little homages to the original TV series:  Lou Ferrigno as the college guard, an episode of The Courtship of Eddie's Father on the TV starring Bill Bixby, and even the name David that he uses as an alias. 

This time around, I noticed a lot more references to the other Marvel films.  They mention S.H.I.E.L.D a bunch and there are logos for Stark Industries.  This is also where they first starting hinting at Captain America by mentioning the super-soldier projects from the 40's.  It's all right there, but it's integrated so well that it doesn't feel like a shameless plug.