Worst Moviegoing Experiences (from Onion AV Club): Ang Lee's "Hulk"

Although I have not seen Ang Lee's "Sense and Sensibility" since 1996, I can still recall the scene where Kate Winslet stands dumbfounded at both her love's infidelity and her rival's contempt, while Emma Thompson, knowing that each second her sister stands exposed will expose her to more scorn from London's scolds, desperately whispers into Winslet's ear trying to convince her to leave the room. Lee, therefore, had won a place in my heart even before "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," so the prospect of him directing a new version of the Hulk seemed promising. So good, in fact, that I ignored a major warning sign: Lee had pointed a camera at Jewel during "Ride With the Devil" and expected her to act.

Normally, being a cheap bastard, I don't walk out of movies. I sat through many films that I detested -- "Cocoon," "National Lampoon's European Vacation," "The English Patient" and "Synecdoche, New York," to name a few. in fact, the only movie I ever walked out on was Lee's "Hulk."

Part of this was not Lee's fault. I watched the film in a very poor multiplex screening room, with odors and poor soundproofing. Moreover, someone in front of me had ignored the movie's PG-13 rating and brought in far too young a child. When the intense violence began, the kid naturally became disturbed, and the parent began aggressively disciplining the child. In a theater it is hard to tell what an adult does to a child, so I took no action. I may have erred in this, but I do not think so, and in any event this did not make for a pleasurable viewing experience.

But even aside from this, it is hard to see "Hulk" as anything but an absolute failure. All of the action in the film is predicated on someone, when confronted by a difficult choice, to use his or her imagination to find the worst possible course of action and then follow it to hell or high water. All of the major characters quickly learned that making Bruce Banner angry led nowhere good. Nevertheless, over and over again a character would decide to see what would happen if he or she provoked Banner. Surprise! Bruce turns into a green CGI blob, and watching that blob bounce through desert terrain like a Pong ball invoked as much Existential despair as anything Sartre ever wrote. Add to this Nick Nolte's horrific performance as Banner's father -- really, it looks like Lee just pointed a camera at Nolte and printed everything he said, including random bellows -- and "Hulk" becomes an indictment of one's way of life. Can one really justify one's existence if one rationally chooses to spend two hours of one's life watching such a monstrosity? So when Nolte, apropos of nothing, bellowed near the end of "Hulk," that was my cue to make for the door.

I am willing to give a pass to an artist whose work I have admired in the past over an utter failure. So I did not, thankfully, let "Hulk" keep me from seeing "Brokeback Mountain." But the experience of "Hulk" has added a certain wariness to the choices I make. The fact that this runs counter to what I ideally seek in film experiences makes "Hulk" the worst experience in movie going I have ever had.