Future Films: June 2008

Two big films are debuting this weekend: the new version of The Incredible Hulk with Edward Norton, and M. Night Shyamalan's latest twister, The Happening. Coming later in the month is the latest Pixar exercise in anthropomorphization, Wall-E.

The new Hulk, a reboot of the concept after Ang Lee's 2003 version failed to catch on, looks quite promising, with high-powered action sequences and an actual villain from the comics (The Abomination) and a strong cast led by Edward Norton, William Hurt, and Tim Roth. My chief concern, and it's slight, is that both Norton and Hurt have a marked capacity to sink too deeply into their characters, weighing down in the films they're in. In Hurt's case, sometimes this works well (Dark City) and sometimes it crashes the film (Lost in Space – though that film's failure was hardly Hurt's fault). Director Louis Leterrier's major credit before this is The Transporter (and its sequel), a solid well-executed actioner; a logical choice to create the blockbuster that Hulk (2003) wasn't. Review to come.

Slight digression: It's probably no coincidence that Universal, which is distributing the film, also released seasons 3 and 4 of the Bill Bixby series on DVD last week. Each DVD set has a featurette, and the season four two-part premiere "Prometheus" feature audio commentary by creator Kenneth Johnson. Click here to compare prices.

Also opening Friday is The Happening, the latest M. Night Shyamalan experiment, this time starring Mark Wahlberg. Did the notoriously self-absorbed director learn his lesson from the derision heaped on Signs and The Village? Stay tuned.