I’ve been working my way through phase one of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) recently, enjoying the late noughties and early
noughteens renditions of Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, and Captain America. 

While at first, the painful opening sequence into Edward Norton’s take on The Incredible Hulk prepares you for a train wreck of a reboot, having never seen the film before, I was pleasantly surprised about 30 minutes into it at just how enjoyable this “just skip that one” movie actually was. 

I think at this point, everyone who’s going to get into a Marvel binge session has done so already – or at least knows a good chunk of the lore about both on-set and MCU happenings to pass this as common knowledge. 

But Norton’s relationship with Marvel has caused a huge continuity issue across the multi-billion dollar franchise, and not just one in the replacement of an actor. 

Having not seen the film prior to last week, inspired by reviews and Reddit feeds describing it as the film that almost killed the franchise, I went into the Blu-Ray expecting the worst. 

In the first 10 minutes, my fears were well and truly realized as Norton took every opportunity to be topless, ripped, and sweaty. 

A bombardment of origin lore was thrown at me through a fast-cut, dream sequence montage thing, and a template action film with no heart or soul began to emerge. 

But then things settled, and I have to admit, The Incredible Hulk was quite entertaining. 

As I’ve (arguably) matured, I’ve learned to accept entertainment as it should be; entertaining, fun, engaging, and somewhat true to the source. 

Not every movie needs to be a shot-for-shot take on the source material as Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings masterpieces proved, but at the same time they shouldn’t repeat the horrors of James Wong’s Dragonball Evolution. 

If I’m entertained, and not looking at my watch every five minutes, the movie has done its job.

And the Marvel comics do this all the time and no one bats an eyelid, but when movies do it, ‘oh hell no’ scream the purists.

Recently, I’ve read alternate takes on Wolverine as a female, Peter Quill as a family man, and Deadpool as a dog – aka, Dogpool – and I’ve enjoyed every one of them for what they are, entertainment.

When it comes to Marvel, being true to the source material is so fast and loose that as long as some things remain on the cards, such as when Doctor Bruce Banner gets angry, he turns into an unstoppable green monster, then you’re safe. 

With that said, there should be continuity in the MCU with its characters even if the actor changes, and despite 2008’s MCU introduction of the Hulk being an entertaining ride, it wasn’t true to itself. 

Sure, it does tell an entertaining story using the Hulk character and is probably true to a comic book here or there, but it’s not true to the Hulk we see all the time in the MCU portrayed by Mark Ruffalo.

Having finally watched it, I can say Norton’s version isn’t bad by any means, but I feel we need a Mark Ruffalo movie that gives us the MCU Hulk movie we deserve.