the oracle

Edward Norton was a wonderful choice as Bruce Banner. He was very engaging, drawing me even though I had minimal knowledge of the Hulk going into the movie. I was emotionally invested in him by the time he went back to try to find the data from the experiment on him, and I may or may not have burst into tears when he was hiding from Liv Tyler outside the restaurant.

Liv Tyler was the only negative thing about the movie for me. I think her talent is over-played, and there were only a few times during the movie that I stopped thinking about her as Liv Tyler and thought of her as her character, Betty Ross (Side note: nine times out of ten when I'm talking about Betty Ross, I misspeak and call her Betsy Ross. Damn history classes.), the most notable of which was when she was yelling at the cab driver.

The rest of the cast was well chosen. William Hurt and Eli Roth were both excellent in their roles, and, even though we didn't see much of him, I liked the way Betty's boyfriend played his character too.

The effects were just as good as the casting. Most of the time we didn't get to see Bruce's transformation into the Hulk, but in one scene we get to see it step-by-step, and they did a fantastic job with that.

The movie didn't spend a lot of time on backstory. Instead, they addressed the origins of the Hulk at the beginning of the movie in a montage as the credits played. It was a nice change to not have the first third of the movie dedicated to establishing the character, to be able to get a quick look at it and then jump straight into the movie.

Probably my favorite parts of the movie were the little touches that connected it to Iron Man and the groundwork that's being established for an upcoming Avengers movie - the Stark Industries logo on boxes and weapons throughout the movie, seeing a document with Nick Fury's name and invoices from Stark Industries during the montage at the beginning, and, of course, the Tony Stark cameo at the end of the movie.

Aside from Liv Tyler, the only other thing I didn't like about the movie was the way Bruce's dog was treated in the beginning. If puppies aren't going to meet with a happy end, let's just leave them out of the movie, please.