The Incredible Hulk is by far the weakest link in the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise thus far for the five films that were released before The Avengers. This new version of the Hulk compared to the previous Hulk film that was released in 2003 (with Eric Bana as the lead and directed by Ang Lee) had a much darker and deeper tone to the story. By comparison between both Hulk films, The Incredible Hulk (2008) was a big improvement over The Hulk (2003). The story line and action scenes along with the directing of the 2008 Incredible Hulk film were all superior to the 2003 Hulk film which is a step in the right direction. Comparing The Incredible Hulk to the other four Marvel movies pre-The Avengers is a different story. Overall the story line and casting failed. Even though it was better than the 2003 film, it was still a bit hard to keep my interest going through the film. Also even though Norton is a brilliant actor I had a hard time believing he could be Bruce Banner, and the same could be said for Tyler as Betty Ross. The only people who I thought did their roles well were the villains (Roth, Hurt, and Nelson). Besides the darker tone in this film I thought the action scenes were top-notch; that finale climax fight scene was epic. Other than that, The Incredible Hulk just an OK film not as great as the other Avenger franchise films.
In all honesty when I heard just after only a few years after the release of the third Spider-Man film of the Sam Raimi trilogy that they were going to reboot the franchise I was a bit angry. Yeah Spider-Man 3 kind of sucked, but both Spider-Man 1 and 2 were solid great films. Both films were so great I'd like to think Sam Raimi help set the bar that every superhero film has to met or excel higher than it. I thought for sure they were going to make a forth in the franchise. Alas they went ahead with the reboot, and I must say - Thank you! The Amazing Spider-Man was a great change of pace from the original Sam Raimi trilogy. Marc Webb did an excellent job and the cast were all amazing. I felt the entire film was much better in every way (although it could have used some more action scenes) than the Raimi trilogy, much better. I'm looking forward to the next films in the new trilogy and helpfully if Avi Arad can get Sony and Disney together in a room we could see Garfield playing his version of Spider-Man in the next Avengers film - Hey, I can dream can't I? (I actually wrote this review back when this film was first released. 10 years later after No Way Home, I can't believe this dream became real is so many ways!)
Even though The Expendables has a stellar cast the film falls short of being great. It's not every film when my opinion aligns with the critics. In fact most of the time the critics get it wrong, but with The Expendables I have to agree with what most of them are saying. Yes this film does makes good on the old-school action they promised which was all excellent and the film brings together some of the best action stars out there today; however with all the top end action stars involved with this film you would think the film would of (as the main consensus reads) "hit harder". Besides the super cast I felt the story line was kind of weak and it was kind of a letdown that every action star (or at least most of them) didn't have enough screen time. I would have enjoyed it more if Willis actually stuck around longer, or Li had more time to shine like Statham and Stallone got. With its faults The Expendables was fun to watch for just the super cast it boosts. It was extremely enjoyable to see them interacting with each other. If this film didn't have a super cast I probably would have rated this film lower.
