So this week I went to see The Happening and The Incredible Hulk. I definitely think these are two that should wait until DVD, and with that what you should be surveying whether you truly are a fan of either franchise.

         On Friday a friend and I went to see The Hulk. There were far less people there than I had expected for all the promotion that it had. I guess most people were still dry heaving from the last one or are far less of a geek than I am (though there were far geekier people there than I). The movie itself was a mid level movie, what it had going for it in the plus column was negated with equally crappy things in the negative. Edward Norton did a fine job in the movie, and this was one of the first times I can recall seeing Liv Tyler looking neither like a teenager nor a manikin. The movie starts off at a good pace and is well written. They do a good job of pacing the movie at the start and not showing the hulk right off the bat. The low points of the movie are when they introduce the military and the hulk’s nemesis. Long story short the bad guy doesn’t hit his stride acting until almost the very end of the movie. All in all if you’re a fan of The Hulk, this movie is far better than the last, but if you’re one of those supper geeks than the movie will be blasé and the only part that will matter is the last minute.

          Day two, The Happening, in true Shyamalan fashion the movie is methodically paced, but as you find out shortly this movie is R rated (I’m sure the real reason why you want to see it anyway). As far as his movies go this one was one of my more favorite premises. The movie gets fairly graphic in the ways that people die although it does not linger on any single death too long. My biggest complaint with the movie is that it peeks too soon. I’ll leave it at that, pace wise for those who don’t necessarily like Lord of the Rings think about how the last thirty minutes of the third movie felt, very similar feeling. I would definitely wait until DVD on this one, though it has a good premise it was one of my least favorite Shyamalan movies.

         Also as a point of professionalism, when you make a full length feature film and your not planning on it being a joke, don’t let the boom mic drop in the frame and make it past all the editing teams. I can’t for certain say that that is what happened, nor am I going to pay the extra money to see it again, but at one point in the movie either it was horrible framing or a huge lapse in judgement but something slips into the top of the frame and is very distracting. If you end up seeing it let me know what you thought it was.

          On a side note watching either of these two movies is far better if you see them with some good sound. Keep that in mind when choosing your theater. Also after seeing The Happening, I realize my generation is seriously depraved. While everyone was leaving you could hear  “worst movie I’ve ever seen” scattered through out the theater. My only thought was, the movie was awful because every time someone died you laughed. They didn’t come to see a suspense movie they came to watch people die. Keep that in mind when a movie disappoints you, to ask yourself if you gave it a legitimate shot.