My wife and I went and saw the Incredible Hulk yesterday for my birthday. But before I get to the movie...
We spent a good part of our time in the city at our favourite bookshop (supposedly the largest in the Southern Hemisphere - I'm not sure if the claim is correct but it is a huge shop nonetheless). It is a fantastic place to get lost in for a few hours, particularly if you are bibliophiles like we are. The shop, called Kinokuniya, is in the centre of the city (for those of you reading this who don't know, I am talking about Sydney, Australia).
Ironically, surrounded by so many wonderful books, we ended up adding to our ever-growing collection of graphic novels with a couple more volumes of the celebrated 'Fable' series, the first two volumes of a series called 'Y: The Last Man' and Volume 6 of Frank Miller's 'Sin City' series. Then it was off to lunch.
We went to a Chinese restaurant in the city to have Yum Cha. For those of you who don't know what it is, its kind of like a smorgasbord except all the dishes are wheeled around on trolleys for you to pick and choose. It was absolutely delicious and we stuffed ourselves full of wonderful wontons, delicate savouries, noodles, pork rolls and jasmin tea.
After this, we spent a relaxing half hour over a long coffee and newspapers before heading off to catch the late afternoon session of the new Incredible Hulk.
Now, the movie...
We both thoroughly enjoyed it. I believe it is superior to Ang Lee's version in every way. While I've not ever been much of a Hulk fan anyway (I always sort of thought he was the big, dumb jock of the Marvel superhero stable and an also-ran character). But Ed Norton is a favourite actor of ours, so we were prepared to take a chance. I'm glad we did.
While Ed might have distanced himself from the movie (to his detriment, I think), it was a action-packed, powerhouse of a movie with all the right bits to keep discerning geeks such as ourselves interested. I don't want to say too much about it in case there are those who haven't seen it but it was another success for the Marvel Studios. The supporting cast is really good and there are a couple of great cameos too. The icing on the cake, for me, was the final scene that paves the way for an Ironman/Hulk teaming in the future.
Next: The Dark Knight 