I'm in a MCU mood. So I would like to ask all of you what your favorite films in the series are. On the top of my head my favorites are
- Iron Man 1
- Incredible Hulk
- Captain America The First Avenger
- Captain America Civil War
- the 4 Avengers films
- GotG 1 and 2
- Spider-Man Homecoming
- Spider-Man Far From Home
Keep in mind that I haven't seen Black Panther, Ant-Man and the Wasp, Captain Marvel, Shang-Chi, The Eternals, or No Way Home yet. I'm just now catching up on the MCU after skipping several films due to burnout.
While on the topic, I will say that while it would be difficult to choose a top 5, I do know that my absolute favorite MCU film is The Incredible Hulk. Hot take but I think it's a great film and the most underrated MCU film. For one, it's tonally the most unique film in the MCU since it's the second one so they were still finding a tone to stick to. And what we ended up getting was a more dark film. The movie nailed the cat and mouse chase that Bruce Banner has to deal with on a daily basis and the curse that he carries with 24/7. You can sense his anxiety and urgency to cure himself and you see how living with the Hulk inside of him affects his day-to-day life on multiple levels. And that everytime he did transform, it was a big deal.
Let me tell you, I love how Hulk was depicted in this movie. Mark Ruffalo's Hulk is fine and all, but Edward Norton's Hulk was on a whole different level in my opinion. Hulk looked way more intimidating here with his grisly face, bulging veins, and vicious behavior. There's something about his Hulk that is more primal and he was treated as a very serious threat. Heck the first action scene with Hulk plays out like a horror film with him being concealed in the darkness. And I love the final fight as well. Seeing Hulk use a car like boxing gloves, similar to the games was cool and I appreciate how the fight ended up happening. In most films, the hero beats the villain by outsmarting them. But this film is like, nope, this is the Hulk ***********. He just gets pissed off and nearly chokes Abomination to death. Heck it looked like he was ready to tear his head off, it's probably the most brutal fight in the MCU and that's one of the downsides of Disney owning Marvel, because it's unlikely that they'll allow something that awesome to happen again.
There's also other parts about the film I love. The music is one of the best in the MCU. The main theme has that primal, menacing tone to it and the music that plays when Hulk gets the upper hand on Abomination is the definition of strength. There's also easter eggs for Hulk fans like myself, such as the opening being similar to the opening of the 70s Hulk show, in fact, the actor who plays Bruce Banner in that show makes a cameo appearance in this film.
Overall, The Incredible Hulk isn't perfect, it's not mentioned a lot and there are some things I can nitpick, but I do think it's genuinely a great film that deserves more respect. Such a shame that there was never anymore standalone Hulk films and while the MCU has done a good job with how they handled him, they are now too far into goofy territory for them to make another serious film like The Incredible Hulk which focused so much on the main character's dilemmas and cruel circumstances.