the Hulk

This topic contains:

• details about the Hulk's classification and consumer advice lines
• extract from the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) decision about classification
• a review of the Hulk completed by Young Media Australia (YMA) on 26 June 2003.

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) and the associated consumer advice lines.

Extract from the OFLC decision about classification

Synopsis

Based on the Marvel Comics series of the same name, this feature film introduces Bruce Banner, a genetically modified human who morphs into a superhuman creature when angered. The film deals with the circumstances of his birth, including his genetic manipulation by his father, and then time jumps to Banner as an adult discovering his genetic anomaly. Considered a threat to national security by General Ross, the man who had his father institutionalised for unauthorised experiments, Banner attempts to escape but his trust in Ross’ daughter Betty leads to his capture. Betty tries to undo her perfidy by convincing her father to allow Bruce and his father David to meet before he jails David for a second time. In the end it backfires on the government when David also mutates and they both escape.

Reasons for the decision

When making classification decisions the Classification Board (the Board) is required to follow the procedure set out in the Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Act 1995 (the Act). The Board is required to apply the National Classification Code and the Classification Guidelines, while taking into account the matters set out in section II of the Act.

In the Board’s view this film warrants an M classification as, in accordance with Part 5 of the Films Table of the National Classification Code, it cannot be recommended for viewing by persons who are under 15 as the impact of the classifiable elements is considered to be moderate. Material classified M / M(l5+) is not recommended for persons under 15 years of age. There are no legal restrictions on access.

Violence
Depictions of violence are moderate in impact. The Board notes numerous sequences in which the Hulk destroys buildings and objects during an enraged state. In the Board’s opinion these constitute expressions of rage rather than depictions of violence. The Board also notes a number of sequences involving fistfights in which the Hulk pushes and throws humans to the ground and highly stylised and choreographed sequences in which the Hulk is fired upon by machine guns and other military weaponry such as missiles and cluster bombs. These involve no injury detail and bullets are seen deflecting from the Hulk’s skin.

Depictions of note are as follows:

• 62 minutes. The Hulk reveals his existence to Betty by appearing in her front yard in the middle of the night. As she tries to cope with the news, three large mutant dogs appear and growl menacingly at them. The Hulk puts Betty inside her car for protection and proceeds to engage in a fight with the dogs. During the ensuing fight the dogs are thrown into the air and repeatedly hit and implicitly bite the Hulk. A poodle snarls aggressively at Betty, who sits, terrified, in the car. The poodle tries to break into the car, eventually managing to smash the windscreen. The fight continues both on the ground and in a tree. At 64 minutes the Hulk hits a dog’s head and punches another as the poodle continues attempting to get into the car. One of the dogs explodes on impact. The Hulk grabs the poodle, smashing its face against the windscreen and then throwing its dead body away. One of the dogs attaches itself to the Hulk’s back and implicitly bites him. He struggles, removes it and throws it down, killing it. The impact of this sequence is diminished by limited visibility due to the night time environment in which the depictions of violence occur.
• 85 minutes. In an attempt to goad him into an enraged state and morph into the Hulk, Glen implicitly uses a cattle prod on Bruce Banner’s stomach. Bruce falls back in pain. Sparks are seen as he implicitly prods him again. He then implicitly punches Bruce, who refuses to rise to the bait.

Mature Themes
In the Board’s opinion this film contains mature themes which are moderate in impact and not recommended for persons under 15 years of age.

The themes of note deal with the relationship between Bruce and his father David and involve the latter’s determination to pursue unauthorised experiments including self experimentation and the resultant genetic modification of Bruce.

At 7 minutes during the introductory flashback sequence David is seen taking a blood sample from Bruce’s arm. The sequence commences with the needle seen in a medium shot in the young Bruce. David’s hand is seen depressing the needle in order to obtain the sample.

At 91 minutes during another flashback sequence to the day on which his mother died Bruce is seen, as a young child, hiding under a table as he hears his parents argue in their bedroom. David and his wife come out of the room, continuing their argument. David grabs a knife from the kitchen, insisting that he must kill Bruce because of the threat he poses to the world. The camera then focuses on his wife’s face as they struggle with the knife. David implicitly stabs her below screen. She rolls off him, her hand on her collar bone / shoulder blade area as she staggers out, watched by her young son. There is no injury detail visible. The only audio during the latter part of the sequence is David’s voice over expressing his regrets over what happened.

The Board also notes other scenes in which David or Bruce engages in genetic experimentation with animals and reptiles or self experimentation. Most of this occurs in the introductory sequence. Visuals include David implicitly injecting himself at 4 minutes, a frog implicitly exploding during an experiment, the cutting up of a starfish, implicit cutting of a lizard with a scalpel and the implicit infection of a monkey with an unknown substance.

YMA review

This review of the movie the Hulk contains the following information:

• a synopsis of the story
• use of violence
• material that may scare children
• sexual references
• nudity and sexual activity
• use of substances
• coarse language
• the movie's message
• overall comments

A synopsis of the story

Hulk is an action adventure movie staring Eric Bana as Bruce Banner (the Hulk), Nick Nolte as David Banner (the Hulk’s father), Jennifer Connelly as Betty Ross, (an old girlfriend and fellow scientist), Sam Elliott as General Ross (Betty’s father and head of military), and Josh Lucas as Glenn Talbot (military nasty man).

The film begins with David Banner, conducting genetic manipulation experiments in the seventies for the US military. Frustrated with military red tape, David Banner injects himself with gene altering serum, with the resulting mutated genes being passed onto his son Bruce (Hulk). When the miliary realises that David Banner is conducting prohibited experiments on humans, his research is suspended. Unable to cope with the shutdown, David Banner destroys the military base and accidentally kills his wife leaving the four-year old Bruce Banner to be raised by adoptive parents.

Following the destruction of the military base, the film goes forward thirty years to find Bruce Banner, a brilliant scientist creating gene manipulation technology similar to that of his, assumed dead, father. While conducting experimental research, Bruce is exposed to what would normally be a lethal dose of gamma radiation, but he survives the ordeal unscathed, or so it appears. However, the gamma radiation sets off a change reaction within Bruce, which finally results in the transformation of Bruce Banner into the Hulk and the destruction of Bruce’s lab by the enraged Hulk.

The following day sees the US military arrive at Bruce’s house with the intention of arresting him. However Bruce, after some altercation with military personnel, transforms into the Hulk and makes his escape. The Hulk heads straight for Betty’s house, arriving just in the nick of time to save Betty from being torn apart by three huge, vicious mutated dogs. The following morning Bruce, now back to his old self, on answering a knock at the door is shot in the arm with a tranquilliser dart, packed up by the military and flown to a military base in the middle of the desert. While attempting to conduct experiments on the Hulk, the military misjudge his capabilities and the Hulk’s escapes. The Hulk is pursued across the desert by tanks, helicopters and jets, all of which are destroyed by the Hulk without a single loss of human life. The Hulk mountain jumps all the way to San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge where he is again attacked by the might of the military.

After finally being subdued by Betty in the street of San Francisco, the Hulk transforms back to the mild mannered Bruce Banner. Imprisoned by the military, Bruce is reunited with his father, for one last visit, however, during the visit Bruce’s father transforms into a mutation of worse proportions than the Hulk and the pair end up fighting it out at a deserted lake. In the end, the military have the last say by firing a nuclear missile at the pair supposedly destroying both the Hulk and his father.

Use of violence

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

Violence is featured throughout the film. While violence is not specifically glamorised, it is presented as the main means of either achieving the desired goal, or solving confrontation. The only exception to this was the heroine of the film Betty, who continuously argued for peaceful solutions.

The violence presented through out the film was portrayed by three separate parties:

• the Hulk uses violence as a means of self defence.
• the military use violence as a means to an end, to intimidate and threaten, and as a means to gain control of a situation. However, it usually resulted in the military losing control of the situation or making the situation worse.
• David Banner’s use of violence is presented as an insane man’s means of gaining revenge and power.

Only twice were the real life consequences of violence discussed or presented in the film. On both occasions it was in respect to violence enacted by the Hulk. At no time did the film present the real life consequences of violence resulting from the actions of the US military or of David Banner. For example, no real life consequences were shown of the military blowing up half of San Francisco Bay, turning city streets into a war zone, detonating a nuclear device over a US lake, or the flow on effects of David Banner killing a night guard.

The use of violence was totally dominated by male characters with the most helpless and innocent victim being the film’s heroine Betty.

Material that may scare children

Aged thirteen and under

Children under seven are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations, the death of a parent or child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters. Children aged seven to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened

There are numerous visual images presented throughout which are capable of frightening children under the age of thirteen years including:

• images of Bruce’s father losing control and destroying his lab
• a verbal argument between Bruce’s parents
• an exploding frog
• Bruce Banner’s face gripped with rage
• the Hulk shown smashing office equipment, walls etc and then jumping through the building’s ceiling
• Bruce Banner being assaulted by a military nasty man, and then the Hulk throwing him through the window of Bruce Banner’s house
• three huge mutated dogs being sent to kill Betty. The dogs were three times the size of normal dogs, had maddening eyes, huge bulging muscles and huge gaping jaws. Images of the dogs attacking Betty smashing through the car windows etc. The dogs tore at the neck and flesh of the Hulk, who punched, beat them and threw them around, finally killing them
• David Banner attempting to kill four-year-old Bruce with a kitchen carving knife ending in his father accidentally killing his mother
• Bruce Banner being punched and beaten by the military’s nasty man
• the Hulk being experimented on while trapped within an isolation tank
• a furiously enraged Hulk breaking free of an isolation tank
• a military nasty man attempting to use a large drill to drill a hole into the forehead of the Hulk
• the Hulk crashing through and smashing up buildings and equipment
• the military’s nasty man being vaporised by a misfired missile
• the Hulk being chased and shot at by military helicopters, tanks and jets, this involved missiles and cluster bombs being fired at the Hulk, and the Hulk being repeatedly shot with machine gun bullets
• the Hulk picking up and smashing military tanks and helicopters on the ground, after first shaking the inhabitants out
• missiles exploding in San Francisco Bay
• the Hulk rampaging through the streets of San Francisco uplifting street roads and overturning trams and cars etc
• both Bruce and David Banner being electrocuted (lots of lightening, noise and explosions) followed by David Banner transforming into a grotesque looking energy absorbing mutant
• a brutal battle between the Hulk and the mutated David Banner involving lots of explosions, mountains falling down, water eruptions etc ending with images of a nuclear missile being exploded over the two titans.

Over the age of thirteen

Children in this age bracket are most likely to be frightened by realistic physical harm or threats, molestation or sexual assault and / or threats from aliens or the occult.

In general early adolescents should be capable of acknowledging the visual images listed above as fictional. However, the computer generated images involving the attack of the three mutated dogs is presented in a very realistic manner, and the attack is particularly vicious. In particular these visual images may leave a lasting impression that some early adolescents may find disturbing.

Sexual references

There are no sexual references.

Nudity and sexual activity

There is no nudity or sexual activity.

Use of substances

The Hulk contained one scene involving alcohol consumption. This involved Betty and Bruce drinking a beer together after work. Reference was made to the fact that only one beer was consumed by each and that the alcohol had affected Betty’s behaviour.

Coarse language

There was no coarse language.

The movie's message

The main take home theme is that of good versus evil: the Hulk is good and the evil are the mad scientists and the military.

Parents may wish to discuss how in the film, the real bad guy is not necessarily that which appears as a monster, such as the Hulk, but that which appears handsome, respectable and safe, such as scientists and the military. Be aware that very young children will not be able to understand this visual anomaly.

Parents may also wish to discuss the male dominated and gender unequal nature of the film and that this is not a true representation of reality.

Overall comments

Adults who enjoy comic book superhero genre should enjoy the Hulk. As movies of this genre go, the Hulk was a cut well above average. The film was well cast, the story line connected well throughout the film, the special visual effects and computer-generated images were well up to scratch. The visual representation of the Hulk closely mirrored the image of the Hulk presented in the original Marvel comics.

Male teenagers will be drawn to the violence and horror presented in the film, the computer generated image of the Hulk, the special effects and the might of the US military. Male characters dominate the entire film with the only two female characters, Bruce’s mother and Betty, presented as victims of the male dominated violence.

Rather than being presented as a terrifying monster, the Hulk was presented as victim, the victim of both a crazed scientist and the greed and brutality of the military. The real villains and monsters are not an enraged Hulk, but neat, well-dressed and respectable looking men in suits, lab coats and uniforms.