The Incredible Hulk

We see the Hulk's origin story during the opening credits. Scientists Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) and Betty Ross (Liv Tyler) were engaged in research aimed at enhancing the body's resistance to gamma rays (the most harmful kind, lead sheets required). The project overseer, General Thaddeus Thunderbolt Ross (William Hurt), was hurt, and Betty, Ross's daughter, was obviously rendered unconscious. But something went wrong, and through Banner's or the Hulk's, rather eyes, we see him destroying the lab, killing some other scientists, and injuring Ross.

A little while later, Bruce is beside Betty's bedside as she drifts in and out of consciousness. Suddenly, Ross appears and starts yelling at Bruce while holding his arm in a sling. As Bruce runs away, Ross starts to follow up on whatever leads he can uncover regarding Banner's whereabouts and what is inside of him.

A 158-DAY INCIDENT-FREE PERIOD

Bruce awakens from a nightmare of all that has happened to him in a Brazilian town. His morning regimen includes feeding his dog Rick, watching Sesame Street, and learning Portuguese by comparing what he hears to a Portuguese-English dictionary. He sighs as he does this. He also spends time studying relaxation methods in an effort to regulate his pulse rate and prevent overexcitement.

He arrives at work as a day worker at a nearby industry, where he distributes dry products and cleans up spills while eluding the older tough guys at a bottling plant. When anything fails, like it did today, he occasionally helps out with the electrical parts as well. When he cuts himself on a metal clip while repairing it and laughing with the manager, blood spills onto the belt through all the grated flooring, and Bruce freaks out and yells for the belt to stop.

Bruce examines the spot where the blood dropped, cleans it up, and gives it the okay when the confused workers stop the belt. No one notices the drop of blood that landed into a bottle that is currently travelling to the United States of America as the belt begins and people begin chatting about the crazy foreigner.

Unaware of the tainted bottle, Bruce prepares to depart when he spots the same toughs who typically give him a hard time hitting on Martina (Débora Nascimento), a lovely coworker. Bruce interrupts the situation by asking Martina if she would like to join him for lunch tomorrow. However, when the gang leader approaches Bruce, Bruce warns him in Portuguese, "Don't make me hungry." I wouldn't like you if I was hungry.

Bruce, who is perplexed, discusses this right as the manager enters the room, allowing him to flee a beating and make his way home while stopping along the way to pick up a box from someone. When Bruce arrives, he turns on his handmade computer and contacts Mr. Blue in America.

When Bruce regrettably types, "No change," after slicing up a flower's package and applying its juice to his blood, Blue responds that he should visit New York and obtain more information on contamination levels, exposure rates, types of radiation, and the like. The two of them are working together to find a solution to Bruce's small problem. Before regrettably stating that he can't do that either and turning off for the evening, he takes a quick look at a picture of Betty that he keeps.

Meanwhile, Major Kathleen Sparr (Christina Cabot), Ross' chief assistant, informs him that an elderly man in Ohio passed away after consuming a Brazilian fruit drink that contained gamma radiation (note the man is Stan Lee, Marvel creator). Ross sends a team there the following day, which General Joseph Greller, an old friend from the army, put together with a great deal of efficiency (Peter Mensah). Emil Blonsky, a Russian-born but American-trained team leader, is in charge (Tim Roth). Ross tells them all that their intended victim is a scientist who has stolen military secrets and that, if cornered, he will undoubtedly fight.

Bruce receives a message from Blue as they take out for Brazil, suggesting that he might succeed but needs Bruce's blood to be certain. Bruce reluctantly — and cautiously — relays the message to Blue. Bruce is totally asleep when Rick begins to bark that night. The commandos are currently positioned outside and using a camera to examine the room, which Rick immediately eats (or tries to). Disgusted, the commandos blow off the door and then shoot 12 tranquillizers at a sleeping Banner after tranquillizing the dog.

They quickly remove the covers to reveal that there are only pillows. After discovering a rope, they walked to the streets, passing Bruce, who was sheltering in Martina's flat directly below them. After giving them some time, Bruce falls to the ground but is noticed right away by Blonsky. He dashes after it, climbing up the sides of buildings and across rooftops, narrowly avoiding rushing into Ross's arms at one point because Ross was too shocked to move.

He manages to collide with other guys as he runs, and it turns out that they are the factory gang. In an attempt to get rid of them all, Bruce ducks into the factory, but sadly, the gang notices the chain swinging and the military notice the gang. While the group closes in on Bruce, they begin to beat him, taking off his backpack and tossing it aside as Bruce cries out in Portuguese, "Me....angry....very bad," pleading with them to stop before his pulse rate spikes. The leader laughs as the men approach the battle, but just as a dart strikes one of the toughs, Bruce's eyes abruptly become green.

They accuse Bruce and advance once more when all of a sudden the leader is launched 100 feet through walls while the other guys scream in pain. The soldiers are unable to understand what is going on, but Ross can hear everything over the audio link and starts yelling at them to shoot, go live, and do SOMETHING! As the last of the gangers is dispatched and the beast turns to depart, smashing his way out with a large vat of something, they switch to live rounds. The soldiers start firing, but he simply deflects the bullets like plastic. Blonsky attempts to ascend to a better vantage point for a better look and shot as the creature roars and closes in on them. Just as the final soldier is finishing, he discovers it.

The beast notices him when he fires his shot. Blonsky and the Hulk are suddenly face to face as a shadow passes. Blonsky is thrown into the air as the Hulk picks up another vat and slams it down before charging into the jungle with a victorious shout. A few hours later, Blonsky enters Ross and Sparr's apartment while they are searching Banner's computer and apartment and demands an explanation for what he observed outside. Ross only tells him that he did a good job and that he needs to inform his troops to pack up since they are leaving town.

A single incident-free day

Bruce awakens next to a waterfall, his pants shredded and hanging off of him. He is unsure of where he is. When he approaches the road after hearing a truck, the driver informs him that he is in Guatemala. The driver drives Bruce into town, from where he travels north and stops in Mexico to get some new clothes.

Blonsky has finally been able to exhaust Ross to the point where he will tell him what happened. According to Ross, there were numerous specific projects being worked on during World War II to provide America an advantage, almost all of them falling under the Infantry Weapons Development programme. One of them was a "Super Soldier"-style programme for biotech force enhancement.

Ross dusted down that programme and started attempting to reassemble it around five years ago. A very bad thing happened, or a very good thing, depending on how you look at it, when he hired Banner and his crew to work on it. Ross claims that regardless of what happens, Bruce Banner's entire body is now, in his judgement, the sole property of the United States Government.

Blonsky comments that if he could put what he knows now in his body twenty years ago, that would be someone he wouldn't want to fight after the two men had a conversation about how they are both warriors. "I could certainly arrange something like that," Ross grimaces. Blonsky simply looks up at him with interest.

WITHOUT INCIDENT FOR 17 DAYS

We observe Bruce moving towards the former science department at Culver University in Virginia, where the Hulk was created. However, those intentions are derailed by the appearance of security officers who are verifying IDs. Deterred, he steps outside and observes the structure that houses all scientific instructors. Who should emerge except Betty, who is amiably chit-chatting with a friend of hers. As she eats outside, he gives her an idiotic glare, and she turns to face him while grinning.

She was actually grinning at her just arrived beau, Leonard Samson (Ty Burrell), a brilliant psychologist, when he ducked behind a tree (yep, that'll work). Now discouraged and defeated, he makes his way to an abandoned pizza shop on campus where Stanley, the proprietor (Paul Soles), is a longtime friend of his. In addition to asking about Samson (insert jealousy joke here), Bruce also requests a job and a place to stay for a few days. The very following day, he is shown doing pizza deliveries while wearing his former attire, with a stop at the science lab as one of his destinations.

After speaking with the security guard (Lou Ferrigno, the television series' Hulk), he is able to ascend to the second floor, where, after buying the chief computer genius some pizza, he logs on to one of the computers to hunt for the data from his experiment, but it has all been deleted. After breaking the awful news to Blue, Bruce contacts him and leaves the area.

Bruce and Stanley are almost ready to close up shop that evening when two last customers, Betty and Samson, walk in. As Bruce descends the stairs, they start talking with Stanley. Bruce opens the kitchen door and sees Betty just as she agrees to have Stan make them a pizza. When she turns to look again, Bruce has already left. She opens her mouth in shock. When she returns inside, she coerces Stanley into telling the truth when she runs outside but misses him hiding behind the trash can.

Bruce is seen later strolling in the rain on a roadway when Betty approaches from behind. She runs to him when he notices her and begs him not to leave. As they soon arrive at the home she lives with Samson, she gives him a gift she's been saving: a cute tiny portable drive with all the data from their experiment on it. He declines her offer of money and a transport to the bus station the following morning but informs her that he must leave. Meanwhile, Ross prepares Blonsky for an injection that will hurt by removing a serum from cold storage. Blonsky, for his part, simply grinds his teeth and orders them to continue.

The following day, while Bruce and Betty are making their way to the bus stop via the college campus, Betty stops to adjust Bruce's shirt, giving him a more put-together appearance. He tells her to get as far away from him as she can after observing a soldier move behind a building's column as she does. She searches for the command van, persuades Ross to exit, and begs him to stop as the soldiers close in as he flees. She asks him to stop, but he commands the rest of the crew to come in. Bruce enters a library and takes his bag off.

Before continuing, he pulls out the drive and shoves it down his throat. Blonsky goes in, but the troops have caught up to him because of the halt, and they have trapped him in an overpass. Banner changes and leaps out as they blast two canisters of knockout gas into the bridge. Blonsky intervenes and leaps around Hulk like a mosquito, dousing him with grenade launcher rounds as he starts battling the soldiers, leaping all around them and wrecking their trucks.

He commands the Hulk to go with him into the line of two sonic blasters, which attack the Hulk with sound waves. Sadly, the Hulk hears Betty wailing and is able to disarm the blasters by utilising two pieces of a nearby sculpture. Blonsky confronts Hulk after becoming enraged and is then pushed against a tree, fracturing every bone in his body. Just before Betty is about to approach the Hulk, Ross calls for a helicopter. The chipper smashes after the Hulk tosses a piece of the statue at it, creating a massive inferno that envelops him. Betty is shielded from the fire by the Hulk, even though she once more falls unconscious.

When Hulk turns to face Betty, Ross and Sparr are standing nearby. At Ross, he growls and turns to go. Later, when Ross informs Samson that he made the correct choice by phoning Ross, we witness Ross's boys removing everything Betty owned from her home. Samson counters that Ross poses a greater threat than Hulk because Hulk shielded Betty while Ross put her in danger. Ross asserts that his primary concern is for her safety, but Samson counters that his best quality is his uncanny ability to detect deception. Samson also claims to have discovered the reason why Betty kept quiet about him.

When Hulk turns to face Betty, Ross and Sparr are standing nearby. At Ross, he growls and turns to go. Later, when Ross informs Samson that he made the correct choice by phoning Ross, we witness Ross's boys removing everything Betty owned from her home. Samson counters that Ross poses a greater threat than Hulk because Hulk shielded Betty while Ross put her in danger. Ross asserts that his primary concern is for her safety, but Samson counters that his best quality is his uncanny ability to detect deception. Samson also claims to have discovered the reason why Betty kept quiet about him.

She and Bruce awaken the following morning and travel into town, where Betty finds them a motel room and Bruce takes a shower and coughs up the data chip. Betty uses the money she received from the pawn of her mother's old jewelry to buy him some new clothes and help him buy a secondhand car. But while she's paying, Bruce sends the information to Mr. Blue, a.k.a. Samuel Sterns, at his Empire State University email account using a public computer.

Even worse, Ross's team is able to intercept this email and determine their destination—Empire State University—with the aid of the Strategic Homeland Infiltration, Enforcement, and Logistics Division (S.H.I.E.L.D.). Blonsky, who earlier had more broken parts than the Titanic, is being checked on by Ross, who is startled when Sparr shows him a fully healed Blonsky who is "pissed and ready for round three."

When Betty asks how it feels when he transforms, we are back with Bruce and Betty as they are on their way to New York. Bruce's best response is that everything has been greatly exaggerated. Betty notes that there is still some of him there, citing the fact that he recognised her as proof, so perhaps if Bruce could manage it — but Bruce cuts her off by declaring that he wants to get rid of it.

The following day, Bruce spots a police checkpoint while the two are waiting in line at the Verrazano-Narrows bridge. After one boat voyage, they arrive in the city and take a cab to ESU, which proves to be the most terrifying ride ever and results in Betty yelling obscenities at the lewd cabbie. They exit the truck, sneak around the back, and proceed to the docks. He pulls away, and we have the following conversation:

Bruce: "I could teach you some ways to control that wrath a little better," Don't begin, Betty says.

Eventually, the two get at ESU (without any cab driver murders) and meet Samuel Sterns, a diminutive, quiet, and modest young man (Tim Blake Nelson). He is overjoyed to meet them both and invites them to his lab. As soon as they begin conversing, he cautions them that a dosing error could result in Bruce's death.

Bruce then cautions Sterns that if the amount is too low, it would be harmful to him; however, Sterns simply laughs this off, showing that he does not believe Bruce (though who could, really?). Nevertheless, they easily went about repeating the experiment (student-used computers at fault). Betty attempts to prevent the Hulk from lash out as they manage to coax him out and provide the antidote.

When the antidote kicks in, Bruce becomes the hyperventilating Hulk once more. On a military base, soldiers are getting ready to leave, and Blonsky is in a locker room inspecting himself in a mirror. Unnoticed, his spine lengthens and leans slightly away from his body. When Ross asks him how he is feeling as he boards the helicopter, he responds, "Like a monster."

In the lab, Sterns is putting out his most recent hypothesis, which states that the substance Bruce was given was only intended to suppress that particular incident. Betty and Bruce look at him horrified as he begins to discuss his subjects and enquire, "What subjects?" Sterns was able to create all of the warped foetuses and synthesised bags of Bruce's blood in the room Sterns shows them with a delighted smile using the single sample Bruce sent.

Sterns can only see a future Nobel Prize, despite Bruce and Betty's instructions to trash everything. Bruce begins to tense up, but just as Blonsky comes in and knocks him down, tossing Betty forcibly aside, a sniper suddenly marks him from the outside. Ross threatens Bruce with being put in a hole for the remainder of his natural life if he steals it from him as Betty storms into a waiting helicopter and away from the man she no longer wants to call her father. A crew then takes Bruce out as Sparr stays behind to oversee cleanup.

Blonsky knocks Sparr unconscious from behind as she is questioning Sterns on the ground. Sterns is frightened, but Blonsky then states that he wants Sterns to become into Bruce. Sterns is eager to comply for unrelated reasons unrelated to Blonsky's threats, but he cautions Blonsky that the outcome could be an abomination due to what Blonsky already possesses.

Blonsky hoists Sterns to the ceiling and declares that this constitutes informed consent, which sets the conversation in motion. When Sterns' technique kicks in, Blonsky—now the Abomination—smashes the entire lab, dumping chemicals on Sterns, whose head bubbles oddly and starts to grow bigger and flatter as he smiles. This all happens while Betty and Bruce share a moment in the helicopter. Blonsky runs outside and begins tormenting the soldiers who have been left, and one of the soldiers sends Ross a message stating, "The Hulk is loose!" Ross looks across at Banner, who is also visibly shocked, and declares that is not conceivable.

They are able to see something on the screen, and it is the Abomination destroying the city. Ross agrees with Bruce that there is only one thing that can stop that. They cross the area and unlock the back door. Bruce responds that he must try even if Betty begs him not to since they are unsure whether he will change. Once they have kissed, he lets himself sag backwards. He makes it through the level of buildings and says, "Oh, sh—."

SMASH!!!

Down the street from the Abomination, a sizable hole appears in the middle of the pavement. The Hulk roars as he slowly extricates himself from the pit. The two monsters approach one another as Blonsky overhears and grinned. Blonsky leads the way as they leap and clash in the air, knocking the Hulk slightly out of it before punching him down the street. After shrugging it off, Hulk splits in two a police cruiser and tosses it towards the Alien. Blonsky receives the blow before unleashing his own, smashing Hulk through a structure and into the city.

Ross commands the chopper gunner to fire on Blonsky as the Abomination roars in glee and rushes after him, running over and over buildings to catch up. Blonsky manages to dodge every bullet, catches up to Hulk, and continues to beat him until choosing to take the helicopter. Hulk sees this and then Betty inside, roars, grabs Blonsky, and starts a chain reaction involving the Abomination, the copter, and Hulk. The Hulk and the Abomination are still engaged in combat on the landing struts when the pilot declares that she is too heavy and that he must put her down.

When the fighting gets too intense, the helicopter eventually crashes close to a construction site (always the way...). Blonsky continues to bash on Hulk while Betty and Ross extricate themselves from the rubble. A spark from the main rotor suddenly strikes a gas pool below the helicopter. When Hulk notices what's happening, he grows angrier and more powerful. He finally pushes the Abomination aside in time to cause a sonic boom that extinguishes the flames by generating a small vacuum. The Abomination is gleefully swinging a large chain at the Hulk in the meantime that just so happens to have two mace-like attachments on the end.

By crawling underneath it, Hulk is able to seize the chain and snare Blonsky with it. Blonsky loses consciousness when he tugs it tightly. When Betty screams, "Stop!" he pulls it even tighter, determined to murder the cause of his agony and hurt. When the Hulk notices her, he becomes calm and submits. The Abomination is still outside, so the Hulk throws him to Ross's feet before letting out another triumphant yell.

He stops talking, and everything goes quiet for a while. Nobody moves as the Hulk looks suspiciously at all the small individuals with noisy guns around him. Suddenly, a second helicopter with a flashing searchlight appears. Hulk roars in anger and again takes to the roofs to flee. He arrives to the shore and then...

A few days later, Betty is on Liberty Island and is seen staring up at the large green woman while appearing dejected. She hears a camera beep in her pocket, and when she takes it out, she finds a photo of Bruce looking back at her with a half-smile and the words "low battery" underneath it. Betty sighs when the camera abruptly shuts off, mourning the loss of the lone memory she has of their time together.

31 DAYS WITHOUT INCIDENT

We witness a hut built in the highlands near Bella Coola, British Columbia. Bruce is seen addressing an envelope to Betty inside. When he's finished, he lifts the flap, placing her mother's jewellery inside while being careful not to treat it roughly. After doing that, he sits down and practises meditation while reflecting on what has been said about control. He closes his eyes, takes a long breath, and then opens them once more.

They are glowing green.

We hear General Ross stating Reload on a black screen. He is discovered in an ordinary tavern wearing an undone city uniform. As the door opens, the bartender refreshes his beverage. Ross is approached by Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), who expresses his apologies for failing to catch Banner and losing control of Blonsky while also reminding Ross that he was warned not to pursue the Super Soldier program because it had been discontinued for a reason.

Stark grinned and responded, "Touché" when Ross sighed and said that Ross always wore the nicest suits. Ross responds, "Well, you'd know all about that, wouldn't you," when Stark mentions that he heard Ross had an unusual problem. To counteract being outdone, Stark adds, "We're assembling a small crew. I believed you might be intrigued." Ross finally asks, "Who are we?" allowing his curiosity to triumph over his caution.