A scientist survives a dose of gamma radiation that should have killed him, and discovers that what it woke up was already there.
Ang Lee made this, and it is the least like anything else in the catalogue. It is a film about inheritance, about a father who experimented on himself and passed the result to a son who did not consent to any of it, and it is willing to be slow and sad about that for two hours.
The Hulk arrives as the consequence of a lab accident, but the film is clear that the accident only released something Bruce Banner was born carrying. That is a much bleaker reading of the character than the one that followed it.
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Its most discussed feature is the editing, which splits the screen into panels and slides them across each other, deliberately imitating comic book layout. Nothing else in this catalogue tries it. Opinions on whether it works have not converged in twenty years.
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Facts last checked on Sep 7, 2026
Released: June 20, 2003