Chapter 22 of Ki'rath is now available for reading. I'm aware that I'm not keeping up with the weekly updates I promised; hopefully next Monday I'll have the next chapter all ready to go. I'm up to Chapter 24, actually - I just haven't had the time to publish them here.

I figure I'd give my thoughts on the new superhero movie that was released last weekend. This movie was primarily the reason I saw twice as many films in the theater as I normally do within the span of a year. And I wasn't disappointed.

First thing's first - if you expect an action-packed, adrenaline-soaked smashfest, then you're not paying attention. From the get go, it was evident that director Ang Lee wanted to focus more on the emotional trauma of Bruce Banner and the reason why he was the perfect candidate to become a monster of rage than just watching the Hulk throw tanks for 2 hours. This approach may not have worked with the other Marvel characters, but in the case of the Hulk, it works spectacularly.

The acting in the movie is superb. Eric Bana absolutely nails the character of Bruce Banner, even though I originally thought he'd be too much of a pretty-boy actor to pull it off. Nick Nolte, who plays Bruce's long-lost father, also does a great job oscillating between guilt, anger, shame, vengefulness, and psychopathy. Jennifer Connelly is a little on the sappy side as Betty Ross, but she does carry the role well.

As for the special effects, there's been a lot of jabbering about the Hulk himself, and whether the computer-generated green giant could hold a candle to Lou Ferrigno's trademark role. Honestly, aside from the face look fairly chubby, he looks fairly proportionate to what he would look like in real life. The scenes where Bruce transforms into the Hulk - particularly the first two - are fantastic, and are worth the price of admission all by themselves. (At least, for me.) As the movie goes on, the Hulk begins to develop his own personality, exemplified when he gets out into the desert and starts walloping on those tanks.

The ending is really the only problem I have with this movie. The thing you have to realize is that the Hulk is by-and-large indestructible, so it struck me as kinda redundant that they would throw so much artillery at him. I think by about the second time you fired a .22 caliber pistol at the Hulk and the bullets bounced off his skin, you'd figure out that you'll need a stronger weapon to beat him. Having three different antagonists for the Hulk to contend with (Nolte, General Ross, and Glen Talbot) may have been a little much, especially since none of them really stand out above the other two, but it's also understandable because there isn't really a major supervillain that the public readily ties to the Hulk.

On a scale from 1 to 10, I give the Hulk an 8. The Hulk is far and away my favorite mainstream superhero, and the movie definitely does his character justice.

-Loog