At the convention meeting last night, I finally got to meet Heather, Nick's friend who would be joining our staff. Turns out she lives just around the corner from me! We got a lot done during the meeting, made a lot of solid decisions that really help out my Marketing Committee. After that, a bunch of us went out to TGIFriday's to kill time and fill stomachs before the midnight showing of Hulk. I was able to really chat with Heather, who I think I'm going to get along with pretty well, we have a decent amount in common, and I offered to help her out with learning some Japanese.

Well, anyhow, we waited for awhile in line, made it in to the movie theater, scampered back and forth for seats, and got to see The Incredible Hulk. I honestly had no real expectations for the movie, having avoided the previous Hulk movie, and having never seen the TV series or read the comics. The special effects looked good and I like Edward Norton well enough, so I figured I give the movie a shot.

It. Was. GREAT. I think the first chase scene was a smidgen too long, but otherwise, I thought the plot and action were quite excellent. I really liked the slow build up to finally showing Hulk in full light, I like that it took a lot of the movie to show the Hulk transformation. But most of all, I really loved Hulk himself. I mean, he's this huge, overly-muscular green guy, but something about him was kind of cute. Like a big, green, raging, puppy. I really feel that Tim Roth is an odd looking man. His head is too big for his body or his neck is too short or something, and it made him very strange looking without a shirt. In photos, he always looks like his head was photoshopped onto someone else's body xD But he was great in the movie, I enjoyed the progression of his character a lot.

Overall, the movie was great. The only thing that sucked about it was Liv Tyler. I'm not terribly fond of her because of how much her character caused the Lord of the Rings series to drag. But since I'm not too familiar with her other roles, I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. And oh how she disappoints. She was downright crap in Hulk. At all times her voice was annoying and she always looked like she was going to cry. I swear, she repeated the same several phrases over and over and cried half the time. The only good moment that she provides without Norton is her screaming at the taxi driver.

One of the really great things about the movie is that you don't have to have any background knowledge of the Hulk comics to really enjoy the movie. It's great as a stand-alone movie, but it's even better if you've seen Iron Man, as Tony Stark makes a small appearance. We joked that with Iron Man ending with Nick Fury telling Stark about a "team" they're putting together, and then Stark telling Ross at the end of Hulk about that same team, that probably at the end of Indiana Jones, Indie is approached by Bruce Banner to come join the team, and then at the end of his big race, Speed Racer is then approached by Indiana Jones to join the Avengers as well. Then Speed Racer has the same chat with Bruce Wayne after Dark Knight. Before you know it, every summer blockbuster movie character will be part of the Avenger Initiative.

So, if you weren't going to go see Hulk because it isn't your thing, go see it anyway!

I saw the preview for Hellboy II, and I gotta say, I really want to see it! I didn't see the first one, having no interest and thinking it would be a flop. But, having just seen the sequel preview, I'm needing to borrow the first movie so I can be prepped for the awesomeness that I'm thinking the second will be. I mean, it's got these albino elves, how can it go wrong? xD