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Bravo for opening up this article despite its subject - one of the most universally despised comic book adaptations of all time, arguably surpassing even Batman & Robin and Daredevil on a scale of movies that alienated their fanbase. Hulk may have a few apologists who claim that it's not that bad, but it's tough to find anyone willing to claim it's among the best of the genre. Despite a Tomatometer Rating of 61% at RottenTomatoes.com, a quick scan of the reviews finds plenty of claims that the film is "pretentious," "humorless," "self-important" and that it lacks fun. Perhaps Hulk is worth a second look, though: in a year when Watchmen, a relentlessly serious movie that is more an abridged re-enactment of a comic series than a translation to the screen, receives such a high degree of critical acclaim, maybe we're ready for Ang Lee's vision of comic panels and inner torment.

When it was announced that Ang Lee would be helming this latest addition to the comic-to-screen canon, big things were expected. Lee had garnered significant critical acclaim with The Ice Storm and Sense and Sensibility, and had an international hit on his hands with the kinetic, beautiful Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. His uniquely observational style, wry sense of humor, and international appeal promised Hulk could be the comic book movie to end all comic book movies, following the example Bryan Singer set with X-Men and X2. Singer showed that the material could be taken seriously, that the rich history of the charicters could be respected, that fanboys and the general public alike would show up - hand-in-hand - to make these types of films a success. If anyone could mine the "duality of man" milieu that is infused in the Hulk's DNA, it was presumably Lee.

Then came the first crack in the armor: an underwhealming teaser trailer that revealed to the world what a fully-CGI Hulk would look like. The Interwebs lit up with complaints that the titular man-giant looked more like Shrek than Lou Ferrigno, a claim that studio spokespeople brushed off, claiming that effects in the teaser weren't finished and that the final product was sure to blow people's minds. Many of those skeptics must have believed them, as Hulk took in more than $62 million in its opening frame, the third-highest June weekend of all time. Sadly, that take fell nearly 70% in Hulk's second weekend, and this would-be blockbuster finished its theatrical run with $132 million in domestic receipts, less than the $137 million it reportedly cost to make. Word-of-mouth killed Hulk in 2003, never to be heard from again until last year's relaunch starring Edward Norton (which, by the way, did almost identical business at the box office despite a bigger budget and a more action-oriented mandate).

Lee employed an agressive, take-no-prisoners approach to the movie's visual style, attepting to create a comic book come-to-life. The screen was often divided into panels, scenes transitioned in increasingly convoluted ways, and the family melodrama dangerously outweighed scenes of Hulk ripping the gun barrels off of tanks and using them as baseball bats. Apparently audiences weren't quite ready for the comic book film to be stretched that far. They wanted seriousness, yes, and originality to boot - but Lee changed the game when all they wanted were different uniforms. And so, for his ambition, Lee was rewarded with his film being treated as a perpetual punch-line rather than the reach-for-the-stars, kid-in-the-candy-store effort that's usually celebrated when an indy filmmaker gets the keys to dad's Camaro.

It's a shame, because I think if Hulk was released today, the story would be different. Employing the sort of post-modern, self-referential worship of the source material for which we all loved Grindhouse, and striving to impart the heft of a "serious" movie onto a bit of comic book fiction, Hulk is exactly the kind of film that this genre has purportedly been clamoring for since its rebirth with X-Men. Right? I mean, if that's not the ideal than why was X-Men: The Last Stand so criticized for taking two emotionally complex story-lines from the comics to make a 100 minute spectaclefest? Why were the Schumacher Batman films considered so detrimental to the genre for replacing heft with camp? Why can Watchmen get away with telling an two and a half hour plus tale that's so faithful to the source material that it feels like a four hour epic with chunks randomly cut out?

Hulk was a case of giving audiences everything they thought the wanted, but weren't really ready for. From Eric Bana's brooding turn as a Bruce Banner more tortured by his father's memory than by the lean mean killing machine he becomes, to Jennifer Connelly's maternal girlfriend, to Nick Nolte as Bruce's nutbag, psychotically driven father, Hulk makes real the sort of charicter-driven complexity that fans would turn to when defending their habit as not just for kids. The split screens, freeze frames, and hero shots should be drool-worthy, the completely CGI Hulk should be a Gollum-esque miracle, and the Hulk-dogs should be up for a cameo in the Avengers movie. Hulk was too big a leap, taking the comic book movie to its natural conclusion rather than a few baby steps forward, and for that reason it never got its due.

Yes, I suspect if Hulk were released today it would be heralded as a visionary re-interpretation of the action-adventure picture, and Ang Lee would be attached (if he were interested) to one of the next series of Marvel films. He would be on par with Bryan Singer and Jon Farveau as a director who truly gets it, and therefore has the blessing of the masses to go forth, be fruitful and multiply the box office returns. Hulk would be considered among the best, rather than the worst.