Marvel latest animated movie is hit and miss; Hulk Vs. Wolverine is a hit, Hulk Vs. Thor is a miss. It’s a good thing that the studio decided to package the two stories together in one feature because that second one, left to its own devices, was kind of lame. Both are solid efforts though, as long as you ignore the one conceit, which is that the Hulk is actually a very marginal part of the film that’s named after him. Despite how interesting everything else may be, it’s pretty bad when the star of the film is little more than a plot device.
In Hulk Vs. Thor, the Green Goliath finds himself a pawn of Loki, the Norse God of Mischief. Taking advantage of King Odin’s annual hibernation, Loki uses Hulk has a puppet to wreck unholy havoc on Asgard generally, and his step-brother Thor particularly. Of course with the Hulk being involved, these things don’t go according to plan, and after Loki’s control is broken, a really, really angry Hulk just says eff it, I’m going to smash everything anyway. The problem with this story is that there’s a constant start-stop motion through everything; as if the writer is constantly trying to find more story to keep things going to a pre-arranged running time.
And I know Hulk’s alter ego Bruce Banner is supposed to be all tortured and everything, but there’s this whole Star Trek: Generations thing where he has an illusion of a quiet life with a wife and a kid that just felt really misplaced. Now whininess is a part of Banner’s personality, but not to the point where he lockjaws about fighting to keep Hulk under control because he feels personably responsible for the actions of his atomic Mr. Hyde. It’s almost like the writers of this film didn’t really understand the underline rational of Banner when it comes to the Hulk, but then again they also seemed to forget that Loki is a God of Mischief, not a God of Darkness, or whatever they tried to sell him as. This Loki wasn’t very mischievous, but I love the voice of Graham McTavish in playing him.
Next, there’s Hulk Vs. Wolverine, and it is by far the better entry. Almost duplicating the origin of Wolverine from The Incredible Hulk #180, the story finds Logan being sent by Canada’s Department H into the woods to bring in the monster, who’s terrorizing unwitting campers. Unfortunately for both Wolverine and Hulk, Weapon X really wants them for their ongoing experiments in creating super-powered soldiers. As a result, the two combatants have to team up against the evil Canadians in order to survive. And in what has to be a preview of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, they have to fight through Sabretooth, Deadpool, Deathstrike and Omega Red to escape.
From a story perspective, this half of Hulk Vs. is much cleaner and much more linear. Although it doesn’t deliver a full-on bloody fight between the two title characters, it undoubtedly nailed the dark tone the story needed and was just violent enough to be satisfying without going R-rated. The real surprise of the film though was Deadpool, never a very favourite of mine, yet somehow really enjoyable here being played against the dark, humourless characters. Voice actor Nolan North is so good in bring the Merc with a Mouth to life, I can say without hyperbole that in the minds of fans who see this, young Ryan Reynolds will have big shoes to fill this summer.
So if you watch the film in its intended order you can get past the terrible He-Man-esque quality of Hulk Vs. Thor and just sit back to enjoy the antics and in-jokes of Hulk Vs. Wolverine. In the collection of Marvel animated films I have to say that this one ranks pretty high, but in the end would have ranked higher had something more compelling been done with the Thor portion.
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