Bryce Zabel's MOVIE SMACKDOWN!

The Incredible Hulk (2008) -vs- Hulk (2003)

The Smackdown.  HULK SMASH!  I'm sorry, but I had to; it's just such a funny, quirky comic book phrase.  It's not often you get a Smackdown as clean as this one either where a project has been re-cast, re-conceived and the first director has been sent packing.  When you consider that The Incredible Hulk is the franchise follow-up to Ang Lee's 2003 Hulk, you have to take into mind that it's the new Marvel Studios steering the cinematic wheel.  Its recent Iron Man proved a ridiculously profitable and critical hit but, quite frankly, I shuddered at the thought of a second motion picture tackling this heroic green figure after the first installment created such a controversial cinematic history (gamma Hulk poodles anyone?).  I can see the halls of Marvel Studios one or two weeks ago, brimming with newly starched suits and promiscuous congratulations over Iron Man's $530 million plus heist.  Now, a bunch of execs sit around a table -- bleary-eyed, ties loose, coffee cups empty, cell phones nearby -- hoping their new Hulk shares more than the color green with a one dollar bill.   So while those overpaid studio execs worry over that, let's have a Hulk-sized SMACKDOWN between Ang Lee's Hulk and Louis Leterrier's The Incredible Hulk.  May the best conflicted angst-ridden monster win.

The Challenger.  The Hulk returns rebooted under the directorial guidance of Transporter director Louis Leterrier off a script originally penned by Zak Penn and rewritten by Edward Norton.  In The Incredible Hulk, Norton plays Stan Lee's classic Bruce Banner, a simple scientist whose brilliance leads to a tragic lab accident.  Now a fugitive from a military general who wishes to make him a weapon, Banner longs for a cure to his monstrous alter-ego and the forced isolation it demands.  Like Stan Lee's original Hulk, The Incredible Hulk focuses on Banner's struggle to contain this monstrous Neanderthal lurking inside him.  In fact, it's the film's petrol, blasting through Bourne-style chase scenes and WWF-style mutant throwdowns.  But like the green beast himself, Letterrier's film loses a bit of its humanity when it goes "Hulk."  Coupled with somewhat awkward pacing, the film may leave audiences like Bruce Banner after a "hulk-out": scratching your head asking where the hell am I and what the hell just happened?  Comparing the shooting script to the finished film, there are a plethora of scenes missing -- mostly character-oriented -- that would've better balanced the film.  Banner's therapy session with his lover's new boyfriend and Banner's attempted suicide are among them.  On top of this, some of the dialogue -- no matter how good the actor, or how green -- just can't be pulled off.

Ghost Town (2008) -vs- Ghost (1990)

Boo-Who?

The Smackdown. People like the idea of the dead communicating with the living. It’s comforting (if borderline creepy) to imagine that our departed are somehow lingering, intact-looking ghosts sticking around until they’re finished with their earthly (mostly corny) unfinished business. It’s romantic to imagine that love never truly dies, that somehow, even after death, we don’t part. Two films almost two decades apart interpret this sappy Halloween-worthy theme in remarkably different ways. Potters wheel in one corner, dentist’s drill in another.  May the best prop win.

The Challenger.  Ricky Gervais, the British comic genius behind classic series "The Office" and "Extras," joins forces with two other television comedy veterans, Tea Leoni and Greg Kinnear in surprisingly effective if convoluted romantic comedy, "Ghost Town."  After a brush with death, Gervais can see dead people, a fact made all the more remarkable since before his brush with death, he barely noticed the living.

Deep Impact (1998) -vs- Armageddon (1998)

It's the End of the World as We Know It

The Smackdown.  Ten summers ago, during the Year of Lewinsky, Paramount/DreamWorks got into a game of chicken with Touchstone.  The result was two disaster films about comets that were about to hit the Earth and destroy all life.  I won't tell you how the Earth fared yet, but I can tell you that the point of impact in the theaters was about two months apart.  Talk about operational redundancy!  In any case, the summer of 1998 gave us a cinematic laboratory experiment in how the same story can yield entirely different results.  Having watched these two films back-to-back, here's my take.  10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1... we have lift-off...

I've been thinking a lot about this topic a decade later because I'm writing a miniseries for Animal Planet about mass extinction events ("Animal Armageddon") set to air in early 2009, and the latest episode I'm tackling is the one where the asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs, most of them within a single hellish hour some 65-million years ago. 

In doing this research, I've also come across an excellent article in the June 2008 Atlantic by Gregg Easterbrook, "The Sky Is Falling."  In it, Easterbrook makes the point that scientists are coming to the conclusion that we have vastly underestimated the probability of these cosmic impacts because they have way underestimated how many of these viable "planet killers" are out there in our vicinity.  Here's their video link.

The point is, these two films aren't just hypotheticals.  This kind of extinction level event has happened before and it could happen again -- maybe even on our watch.

In Hollywood, we like to talk about the "log-line" of something, the equivalent of a "TV Guide" listing.  So, before we get into talking about how these two films are different, let's state their similarity in a single log-line that both could share:

• When a "planet-killer" sized comet is discovered to be on an imminent collision course with Earth, an international space effort -- led by the United States -- sets out to deflect the object by setting off nuclear weapons deep inside its core so that it will miss Earth and, therefore, save humanity.

Even though "Deep Impact" was the first in the theaters, for our purposes, we're giving the "Defending Champion" designation to "Armageddon" because it won at the box-office.  "Armageddon" grossed $553-million world-wide to the "Deep Impact" gross of $349-million.  Incredibly, IMDB (the Internet Movie Data Base) has it as a virtual tie with both films scoring a 5.9 out of ten audience rating.  So, let's start with "The Challenger"... "Deep Impact."

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008) -vs- Journey to the Center of the Earth 3-D (2008)

Fraser-on-Fraser Violence

The Smackdown.  Does the world actually need two films in less than a month starring Brendan Fraser as a cocky action hero in a film where the stakes are supposedly life-and-death but not really?  How about just one film like that?  Okay, then, let's just say that Brendan Fraser is having a pretty damn good summer with these two films (a sequel of a sequel and a re-imagining of a classic).  Let's also say, for the sake of argument, that you have a limited amount of bandwidth for this kind of entertainment and are suitably skeptical of Fraser given, say, the crimes against cinema of "Dudley Do-Right" and "George of the Jungle."  If you can only deal with one Brendan Fraser "vehicle" based on previous material this summer, which one should you see now while it's still in theaters, and which one should you see at home where the popcorn's cheaper and the bathroom's closer?   

The Challenger. The prologue to "The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor" starts in Ancient China where an Evil Emperor, Han (Jet Li) is conquering the known world.  He has a vast army and his priests have shown him how to shape shift and control the elements.  But that's not enough: he wants Immortality! It just so happens there's a Witch (Michelle Yeoh) who knows the Secret. The Emperor wants her for himself but she's in love with his general.  She gets the point (literally) that Han's not a nice man and puts a curse on him and his army, turning them in Terra Cotta statues (because, apparently, in the Far East they didn't believe in wrapping their mummies in bandages).  The proverbial sands of time pass and Alex O'Connell, the grown Son of Rick (Fraser), finds the Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.  When bad guys awaken him, Alex is joined by his parents Rick and Evelyn (here played by Maria Bello) who are all too eager to quit their boring retirement and kick some mummy ass.   Rick goes three-for-three by putting down the Emperor with the requisite magic blade and saving the world (again).

Tropic Thunder (2008) -vs- Galaxy Quest (1999)

Reality Bites

The Smackdown. Movies are already an illusion -- stories committed to film that feel real but, at best, are only an impression of reality. With this Smackdown! we have a couple of competitors about real people playing characters in unreal film and TV projects who end up being taken as authentic by people who can, basically, kill them, and so they have to suck it up and act like the heroes they pretend to be. In both "Tropic Thunder" and "Galaxy Quest" (both from DreamWorks), things are not what they seem.  Could Ben Stiller actually fight his way out of a paper bag any more than Tim Allen could save the universe from world-destroying aliens?  Roll film...

The Challenger. You're shopping for something to watch, perhaps a comedy to flavor the mix of summer movies. You need something to cleanse the memory of "The Love Guru" and Eddie Murphy's latest misfire. Going back for another dose of "Hancock" won't do, and neither will another road trip with Harold and Kumar. Maybe try out a comedy that spoofs better than "Get Smart" and comes with a load of pre-release buzz: "Tropic Thunder." It's the latest from writer / actor / director Ben Stiller and will not escape some controversy for having Robert Downey, Jr. appear in black face.