Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Load of rubbish!!

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

So the Avengers have had enough of Hulk and decide to send him far away. They say he is going to a place where there are no people but of course that doesn't happen. Since all the characters are new we are treated to a half dozen boring back stories and given no explanation why Beta Ray Bill was there. This is for hard core Hulk fans only.

Earth's heroes, unable to cope with the Hulk, send him to another uninhabited planet but en route he destroys the vessel and crash lands on a different world.An interesting premise. Unfortunately everything afterwards is the most cliché ridden stuff you'll ever see in a superhero film. I've not read the original comic, so I don't know whether it is quite as bad as this.First off, the main bulk of this is set in a Roman-style arena, something we've all seen a zillion times before in comics and with a stereotypical cast list of fellow gladiators including the meek one, unimaginatively called Miek (obviously this is the same school of script writing that gave us Unobtainium).Next we have a series of fights, arranged in presumably ascending order of difficulty, but to me, the fights are in diminishing levels of interest. In the first, one of the inmates has the dilemma of having to kill his brothers. These brothers (and later Beta Ray Bill) are controlled more tightly by the slave discs than the Hulk or the rest of the gladiators for some unexplained reason (the reason being that it fits the plot) After this, The Hulk kills the next monster with one punch. And, on the second day, the supposedly superior monsters all turn out to be robots and not very impressive ones at that.Then there's Beta Ray Bill.Despite the prophecies that the Hulk will save the world, it is actual Beta Ray who destroys the slave discs on everyone. (And why is it that when these discs, which appear to be translators too, are destroyed, that everyone can still understand each other, including the Hulk?) More importantly why does Beta Ray Bill just fly off in the middle of the fight? Why upon seeing a group of oppressed and outnumbered people does he just choose to go home? Clearly Beta Ray Bill is just there as a plot device, once that is fulfilled, he has to be gotten rid off quickly.The remainder of the film is equally obvious. The Hulk is too eloquent and intelligent throughout and has several unconvincing duels with Caiera, a woman whose entire body mass is equivalent to one of the Hulk's arms, yet manages to fight him to a stand still. The Red King rather stupidly tells Caiera that he arranged the destruction of her village (the sort of thing that only bad movie villains do). And. out of nowhere, a romance between The Hulk and Caiera unconvincingly appears right at the end, although unhinted at before.

Planet Hulk for me is not perfect. I do think that it could have done with a longer length, consequently a couple of scenes wouldn't have felt as rushed and more could have been done with a couple of others. Namely Beta Ray Bill's exit, which seemed rather silly and somewhat defeatist. However, Planet Hulk is still an excellent film and more even than Hulk vs. The animation is very good, with very detailed backgrounds, stylish character animation and atmospheric colours. The action sequences are well-choreographed and exciting, and the music has a haunting quality that is ideal for the tone of Planet Hulk. The writing is intelligent and smart, and while the basic concept is somewhat standard the story is even in tone and compelling. The characters are generally well-developed and interesting, Hulk is brooding and charismatic, the Emperor is a worthy villain and Beta Ray Bill is a great inclusion. The voice acting is very good. Overall, excellent film if not a perfect one. 8/10 Bethany Cox

This animated movie casts an exiled Hulk as a reluctant gladiator/hero-cum-Messiah on a distant planet.The story itself is cobbled together from bits and pieces from all over the place, and contains no surprises, although it is delivered perfectly satisfactorily. But the story does take second place to the action. Much of it is combat and, for a cartoon, this is quite violent although this is reflected in the certification of the DVD.The Hulk is relatively de-powered at the start in order for him to be sufficiently in jeopardy, although it is clear that he recovers as the film proceeds.I quite enjoyed it, and I may well get the book.