HULK: WHERE MONSTERS DWELL (2016)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *metaphysical, psychological*

A couple of online reviews characterized this DTV production as being primarily aimed at kids, at least partly due to its Halloween theme. Of course, in the U.S. animated cartoons, particularly those made for the direct video market, are usually seen as being fodder for kids, no matter how many adults attend live-action superhero films. And the set-up sounds basic enough: the Hulk, Doctor Strange and a gaggle of newbie monster-heroes must battle Nightmare, lord of the Dream Dimension, as he attempts to prey upon young trick-or-treaters as part of his scheme to conquer the waking world. However, unlike a lot of DTV product, MONSTERS has an interesting take on one of the much-traveled Marvel heroes.

The production house for this film had also featured their version of "Intelligent Hulk" in two previous serials, the pedestrian AVENGERS ASSEMBLE and the entertaining HULK AND THE AGENTS OF SMASH. This story's "monsters on the prowl" theme, though, puts the focus on a part of the hero's psyche that usually gets short shrift in animation: the animus between the Hulk and his alter ego Bruce Banner.

Being a hardcore comics-fan, I've seen a lot of takes on this psychological difficulty. When the Hulk was a savage manifestation of Banner's "id," of course, Banner was the reality-principle that kept interfering with the Green Goliath's reason for existence. Here, however, the Hulk has gained a measure of social respect for his service with the Avengers. Therefore, sharing a body with Banner threatens Hulk's new raison d'etre, his attempt to define himself as a "hero" and not as a "monster." For this reason Hulk is not entirely happy to work with the agglomeration of SHIELD-allies known as "the Howling Commandos." All of these characters-- the Man-Thing, Nina Pryce (Vampire By Night), War-Wolf, and a zombified version of SHIELD agent Jasper Sitwell-- are more openly repulsive than the Hulk, and so their presence irks Old Greenskin, reminding him of the times when he was utterly alienated from humanity. On top of all this, the dream-lord Nightmare susses out Hulk's hangups and seeks to use them against both the Hulk and Nightmare's perpetual foe Stephen Strange.

The script is far from perfect. A lot of the "quarreling heroes" business between Hulk and the Commandos is routine at best, and some of the odd decisions, like making super-efficient myrmidon Sitwell into a zombie, don't go anywhere. The mindless swamp-monster known as Man-Thing is pretty much shoehorned into the action, and his famous schtick, "whatever knows fear burns at the Man-Thing's touch," is a little too low-tech to fit all this phantasmagorical action. For whatever reason Nina Pryce and the War-Wolf are the only ones who work well together, though maybe that's because partly because vampires and werewolves seem to complement one another so well. I wasn't familiar with either character, who both premiered in a 21st-century Marvel title, but I like the trivia-item that War-Wolf's name is most probably recycled from a one-shot DEATHLOK opponent of the 1970s. However, I could have lived without the presence of a young newly-transformed monster named Minotaur, who was pretty much a big zero except for his effect on the juvenile trick-or-treaters. (Most of them were teenagers sans parental units-- do teens even DO Halloween anymore?)

Doctor Strange plays his usual "group organizer" role with aplomb, but all the good stuff in MONSTERS centers around the Hulk's conflict with his other half. And though I wasn't a huge fan of 2015's AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON, I appreciated a dream-scene in which Hulk has to be brought to heel by Banner, clad in Tony Stark's "anti-Hulk" armor, with which Iron Man beat down Greenskin in the live-action flick.

One of the movie's critics alleged that the movie went on too long. Actually, at one point I thought the movie was going to end with the heroes wrecking Nightmare's main scheme and escaping his Dream Dimension. But Nightmare still finds a way to invade the waking world, and though he still gets beaten and exiled (no spoilers needed there), the upping of the ante worked for me.

The movie's subtitle, "Where Monsters Dwell," is taken from a 1970s Marvel title, mostly made up of stories reprinted from the fifties and sixties. But here the phrase could also apply to the human psyche as the dwelling-place of all monstrous creations, be they split-off parts of one's own mind or just entertaining figments of the imagination.