This is obviously Pretension's week for brainless entertainment. She intended to go watch Prince Caspian or Sex in the City while catching up with a friend, but didn't quite factor in the Friday evening Singapore movie crowd. Despite getting to the Vivocity multiplex 40 minutes before Prince Caspian was due to begin, only front row seats were available and P still gets motion-sick from recalling her Bourne Ultimatum experience in that position.

The fallback was the new Hulk movie, which still had plenty of availability. This caused a certain uneasiness, but P remembers Edward Norton's excellent performance in the Painted Veil, so decided to give it a chance. Despite her prejudices, P found herself enjoying the movie. It is classic comic-book entertainment and no more than that despite excellent performaces by William Hurt (as an obsessed General Ross) and Edward Norton (as the title character's puny alter ego). There's plenty of "Hulk smash" action against both the US military and the aptly-named supervillian Abomination.

Edward Norton succeeds in portraying the pathos of the character and lives up to the mantle of 70's Hulk series hero, Bill Bixby. P especially enjoyed how the character uses yoga and a heart rate monitor to attempt to control his transformations (P never realised that the fast heart rate problem might extend to the bedroom!). However, Pretensions did feel a little let-down by the computer-generated Hulk which simply looks too much like a refugee from a PC game, rather than a real creature. Finally, P enjoyed the cameos by Robert Downey Jr (free advertising! Iron Man anyone?), Stan Lee and Lou Ferrigno (the TV Hulk).

Not up to Iron Man standards, but good fun despite its unoriginality, and miles better than the angst-filled but going nowhere Ang Lee version.

The Hulk movie opened everywhere June 13th, 2008.