OK, what in the name of personally monogrammed form-fitting lycra is going on in the world of superhero movies? First Batman Begins and The Dark Knight secure a whole Oscar front row's worth of enormo-talent; then Iron Man goes one better and grabs a cast of people so cool that Oscar hasn't seen fit to adequately recognise them (plus Gwyneth Paltrow, who is great and totally has an Oscar, but we don't want to draw attention to that rather less than perfectly played moment in her history). Now The Incredible Hulk – the sequel or rebirth or facelift or genre resurfacing or whatever we're supposed to call it to a big flop – is grabbing big big names and drawing noises from us that some might call squeals, but we prefer to think of as manly shrieks of excitement. Like an eagle that's just hunted something really big. Maybe a cow or a schoolbus or John Candy.
To add to Ed Norton as tall, green and thumpy (awesome) and Liv Tyler as his woman (great), we now have Tim Roth as the bad guy. Tim Roth. Tim freakin Roth! Yes, we know he was in Planet of the Apes, a film of which we do not speak for its Tim Burton CV blighting, but the guy is generally pretty picky. And he's rarely less than brilliant. Roth will play Abomination (terrible name; had to be a downside), who in the comic books exposed himself to ridiculous levels of radiation in order to embiggenate himself beyond even Hulk and became his mortal enemy. He was also Russian and had stretchy pants and looked a bit like a salamander with a home gym. Hopefully not all of these elements will be preserved. But, anyway, in short: Tim Roth. Abomination. Yay.
We had doubts that Louis Letterier could go from The Transporter to raising an unfairly bedeadened franchise from the grave, but the guy's got to have something for this level of talent to be swarming toward him. Could 2008 be the best year in the history of superhero movies? Yes, children, yes it could. It could also be the year Elvis returns from his hiding in space to rule us all. But that's less likely, so let's focus on the former.