Casting actors better known for their thought-provoking performances than action-packed roles in some of this summer’s biggest blockbusters seems to have become a bit of a trend. First there was suave Robert Downey Jr. as “Iron Man”; now we get geeky Edward Norton as “The Incredible Hulk”. It may come as little surprise then that both films are the brainchild of Marvel Studios, the entertainment branch of the famous comic book publishing house. Marvel seems to have struck gold with Downey Jr. as Iron Man, but can Hulk follow suit?

Well, the good news is that “The Incredible Hulk” is a definite improvement on Ang Lee’s universally panned 2003 version, “Hulk”, although that doesn’t say much of course. No doubt worried about comparisons to the former, this Hulk plays it safe by giving us less philosophical talk and more straightforward action. In a thrilling opening sequence, the film whizzes through ‘the making of Hulk’ in three minutes flat, before fast forwarding to scientist Bruce Banner (Norton) several years later, now in hiding from the military and on a desperate search to find a cure for the Gamma radiation that poisoned his cells and left him with certain anger management issues.

As soon as his pulse rate reaches 200, the otherwise gentle Banner turns into an angry green muscle-bound version of Shrek, prone to play Playmobil with cars and tanks and cause havoc around him. Awesome, you may say, except that Banner isn’t exactly keen on his split personality. Apart from having lost his girlfriend (Liv Tyler) and being hunted by General Thunderbolt Ross (William Hurt), he continuously finds himself waking up in the middle of nowhere post-attack, without clothes or money. Oh yeah, and his sex life has gone down the drain, too.

On top of that, a power-hungry soldier (Tim Roth) decides that an injection or two of Gamma radiation would do wonders for his battle skills; his eventual transformation into “The Abomination” suddenly makes Hulk look like Mr. Universe. The scene is thus set for a clash of the super monsters.

Edward Norton is an enigmatic actor who brings the right amount of believable intelligence to the role of a scientist struggling to come to terms with the fact that his alter ego is a giant green monster. Unfortunately he is being let down by Hulk himself – the CGI effects may be impressive to a certain degree, yet fail to make Hulk’s face resemble anything more than a strange plasticine contortion.

“The Incredible Hulk” nevertheless ends up being two hours of solid Popcorn fun, culminating in a potentially brilliant twist in the final scene. It remains to be seen whether Hulk can match the box office success of Iron Man, and withstand the onslaught of Christian Bale’s second outing as Batman next month. Then again, maybe they shouldn’t try and mess with a very, very angry green giant. The battle of 2008’s summer blockbuster heroes has officially started.