DVD Reviews: The Incredible Hulk and Iron Man.

The Incredible Hulk came out on DVD on Tuesday, and Iron Man‘s been out for a few weeks. If you’ve so far managed to not see either or both of those movies by now, allow me to make a recommendation: I can think of few things that’d be more fun (or more geeky) to do this weekend than line these DVDs up as a double feature.

Iron Man was one of last summer’s unexpected big hits, and rightly so: It’s not a great movie, but it is a really, really fun one, and it perfectly captures the poppy, bright fun that the best superhero comic books convey. The Incredible Hulk, on the other hand, had a more difficult time at the box office (unlike the plans to milk Iron Man until it’s dead, it’s unlikely that The Incredible Hulk will ever see a sequel), but it still works as an enjoyable superhero action flick.

But neither film is quite as interesting on its own as the two of ’em are together. After the jump: More thoughts on the DVDs, plus ramblings about how Tony Stark is a funny drunk and about how Marvel Studios is planning to take over the world. Or the world’s movie theaters, at least.

The thing about Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk that makes ’em work so well together is that, for the first time, Marvel’s in charge of their own movies: Before, the publisher has sold off the film rights for their characters to various studios: Fox has the X-Men, Sony has Spider-Man, somebody got tricked into buying Ghost Rider, etc. While Marvel’s characters frequently interact with each other in the comic books–it’s not unusual for Iron Man to team up with Spidey and Wolverine to take down Magneto, for example–that shit has almost never happened in the movies, largely because of all the conflicting studios’ interests.

Now that Marvel’s financing some of their own movies, though, they’ve started to do what every comic book nerd has wanted to see done for decades: Bringing their disparate characters together into a single universe. Marvel’s aiming to create a whole franchise of interconnected films, one where Iron Man and the Hulk can meet up with Thor and Captain America. That’s the plan, anyway: At least one more Iron Man movie, a Thor movie, a Captain America movie, plus an Avengers movie that’ll bring all those characters together in 2011. Personally, I think that the Avengers movie should be titled Nerdgasm, and I guess if we’re going to stick with that kinda creepy sexual theme (which we are!), then you could consider the scenes in Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk that hint about that mega-movie to be foreplay.

Ugh, typing that made me feel gross. Onward!

Out of these two DVDs, the Iron Man one is definitely the strongest, not only because the movie’s better, but because on the two-disc collector’s edition, the bonus features are really impressive: There’s a two-hour long documentary that follows almost all of the phases of the production (including a preproduction meeting that includes not only the filmmakers, but also key members of Marvel Comics’ brain trust, like writers Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Millar), a 45-minute-long look at the history of the character in comic books (which SO does not spend nearly enough time focusing on what a hilarious drunk Iron Man is), a featurette on the special effects, production art galleries, and this:

Wildly Popular ‘Iron Man’ Trailer To Be Adapted Into Full-Length Film

Which reminds me: I wish they’d put the text of this Onion piece onto the Hulk three-disc special edition DVD, but I guess I can see why they didn’t. (“Why no one appreciate daring vision of Ang Lee? Aaargh! Ang Lee genius! Maybe panels on screen gimmicky, but him try something new. When last time you try something new?!”) The Incredible Hulk DVD is still a solid one, even if it’s not as insightful or as thorough as Iron Man‘s. The third disc (as is happening a lot with Universal DVDs these days) contains a digital copy of the film for your computer/iPod/iPhone, while discs one and two boast deleted scenes, an alternate opening, and some featurettes. Seeing Edward Norton shamble around perfecting the movement for the Hulk, and seeing him with a bunch of glowing dots on his face being scanned into a computer while he makes various Hulk-y faces, is also great, because watching acclaimed actors shamelessly make asses of themselves is something that’ll never get old.

When The Incredible Hulk came out there was a lot of to-do over how much had been cut from the film, and the main emphasis of the deleted scenes here is that the original plan for this Hulk was for it be much, much talkier. The Incredible Hulk is better for all the edits, though–while I’m usually a fan of more character development and dialogue, this isn’t that sort of movie, and most of the stuff that’s in these deleted scenes is pretty cheesy, superfluous, and indulgent stuff. Moreover, while the Iron Man DVD’s bonus features frequently have a fly-on-the-wall quality–it’s pretty cool to see Robert Downey, Jr. and Jeff Bridges rehearsing a scene, or to watch the panicked creative team freaking out as they near the end of their postproduction schedule–the bonus stuff on The Incredible Hulk feels slicker and less intimate, like it was cobbled together from publicity materials. It’s still fun to watch–there’s something inherently interesting about watching a creative team try to make up for what they perceive to be the failures of the past, in this case Ang Lee’s oft-derided Hulk–but like the film itself, the Hulk DVD just doesn’t quite have the punch that Iron Man offers.

But like I said: A really fun comic book double feature is to be had, here. Iron Man first, then The Incredible Hulk, and if you want to get super nerdy about it, afterward hit the internet and try and suss out Marvel’s casting for Thor (whoever’s gonna be Thor, it won’t be Daniel Craig) and Captain America (who, no, will not be played by Will Smith). 2011 will be here before you know it.