The film picks up with David Banner (now using the name David Bellamy which must have caused a few belly laughs among any Brits who used to watch nature programmes at the time) working as a janitor at a science lab in Portland. However, as always with Banner, there's more to him taking a menial job than meets the eye - one of the scientists at the lab Dr Ron Pratt has been working on a cure for gamma radiation which Banner realises could finally be his shot at getting rid of his Hulk condition once and for all (we see at the start of the film when a group of hoodlums try and jump Banner for his pay cheque that the Hulk is very much still alive and well).
Meanwhile, we're introduced to a Russian spy named Yasmin (played by Elizabeth Gracen - the character isn't technically the Black Widow but, let's face it, totally is) who has been brought back in by her old criminal organisation for that old "one last job" favourite due to her sister Bella, also a spy, currently being a prisoner of the gang. The job in question involves stealing Pratt's research so that the gang can use it for their own nefarious ends (as appears to be standard with '80s Marvel films, it's never really explained what these are during the film). To this end, she gets chatting to one of the lab's security guards in a bar and then gets a copy of his fingerprint from the glass he leaves behind before stealing a security guard's uniform from the local dry-cleaners.
Back at the lab, Pratt has worked out that Banner has been breaking into his lab at night and correcting his formulas forcing him to come clean about the experiment and his condition. With the help of Pratt's wife Amy, the pair commence on working on things together and manage to conduct a controlled experiment where Banner transforms into the Hulk but is held in place by a forcefield allowing Amy to film the process. This is the first time Banner has ever seen himself as the Hulk and he's understandably a bit spooked.
Banner and Pratt plan to conduct the experiment in full to remove Banner's radiation the following night, not least because Pratt's funding is under threat. However, things go awry when Yasmin, disguised as a security guard, attempts to break into the lab. Pratt catches her midway through stealing a bunch of floppy disks but in the ensuing struggle he gets knocked out and put in a coma by Yasmin. Seeing this causes Banner to Hulk out and chase Yasmin and her co-assassins out of the lab but Pratt ends up taken to hospital and the experiment ends up being aborted.
Yasmin returns the disks to the lab but it turns out she took the wrong ones. Her boss Kasha threatens to put her in a room with his chief torturer Zed but to save her skin, she promises to bring Banner in and get him to spill the beans. On his way home from the hospital the following night, Banner finds himself being chased across fields by a couple of cars belonging to the bad guys and holes up in a petrol station. Yasmin, leading the villains, tells him that if he gives himself up they'll make sure he isn't hurt. However, as Banner's leaving, one of the other spies shoots Yasmin telling her that she's outlived her use as a member of the organisation and that her failure to recover the correct disks was the last straw. Banner helps her to fight the bad guys off but one of them mentions to Yasmin with his dying words that her sister Bella, far from being a captive, is actually now the leader of the organisation and was responsible for bringing her back on board.
Banner and Yasmin hole up at a cabin in the woods near the lab where he helps to stitch her up and she agrees to help him out given that both of them are now fugitives. The next day they return to the hospital where Banner manages to bring Pratt out of his coma by referring to him as "Stinky". Long story... To escape the hospital guards, Yasmin disguises herself as a nurse and puts Banner in a wheelchair so the two can escape. They're tailed by the bad guys to a junkyard where two of them try and crush their car but Banner turns into the Hulk and fights them off by using his strength to lift the diggers off the ground!
Thinking that the battle is won, Banner and Yasmin return to the cabin and share a night of passion together. As both of them are now free from their worries (or will be once Pratt does the final experiment on Banner), they decide to flee the States and start a new life abroad. Unfortunately fate intervenes as Zed and a group of bad guys kidnap Pratt and Amy on their way home from the hospital and take them to a nearby airfield where Bella is running things. Left with no option, the pair disguise themself as a wealthy couple to trick one of the henchmen, working as a car salesman, to give them directions to the place before leaving him in the trunk of his car for the police to find.
Banner and Yasmin track the bad guys to the airfield and beat seven bells out of them before rescuing the Pratts. However, as Banner is escaping with Ron and Amy to hand them back to the police and safety, he sees Bella and Zed (who've just shot Kasha as he tried to escape with them) chasing Yasmin down the runway in an aeroplane and trying to mow her down. Enraged, he turns into the Hulk and jumps on the plane forcing it to take off. Bella attempts to shoot him but Hulk grabs her gun and forces the fire downwards causing the petrol tank to ignite and the plane to explode.
We see Hulk falling through the air before landing on the tarmac with an almighty thud. Yasmin, Ron and Amy run over to him as he transforms back into Banner but unfortunately it's too late to save him. With his dying words, Banner tells Yasmin not to worry about him as at least he's free now.
Sadly, after getting my hopes up with the first two Hulk films, this third one is a bit of an anticlimax. Lacking both the enjoyability of "The Incredible Hulk Returns" and the darkness of "The Trial Of The Incredible Hulk", it's just dull with a plot that feels incredibly dragged out and very little to keep you geniunely interested. Having a crossover with Black Widow (okay so it technically wasn't but you know what I mean) could have worked well and Gracen is solid enough in the role but there's just such thin pickings with this script that it can't save the film unfortunately. As an interesting aside, the original plan was that Yasmin's character was going to become the She-Hulk during this film but I'm guessing that idea was scrapped before the plot was finished.
There were plans to do a fourth Hulk film called "The Revenge Of The Incredible Hulk" which would have seen Banner resurrected but no longer able to transform into the Hulk but then re-acquiring the ability in order to defeat a group of villains. A possible tie-in with Iron Man was talked about as well - it would have been interesting to see how they'd have done that with '80s film technology! However, Bixby became ill with prostate cancer and sadly lost his battle with the disease in 1993 meaning that this film turned out to be the final instalment in the Hulk series - a real shame as like I say, it was by some way the weakest of the three '80s films and it was really no way for the series to bow out. However, Hulk would be brought back to the big screen by Ang Lee in 2002 played first by Eric Bana, then Edward Norton and finally in the Avengers series by Mark Ruffalo. All of which we'll deal with in good time when we get round to reviewing them in the months ahead. As far as this film goes though, it's really only for Hulk completists I'm afraid...
FINAL RATING: 👊👊👊 (3/10)
CURRENT MARVEL FILM TABLE
1. The Incredible Hulk Returns (1988) (6/10)
2. Conan The Barbarian (1982) (6/10)
3. Conan The Destroyer (1984) (6/10)
4. The Trial Of The Incredible Hulk (1989) (6/10)
5. The Punisher (1989) (5/10)
6. Doctor Strange (1978) (5/10)
7. Red Sonja (1985) (4/10)
8. Captain America 2: Death Too Soon (4/10) (1979)
9. Spiderman (1977) (4/10)
10. The Death Of The Incredible Hulk (1990) (3/10)
11. Spiderman: The Dragon's Challenge (3/10) (1979)
12. Howard The Duck (1986) (2/10)
13. Captain America (1990) (2/10)
14. Captain America (1979) (2/10)
15. Spiderman Strikes Back (1978) (2/10)
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