The Incredible Hulk and the Military

One of the first Google results for "The Incredible Bulk"

Alright, admittedly, this only vaguely falls under the purview of the blog.  That said, I actually liked The Incredible Hulk.  You know, the one not directed by Ang Lee.  The one he directed that that was insanely long and apparently featured long expanses of Hulk-less screentime.  The newer one.  I'm re-watching it and some things stand out.

Before I get to my gripes: I'm mostly impressed.  There's some actual acting, especially between Norton and Tyler (in most movies, when she hugged him after seeing him in the restaurant, we would've soon be treated to a PG-13 sex scene).  The casting is excellent.  In particular, William Hurt does amazing work (think The Good Shepard and Dark City) and Tim Roth is highly under-appreciated (besides his work in the early Tarantino movies, his central figure in Deceiver was riveting).  Edward Norton, well, I doubt I need to convince anyone that he's a pretty great actor.  The screenplay balances Hulk and non-Hulk scenes pretty well, and the pacing is about right.  Also, while he never twists anyone's head off, you have to assume that some people died when he was the Hulk (being thrown against walls at the speed of a baseball is probably not survivable).   That's a pretty big departure from much of the Hulk universe - and it makes perfect sense.  I'm not advocating death, but it seems that a gigantic rage-fueled monster might kill people.  Also, plenty of Easter eggs for fans.  Good stuff.  Not an excellent movie, but certainly one of the better comic adaptations.  Now, on to the bad (and as former military, this is my choice of grouching)- the depiction of the military.  In no particular order:

1. Why does Blonksi (Tim Roth) wear a U.S. Army uniform?
He's a loaner from British special forces.  He's in U.S. Army BDUs and dress uniform several times.  Why?  The BDU thing makes slightly more sense than the dress uniform.  Uniformity, not wanting the public to know, etc.  But Army greens in a secret lab?  As far as I know, that's not standard practice.  I could be wrong, but I doubt it.  OK, I get it, the General is running a super-secret operation.  Maybe he can authorize the uniform change, but that's never mentioned.  The infuriating thing is that it would have taken about three seconds to fix this.  "Blonksi, while you're working with us, I want you to wear U.S. gear.  I've already taken some heat from above for having a foreign national on the team."  Boom.  Problem solved.

2.  Highly, highly classified material and information are tossed around like candy.
The whole weapons program is operating at a very high level of secrecy.  Yes, Blonski is basically introduced as part of the team.  You still don't go sharing information about weapons development to people not rated to be privy to said knowledge, even if they're from an allied NATO nation.  Again, a line or two of dialogue from the General could have fixed the issue ("I've been given special permission to brief you on the background and specifics related to this mission.  This information is not to be shared, under any circumstance, not to ever be shared with the British government.  This is not negotiable").  While the General doesn't share relevant information in the earliest part of the movie, he reverses course and goes out of his way to fill a foreign national in on highly sensitive information.  He goes so far as to use a discarded "serum" on Blonski, which ostensibly, will stay in his blood once he returns home.  That.  Is.  Illegal.  This sort of thing is incredibly common in Hollywood, so I can't blame the movie too much.  But still, the contradictions are so glaring that they're a bit hard to ignore.

3.  Planning, Planning, Planning
How did you make General, General, with these apparent skills?  In a normal situation where you have a military fugitive spotted, sure, go snag the guy; that's the reasonable thing to do.  Now, I feel that the rules change when he's hanging out on a college campus, full of students and professionals.  Oh, yeah.  And when he gets freaked out, he turns into a huge murder/maim/disaster-creating machine.  Like freaked out when people shoot at him, perhaps.  Seriously, it's like they're trying to cause him to turn into the Hulk.  What reality does this make sense in?  Why not just follow the guy when he leaves, tranquilize him from behind when he's in a less populated area, and call it a day?

There are plenty more military-related issues in the movie (how many rounds are there in an M-16/M-4 anyhow?  30, right?  Pretty sure the movie doesn't adhere to that standard, but almost no one in Hollywood does, anyhow) but that's all I can muster for the moment.

Hollywood, please consider some basic military norms/facts before you make movies that are undermined by the absurdity of your plot.