Sequels usually promise more.

The Incredible Hulk, Marvel's public apology for Ang Lee's 2003 psycho-drama, offers less.

Less Freudian angst.

Less pretense.

Less analysis.

And a lot less of that mutant poodle -- sorry, I mean Nick Nolte.

So what are we left with? Ah, yes: "Hulk smash."

And, really, can you blame the suits at Marvel?

Faced with a crater instead of a franchise following Lee's film, no wonder they regrouped to make an entertaining if skin-deep chase thriller that leaves Bruce Banner's id untapped -- but no inner geek untickled.

Cameos and references to Marvel mythos abound: from Lou Ferrigno of TV's Hulk to the use of a certain "super-soldier serum" and the involvement of SHIELD, the covert organization introduced in Iron Man.

It's clear that Marvel, the publisher-turned-film studio, considers this Hulk the brute force in its charge toward assembling a few Avengers.

Wasting not an iota of screen time, the new movie hurtles through its revisionist history with a credits sequence that compacts the character's origins to a few succinct images.

From here it's on to Brazil "years later," where fugitive researcher

Banner (Edward Norton) is working to cure himself of the "condition" that demands isolation and the utmost self-control.

He studies yoga. He wears a wristwatch that monitors his pulse (when it reaches 200, his pupils are moments away from ominously changing colour).

And he stocks up on all-purpose stretchy pants intended to keep his alter-ego modest.

Back in the U.S., Banner's nemesis, Gen. Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross (William Hurt), gets wind of Banner's whereabouts and sends an army unit to capture him in the hope of weaponizing the creature within.

Leading the hunt is Tim Roth, whose Emil Blonsky is a lethal adrenaline junkie both weirded out by and creepily obsessed with his super-human quarry.

By the climax, well publicized in the trailers and TV ads, Bronsky has undergone a transformation himself into the aptly-named Abomination.

The resulting clash between the two gamma-radiated titans is a concrete-shredding demolition derby of the highest bone-and-building-pulverizing order,

convincingly choreographed by Louis Leterrier.

Leterrier even manages to bring some of the inspired inventiveness of his Transporter movies to his monster mash -- as when the Hulk reduces a car to a personalized set of brass knuckles.

On the downside, the comic-book icon remains touchy on two fronts: not quite a monster but neither a hero, he emerges only when he's least wanted (something the fairly witty script, doctored by Norton, aims to correct).

And if the special effects have been upgraded -- this goliath is more sinewy than Lee's rubbery behemoth -- they remain inconsistent.

As well, with so much attention given to spectacle, the humans predictably receive short shrift.

Hurt is called on to do little but be gruff, while all that is demanded of Liv Tyler's Betty Ross is that she stay perched on the verge of lip-quivering tears. At least Tim Blake Nelson has fun as unbalanced sequel-friendly scientist Samuel Sterns.

As for reports Norton was displeased with how much character development Marvel left on the cutting-room floor, he should have known as much. It's Physics 101.

If Lee's talky flop was the action, this is simply the opposite -- and pretty close to incredible -- reaction.

(This film is rated PG)

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