The Hulk is one of the strongest characters in Marvel’s employ, both literally and in terms of pop culture staying power, but his movie quotes don’t always age particularly well. Across his many Marvel movie appearances, Bruce Banner and The Hulk have had some great lines over the years that stick in the minds of fans long after credits roll. But with every great quip, joke, or chilling statement, the character has a painful line that ages a given film quite poorly.
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Like any superhero character, Hulk’s lines can age poorly for a variety of reasons. In rare cases, shifting cultural values can instantly place a given line as a product of its time, particularly among the earliest Hulk solo movies. In other instances, elements of the narrative or the rapid change of standards in comedy are to blame for aging a given quote from Bruce Banner or The Hulk like milk.
10 “Don’t Make Me Hungry.”
The Incredible Hulk
Right away, Edward Norton’s take on Bruce Banner in The Incredible Hulk displays a poignant understanding of the tragedy inherent to the character. As brilliant as it is, in some instances, his performances clashes awkwardly with the studio-mandated MCU jokes and quips that find their way into the script, with Norton’s Banner feeling like a poor jumping off point for humor. Nowhere is this more evident than in the line in which Bruce Banner fumbles his iconic quote thanks to his tenuous grasp of Portuguese while hiding out in Brazil.
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Confronted by bad guys, Norton’s Bruce Banner attempts to warn them of the danger he poses to them, attempting to reassure them that they wouldn’t like him when he gets angry. However, what comes out instead is “Don’t make me hungry”, a painfully awkward attempt to wring humor out of a situation that doesn’t need it. This line makes even less sense when one realizes that the Portuguese words for “angry” and “hungry”, “nervoso” and “fome”, sound nothing alike.
9 “Dab!”
Avengers: Endgame
Much like the MCU’s problem with comedy Thor, Hulk has slowly morphed into a similar laughing stock of a character as time has passed in the series. Once a tortured genius, Hulk is now little more than a punchline following his transformation into Professor Hulk in Avengers: Endgame. Here, Bruce Banner uses some cringey Dad humor to try to relate to some of his fans, only to age the entire film to an atrocious degree.
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Capping off an encounter with a group of young fans, Hulk tries to appeal to them by using some Gen Z lingo, shouting “Dab!” while hitting the fad pose. This was already a dated reference by the time Avengers: Endgame came out, and even if it was intentionally so to showcase just how dorky Bruce Banner had become, it simply doesn’t work as a joke. The fact that he simply blurts out the word without even trying to work it into conversation only makes this “joke” land all the more flatly.
8 “You Know What Scares Me The Most? When It Happens, When It Comes Over Me And I Totally Lose Control, I Like It.”
Hulk
Ang Lee’s Hulk received a lot of criticism for being overly dark and melodramatic for a superhero movie, something that’s easy to see when looking back on Eric Bana’s Bruce Banner. This version of Banner eschews any endearing comedy or palpable scientific acumen for a brooding darkness implied to have created the persona of The Hulk. At one point, Bruce even admits that he enjoys losing control and going on rampages as The Hulk, something that makes little attempt to reconcile with his actual behavior.
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If Banner actually enjoyed becoming The Hulk, even on some small, subconscious level, then it’s doubtful that he would spend the entire film being as tortured by his condition as he does. While it works for Bruce Banner’s character to have a dark side responsible for the genesis of The Hulk, the implication that he has a secret sadistic side that enjoys causing mass destruction is a step too far. Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk goes in a more sensitive direction, describing being The Hulk as terrifyingly vulnerable, like having an exposed nerve ending.
7 “Look, If I Could Be More Whatever, You Know. I’m Just…”
Hulk
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Being overly dramatic and a touch too edgy weren’t the only problems facing Bruce Banner’s characterization in 2003’s Hulk. His woeful relationship with Jennifer Connely’s Betty Ross is another aspect of the character that simply didn’t work in the film, with the two sharing a painful will-they-won’t-they office romance. In one scene, Banner reveals to the audience that Betty and himself used to date, but fell off from one another, settling into a begrudgingly awkward professional relationship as a necessity for their work.
At one point, Banner makes an attempt to address the elephant in the room, only to fumble his words, mumbling like an awkward teenage boy confessing a crush. This eye-rolling line is frustrating to listen to when returning to the film, bringing to mind other gag-inducing superhero romances like Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone’s real-life relationship that bled into The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Returning to Ang Lee’s Hulk, it’s even harder to stomach these sorts of romantic pursuits.
6 “I Think You Look Great.”
Avengers: Infinity War
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Bruce Banner and Black Window’s romance was a contentious Avengers team dynamic introduced suddenly in Avengers: Age of Ultron. The film had some pretty awkward lines surrounding the two’s workplace romance, particularly Iron Man’s uncalled for “hide the zucchini” jab. But Hulk himself has some poor dialogue when it comes to finally meeting up with Natasha after not seeing her for years, having spent untold time as a champion on Sakaar.
Simply walking into the room, Bruce makes his presence known to Natasha by simply complimenting her new haircut. It can’t help but feel like a missed opportunity when Black Widow and Hulk don’t have a more tearful reunion, especially considering the fact that Black Widow tragically sacrifices herself for the Soul Stone not long after it in the next movie. The Black Widow and Hulk romance never got the satisfying closure it deserved, making their reintroduction in Avengers: Infinity War feel all the more hollow.
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5 “If You Travel To The Past, That Past Becomes Your Future, And Your Former Present Becomes Your Past, Which Can’t Now Be Changed By Your New Future!”
Avengers: Endgame
Avengers: Endgame officially took the Marvel Cinematic Universe to a new level by introducing the messy concept of time travel. While many different movies have their own unique interpretations of how such theoretical science would work, Hulk deconstructs them all during a team briefing in Avengers: Endgame, explaining to War Machine and Ant-Man how hopping timelines will actually work. His explanation is purposefully confusing, but essentially boils down to the fact that The Avengers can’t go back in time to kill Thanos to retroactively affect their present-day.
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It’s bold enough for Hulk to insult the genius of the Back To the Future movies, but what truly makes the line age poorly is that his statements are disproved within the same film. After all, Captain America ends the movie by going back in time and becoming an old man in the present day, something that should leave him in a new universe entirely, according to Hulk. If this line was an attempt to squarely inform audiences as to how the MCU’s brand of time travel would work, it utterly failed.
4 “That Guy’s Brain Is A Bag Full Of Cats. You Could Smell Crazy On Him.”
The Avengers
The Avengers did a great job selling audiences on Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk, taking over for Edward Norton after he left the series due to creative differences. However, not every line that came out of Dr. Bruce Banner’s mouth was exactly pure gold, especially when it came to the discussion of the film’s antagonist, Loki. As The Avengers meet with one another as a team in the Helicarrier for the first time, Banner dismisses Loki as having a brain like a “Bag full of cats.”
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First of all, this jab is a very awkward, middle-school level of name-calling that falls very short of the film’s otherwise superb dialogue. More importantly, Hulk’s statements are continuously proven wrong by Loki’s redemption arc in his own self-titled show, which happens not too long chronologically after the events of The Avengers. It’s no wonder Thor takes offense to the line before being reminded that Loki killed 80 people in only a couple of days.
3 “Betty…”
The Incredible Hulk
Black Widow isn’t Bruce Banner’s only failed love interest in the Marvel Cinematic Universe canon. The Incredible Hulk hinged much of its drama on the estranged romance of Edward Norton’s Bruce Banner and Liv Tyler’s Betty Ross. The supposed importance of their relationship is highlighted when Banner seems to recognize Betty’s touch even while transformed, whispering her name in one of his few spoken lines throughout the film.
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The emotional impact of this moment is completely undercut by the fact that Live Tyler’s Betty Ross never reappears in any following Marvel Cinematic Universe movie. Even with the prospect of her father becoming the president and a Hulk of his own in Captain America: Brave New World, Ross is totally M.I.A. within the framework of the franchise. It’s hard to take the supposed poignance of Hulk’s line in the film seriously with the knowledge that he’ll soon forget Ross in favor of other pursuits, not the least of which being whoever Skaar’s mother is.
2 “We’re A Chemical Mixture That Makes Chaos. We’re A Time Bomb.”
The Avengers
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More often than not, certain lines in the early Marvel Cinematic Universe age poorly because they set up certain things that never come. In one rare instance, however, Bruce Banner describes the opposite, aging his words rapidly over time by accurately predicting something, likely more accurately than the writers initially intended. At one point, Dr. Banner acknowledges the volatile nature of The Avengers as a team, admitting that they’re more likely to cause problems than solve them.
This premonition turns out to be eerily accurate in the very next movie, when Banner helps Tony build Ultron, who quickly becomes a nearly world-ending threat. Even when it results in the worst-case scenario, Dr. Bruce Banner is right a majority of the time. The fact that he would allow Tony to pressure him to help build Ultron in the first place, despite clearly understanding the threat The Avengers were capable of creating, paints him as unfairly weak-willed.
1 “Sorry!”
Avengers: Age of Ultron
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Despite not being an offensive quote at all on paper, one single line from Bruce Banner proceeds one of the most embarrassingly poorly-aged sequences in Marvel Cinematic Universe history. Of course, the context revolves around the romance between Black Widow and The Hulk, which comes to an awkward boiling point in Avengers: Age of Ultron when Ultron’s drones suddenly attack. In the chaos, Bruce Banner gets thrown into Natasha Romanoff’s cleavage.
It’s all he can do to save face afterward, mumbling “Sorry!” as Black Widow warns him “Don’t turn green.” The line itself might be innocent and genuine, but the awkward and uncomfortable bit of physical slapstick humor that prompts it positively curdles the film’s rewatch value. It’s hard to find Hulk at a lower point in any Marvel movie than this juvenile, unnecessary gag.
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Upcoming MCU Movies
-
Captain America: Brave New World
Release Date February 14, 2025
- Thunderbolts*
Release Date May 2, 2025
- The Fantastic Four: First Steps
Release Date July 25, 2025
- Avengers: Doomsday (2026)
Release Date May 1, 2026
- Spider-Man Homecoming 4
Release Date July 24, 2026
- Avengers: Secret Wars
Release Date May 7, 2027
Captain America: Brave New World
Thunderbolts*
The Fantastic Four: First Steps
Avengers: Doomsday (2026)
Spider-Man Homecoming 4
Avengers: Secret Wars