Just like the TV show with Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno, you know how this review of "The Incrfedible Hulk" is going to end.

Here's the good news: The reissue of Marvel's green giant has only one thing in common with Ang Lee's 2003 version.

Here's the bad: That one thing is that they are both highly unnecessary.

I get that the Hulk appeals to people on several different layers. First, we can identify with anger and wanting to lash out in uncontrollable rage. Second, we worship the idea of being larger than life and rippling with muscles. And third, we like watching shi-at blow up.

And this version doesn't disappoint on all of those levels.

And this version is far better than its predecessors.

But that's like being Jose Guillen. Yeah you're the best player on the Royals roster and you'll probably go to the All-Star game. But so what? Your season will be over before everyone else's.

"The Incredible Hulk" starts out really strong. In fact, the first 35 minutes wouldn't be out of place in any non-superhero movie: A guy running from his past and trying to fit in while also laying low in a third-world country.

It doesn't really improve upon that, though.

Thankfully, the gimmicks are gone. A friend of mine has a great theory: If you take out the comic book gimmicks from Lee's "Hulk," it's a really good drama and if you take out the drama, it's a really good comic-book movie.

Put them both together and you've got a disaster.

This time around, the drama is allowed to develop on its own without interruption. And the results are much better.

So is the acting.

Edward Norton's introspective and scrawny Bruce Banner works so much better than Eric Bana's brooding and muscle-fueled version.

William Hurt, solid as always, is no Sam Elliott. But he's also not a shadow of his former self in this movie.

And Tim Roth is my favorite Marvel villain ever. Well, at least he is before the movie goes CGI crazy.

Which brings me to the two things that keep this movie from completely rocking: CGI fatigue and the lack of a captivating female presence.

Ladies first: Liv Tyler plays Betty Ross, the same role Jennifer Connelly played more convincingly in 2003. Only, you'll have a hard time finding her at times in this movie.

She shrinks into the background and can't hold her ground against her more charismatic co-stars. (Which, come to think of it, is a hallmark of her career. Her one great role was Arwen in "Lord of the Rings," and that's only because she appears for about 35 minutes in all three movies.)

A modest suggestion for a casting reboot: Cate Blanchett. She can do an American accent. She could hold her own against Hurt, Roth and Norton. And, most importantly — since it appears the only requisite for comic book heroines these days — she's hot.

Then there's the CGI. I realize that one of the reasons we keep seeing the angry green giant on the big screen is that computers make it easier to blow stuff up. Which, ostensibly, is the only reason to have a Hulk movie anyway.

Which just might make you long for the green body paint and Lou Ferrigno.

The movie might take home a rather decent box office haul this weekend as word of mouth spreads that the movie isn't awful. But, as is the case with the Royals, when the big boys like Batman, Hancock and even Hellboy hit theaters, the angry green giant will have long ago packed it in and hit the road.

Cue the sad piano music. 

- Charles Gooch