While I don't think Avengers: Infinity War is the best MCU film, it is IMO among the top 5. Nevertheless, the directors and scriptwriters had a damn hard time squeezing so many characters' feature in a 2+ hour film, and even for the best films there will be writing issues such as characterization for example.

To establish what is going on, Bruce Banner/Hulk is one of the main Avengers, so it should make sense that he has a significant involvement in the plot. Now the criticism:

1. Hulk was taken down quickly early in the film. I don't really have a problem with that even though it is so un-apologetically obvious the scene was meant to portray how dangerous Thanos is. The problem is what follows next.


2. Subsequently, whenever Bruce Banner tries to "hulk-out", the Hulk refuses.


3. The very first interpretation is that since Hulk got stomped for the first time, he became scared and refused to show up. That too was my initial interpretation.


4. This interpretation was so common that the directors themselves had to come out to correct the thinking, saying that they are portraying the Hulk such that he got sick of trying to save Banner's ass all the time. However, this simply reminds me of the DCEU's failings when it demanded people to interpret things in a certain, specific way that the story-teller is thinking (Leading to all the misunderstood masterpiece crap spouted by the DCEU wankers) instead of the story-teller leading the general audience to interpret the scene in the way the story-teller wanted. Basically, what I meant is that why isn't these scenes made clear to the audience?


5. Another problem was the wasted potential of character dynamics. It would have been 10 years since both Thunderbolt Ross and Bruce Banner shared a scene together. This never happened.


6. A secondary and last problem was the inconsistency from previous attempts to "hulk-out". In the MCU, there are quite a few times Bruce Banner got the Hulk to appear by simply forcing himself into a death scenario (Namely, Incredible Hulk 2008, Avengers Age of Ultron 2015, and Thor Ragnarok 2017 when he jumped down into almost certain death). Why isn't Bruce Banner doing this again?

What do you think? Is Bruce Banner/Hulk poorly written in Avengers: Infinity War?

Or do you think someone else deserve the worst-written character in the Avengers: Infinity War film?

His characterization wasn't that bad, especially not compared to how he's been handled in every other Avengers movie.

It's pretty obvious that his inability to hulk out is just building him up for a more important role in the next movie, as part of a grander character arc that started in Ragnarok.

A secondary problem was the inconsistency from previous attempts to "hulk-out". In the MCU, there are quite a few times Bruce Banner got the Hulk to appear by simply forcing himself into a death scenario (Namely, Incredible Hulk 2008 and Thor Ragnarok 2017 when he jumped down into almost certain death). Why isn't Bruce Banner doing this again

Which is a huge risk, if the Hulk simply refuses to appear and lets him die.

Bump with some edits to the original post, adding an additional point about character dynamics.

Yeah, I think Bruce Banner/Hulk's characterization issue was an inevitable weakness since Avengers: Infinity War was meant to be the first part of a two-part movie. Still, the directors should have make it clear on the first-parter film why Hulk refuses to help Banner. General audiences including me had the first impression that Hulk chickened out after being easily defeated by the bad guy early on. It all feels like the DCEU fanbase and their misunderstood masterpiece crap again.

As for the inconsistency, the question exactly lies with Bruce Banner not taking the risk. He had been taking death risks all the time in order to get the Hulk to appear, why would this time be any different? Note that Bruce Banner didn't really know about Hulk's sudden change of attitude until Hulk shouted "No".

@germanx: I thought it was a combination of issues.

He knew early on, when every-time he turned green reverted back to normal. Not to mention that Hulk is not an inherently separate entity. If Hulk is having anxiety and performance issues, then it makes sense that Banner would as well.

That makes sense. In Thor Ragnarok, Bruce Banner was surprised that it has been 2 years since he last disappeared in Avengers Age of Ultron, and is now in a different planet. There's probably this subconscious part of him (Not the Hulk personality) that hesitate about hulking out again which might partly explain the failure to transform again (lmao at the first Avengers' "I am always angry" statement).

I had to add though, this sudden willingness to change to Hulk makes him quite a bit of characterization contradiction from his original debut in The Incredible Hulk film, but this problem already existed way back in the first Avengers film.

@germanx: They were being invaded by a super alien who wanted to wipe half of the universe. Of course he's going to try to Hulk out if he can.

Characters evolve, they change, they think of things differently depending on present circumstances. That doesn't make them inconsistent.

They should've showed something between him and Natasha. It could have been a great scene.

Whenever the directors explain stuff it just tends to make the movie worse. Like when they said Thanos killed half of plants and animals effectively halving the food supply as well as causing a lot more problems

No. Just no. That was the worst pairing in MCU.

I really miss Betty Ross. She was able to tame Hulk without resorting to 'magical lullaby'.

@kairan1979: I understand that the match up was kind of forced but they also gave a tiny moment between the two in the movie. The scene where Bruce shows himself after Ross' meeting.

Plus if a romance felt forced doesn't mean you just abandon it in the next movie it means you try to make it less obnoxious and use it to develop the characters more.

It'd have been interesting to see what Natasha and Bruce would've talked about if they were alone.

It is understandable why the writers did not develop on that scene. There was little time to do so for such a huge cast in an action-packed movie and the fact that they met each other and had some sort of silent and brief acknowledgement, was a good-enough callback to Avengers AOU - taking into account what little time this 2+ hour movie had.

Bruce and Ross should have met, the lack of interaction between the two is IMO more wasted potential than the lack of Natasha-Bruce dynamic.

Nah the characterization of Spider-Man Iron Boy was easily the worst part of the movie... Whoever thought that would be a good death scene for Spider-Man needs to be fired ASAP.

Yeah I really hated how Hulk was portrayed in Infinity War. Savage Hulk would never shy away from coming out and fight. Hulk not wanting to come out and fight a guy like Cull Obsidian seems super out of character. To me it was done solely so that Thor could overshadow Hulk in the movie.

The consistency problem is a solid point, but I don't see any other problem. They wanted to create a huge arc dor the Hulk in A4 and that's the way to prep it, fans of the character shouldn't take that wrong.

It depends, but I do agree with your statement on this point. Halving all the animal and plant life just brings us back to the original problem

@bandedessinee: what does that have to do with Thor when Thor never even fought cull?

I agree