"People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like."
--Abraham LincolnThis was my most anticipated movie of the year (next to Coraline & Avatar). I refreshed on the graphic novel this past fall and going into this thing I tried to separate my expectations from the comic to how it came across on the silver screen. Snyder was in a no-win situation, really. If you are too faithful, the flaws of the original material show through and you get the blame from the pedestrians and media who don’t “understand” it. If it's not faithful enough, the fanboys and girls will eviscerate you. . Would you rather have a faithful and enthusiastic failure or have an unfaithful, yet great film that is more accessible to the mainstream? That’s a topic for another discussion though.
So, with the WATCHMEN film I expected a visual interpretation of the story and not the second coming of Christ.
The Good: Snyder’s attention to detail: from the look and feel of the substitute 80’s, pulling some of the shots directly off of the panels and the Minuteman stuff was SPOT on! The opening credits might be one of the best I’ve seen on any film ever. I haven’t had the chills like that since I was a kid (or since I saw T.D.K. last year and you could hear Batman’s’ cape-see previous years POST).
Performances (inspired casting): Most notably Rorschach, The Comedian & Veidt. I never really liked Ozymandias in the book so I was surprised how much he won me over in this. Dan and Manhattan were great as well.
The Squid Free ending: Really, how could he have included the alien squid and made it look good? AND…made it so that people that have never read the source material wouldn’t have not busted up laughing at it?
The Bad: Nixon: If you are going to do some type of B movie makeup and costuming go all the way and get one of those Point Break presidents’ masks. The Nixon caricature was distracting.
The Ladies: Ackerman looked the part, but not enough to disguise her inability to deliver a line with anything resembling human emotion. How Carla Gugino, who is actually a decent actress that has managed to turn in decent performances with people who aren't "actor's directors" (I'm looking at you, Robert Rodriguez) could give a performance so stiff and useless is beyond me. On top of that, she looked like a forty something made up to look an old geezer and sounded like she was more interested in picking up her paycheck.
Vices (Violence, Sex & Rock N Roll): The violence was over the top in some scenes where I don’t think it should have been (the alley thug fight, Veidt fighting Rorscah, etc). It made the human characters seem too superhuman, and, even worse, it made the scenes that should have been extreme (Rorschach pouring the hot grease on the inmate, Rorschach's origin, Manhattan blowing Viet-cong up) seem more commonplace. It took me out of the moment and often times obliterated the message at hand. Also, I cannot seem to decide how I felt about the immense strength of all the heroes in Watchmen, it seemed almost Daredevilish (although not quite). I couldn’t figure if they were heroes because they were so strong (superhuman?), or if their strength was rooted in their ability to put on masks? Thoughts…
The sex scene made me want to scream “Hallelujah” to make it stop! WAY, WAY to long and every time you thought it was going to quit it switched to a different angle. He could have made this shorter and a little more sophisticated.
Music can definitely add or take away from a movie experience and I wouldn't nitpick about the music if they didn't try to make it so "HEY! THIS IS THE 80S!" (The “99 Red Balloons” bit). They seemed so bent on proving to you what year it was by the music it was playing, I would have rather had an awesome score and a title card that said what year it was. To me, it was too in your face, other than the Dylan song which fit well and is mentioned in the novel several times
Replace or Inspire?: I have never believed that a movies job is to replace a book. I’m more on the side that it’s to inspire people to READ the book. With that being said…just that this film exists and is this bad-ass is a miracle at all. There were some things omitted that I would have like to see in the film…More of Rorschach and the shrink, Dr. Manhattan dissing the traditional atomic symbol on the helmet the Army gave him for his first outfit and instead using a representation of the hydrogen symbol. I also missed the bit in the bar where Dan goes off on the Knot Top after learning what happened to Hollis after he tries to calm everyone down at the beginning of the scene (if figure this will be reinstated with the Hollis death scene in the Director Cut with “The Black Freighter” bits?).
Some changes were handled inept and really didn’t make much sense to me…How are we supposed to believe Laurie and Dreiberg value human life so much as to get indignant with Veidt if they so callously kill people for kicks in the alleyway? Is the attention paid to the Silhouette's lesbianism really that important? (Since they didn’t even mention Hooded Justice or why the Minutemen disbanded) Why that, instead of, oh...I don't know...developing the relationship between Rorschach and The New Frontiersman before the last twenty minutes of the film! And the part with Dr. Manhattan and Laurie on Mars drove me NUTS! I mean, this is where the value of Human life is examined for gods sake and it comes off clumsy.
4 out of 5. Must...see...again...in...IMAX!
Peace, DAG!
