Let me first say that I was pumped to go see Watchmen. We went to 11 movies in January, then not a single one in February. Watchmen was going to be our triumphant return to the theaters! The Millbury Cinema Delux was so excited for our comeback, they made us wait in a line.
We got in, got our seats, and I was legitimately fired up. Keep in mind I knew nothing about the graphic novel, picked up limited information from trailers and reviews (I skimmed Ebert's), so I was going in relatively unimformed.
Well.... let's put it this way. Towards the end of the movie, one character says something like, "Nothing ever ends" (definitely not the real quote) and Jeff turns to me and says "Just like this movie."
Let's break it down, pros and cons.
PROS -- Ummmm.... Gee... Nice classic rock soundtrack? Decent special effects? Pretty girls? A few good cheesy laughs?
CONS --
- It was at least an hour too long. There were scenes with characters who were irrelevant, or never came back. They were trying to cram too much into this, clearly. It was like they wanted to say to the book fans, "See, we're trying to get everything in there." Too bad that alienates regular viewers. They would have been better off concentrating on a smaller section of the book then prepping for sequels, which they'll probably do anyway. For example, I didn't need to know the so-brief-it-had-no-emotional-impact "secret" I saw coming a mile away that the Comedian was Silk Spectre's father. I, on the other hand, would have liked to know more about how the group came together. How does one become a Watchman? Aside from being the child of one, or turned into one, how did these other folks come about? Are the Watchmen only in NYC? Are there other super hero groups? How did they learn how to crimefight since none of them, aside from Dr. Manhattan, had actual powers? How could they think it wasn't important to explain that to people? Nightowl (which I don't think they actually SAID what his name was the whole movie, I had to wait for the credits) seemed like a dork -- how the hell did he become a super hero, and why "Night Owl?". They jumped right to everyone's retirement... how did they come together??! I know it seems like I'm petitioning to make a movie I thought was too long, longer... but yeah, without the background info, you can't really invest yourself into the character. I found myself NOT CARING at all... which brings us to...
- The plot was awful. I didn't care at all. Yeah the Watchmen have to save the world, convince each other they have to save the world, but who really cares about the world? None of these characters had any attachment to any non-Watchmen right? There was no "real world" characters in this movie that you could say "Oh, I hope that old lady/young child/nice dude doesn't die!" It seemed like the Watchmen had no real incentive to fight to save the world other than SOME of them felt like they were supposed to. Throw in the fact that everything was predictable, that I knew the bad guy was the bad guy from the first time they showed him, and by the end I was like "Go ahead, blow up the world there's no redeeming characters there anyway."
- The guy who played Rorschach was probably the best, but he sort of ripped off Christian Bale's Batman voice no?
- Female superheroes are sluts? Don't even get me started....
And I actually liked this movie more than Jeff did. Jeff HATED it. I thought it was merely mediocre. A decent movie that could have been great.
Final rating: Two Werschaibles.
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3 comments:
Good review, good review - I'm so desperate to see how someone who hadn't read the novel would take it! Jesse hadn't read it, but he's weird about movies, HA.
First - the novel has the entire "background" included - and I definitely felt that some people might get lost regarding this. Apparently, Snyder is including a "documentary" in the DVD that's being released later this month based on the second storyline that was never put in this movie. The documentary is about how these groups got together and the history of The Minutemen.
Second - the brevity of the plot in the book didn't translate as well in the movie. The novel is the anti-superhero novel. They try to do that with Ozymandias, as he's the clear-cut superhero with bad intentions - but it doesn't have quite the impact that the book does.
Third - oh man, how many times have I heard this?! Rorschach's voice was perfect though - and exactly what I imagined, because in the books his speech bubbles are always "wavy" and "rough" so I always thought it would be this raspy growl. BEFORE BATMAN! Exceptional, exceptional job by Jackie Earl Haley.
The female superheroes - that's where I think Snyder fell on his game, but the book isn't THAT different. I think the book just made these actions by the women more believable and gave them more depth. Silk Spectre II was always kind of one-note, even in the book (sigh), but the mom was far more involved and what she "becomes" or "detoriorates into" was part of the psychology of living life as a superhero. Because in the end, besides Dr. Manhattan, these are not extraordinary superheroes. They are the humanity of this alternate world, where people are doing such awful things to each other, but they stand up for it, even through their own faults.
It was an okay movie - like you said, decent, but *could have* been great.
Also - read my post for MY thoughts on that soundtrack (my own dealbreaker.) hahaha
Uh...just got an e-mail that you left me a comment. HAHA
Hrm, so the general feeling I'm getting from people is that I really should have read this thing first before going to see it because I'm going to get lost in a lot of backstory. Almost all of my nerd friends that have read this stuff are raving.
Seeing it tomorrow, will have my own opinion then. Good insights tho.
Also, when was Watchmen written. The name Ozymandius was used in another series that I actually did read called the Deathstalker series (Published between 1995-2004). Oz was an AI that ended up betraying the protagonist in that series, so I suppose I could see the parallel there. Kind of.
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