I saw WATCHMEN and I really, really enjoyed it despite all the problems. A post-screening panel consisting of Kai-Ming Cha, Nisha Gopalan, Tim Leong, and Ben McCool had widely varying opinions of the film and would have made for a great episode of Sunday Morning Shootout.
A detailed review will come later.
Bring on the review, Ace! I want to see if we had the same impression…
NO! Wait. Give it a while, until we all see it. You know we’re all going. Heck,…we’re getting in the car right now.
You may like WATCHMEN or you may hate it, but it proves that Zak Snyder is the tackiest filmmaker working in America – and that may not be a bad thing depending on your point of view. I submit:
– some of the most obvious music choices ever. “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” while Ozymandias lectures corporate fatcats on their greed and the bold new world he’ll usher in? “The Sounds of Silence” for a funeral? A keening, wailing Jean-Claude Van Damme guitar solo after Rorschach says, “You quit.” to Dan Dreiberg?
– sex scenes that are right out of “The Red Shoe Diaries” including a great one aboard the Owl Ship, full of thrustin’ and bare butt humpin’ while Leonard Cohen sings “Hallelujah.”
– violence that is so over-the-top and ridiculous that it’s very hard to take it seriously. But it’s still pretty gross. But you know, hey man, it’s rated R for mature junk. Like splatter effects.
– wall-to-wall use of that “slow motion/now fast motion” CGI computer trick. In fact, during the opening fight scene (yes, you naive person, there is an opening fight scene) I thought they were trying to parody the overuse of this special effect. Two hours and fifteen minutes later I realized they meant it for reals.
– a 37 year old actress cast as a woman in her mid-60’s, requiring lots of so-so make-up.
– the sheer nuttiness of the Richard Nixon make-up. The guy looks like he’s wearing a rubber mask, especially strange in close-ups where you can see his upper lip not move.
– the confrontation between Laurie and Jon takes on a new life thanks to Malin Akerman’s line readings which make her high stakes arguments with this omnipotent superbeing sound like a bit player on “Gossip Girl” arguing over the poor bottle service her table is getting at Bungalow 8.
If there’s a choice to be made, Zack Snyder takes the choice that plays broadest. If it’s a decision between high brow and low brow, he gives us the low brow. A choice between good taste and bad taste? Every time we get the bad taste. Those who worried about the adaptation can rest assured: this is almost slavishly faithful to the comic. Even when a comic book conceit doesn’t translate to the big screen, it’s translated anyways. Parts work really, really well, but overall I thought it was pretty stiff and lifeless. But while I went in expecting to hate on Jackie Earle Haley’s Rorschach, he turned out to be the best thing in the movie.
If I had thumbs I’d give it a thumbs down but a pinky up, if I had stars I’d give it two and a half out of five, if I had a scale of one to ten I’d give it a five point nine.
Grady, you just made me want to see it even more!!!!
As we closer and closer to this coming out, I want to see it less and less.
I think the only reason I’m going to see it is because everyone at work will want to discuss with “the comics guy.”
It looks really, really cool, and it captures so many of the comic’s best moments that anyone who enjoyed the comic will enjoy most of the movie. While I was left somewhat dissatisfied with the ending, overall I enjoyed the movie experience. I’m concerned how well it will play to the non-comic and non-sci-fi consuming public. I don’t believe that it is as accessable as Dark Knight or Iron Man, so I’m not sure how well it will in the long run. I liked that fast motion/slow motion action scene stuff, but clearly tastes will differ.
I just want to be able to buy my comics at Criminal Records without an employee trying to sell me the movie. I don’t wanna see it. Never have. I wish the world would stop trying to sell it to me: at bus-stops, during commercial breaks during Lakers games, in the metal frame over the urinal in the men’s room at work… This might be the most overmarketed flick since the first Burton Batman. (A gross generalization, to be sure– but I wouldn’t be surprised if Black & Decker starts hawking official Watchmen Grappling Guns before Hallowe’en.)
Ugh. Enough. More good comics. More original films. Less bullshit.
Grady, I’m very sorry you have no thumbs.
That must have been a hell of an accident.
It hurt a lot but it heightened the senses in my other eight fingers and now…I’m giving the FINGER to crime. I can flip through a book at five times the speed of a normal man, I can masturbate four times more often without any finger cramping AT ALL, when I flip someone “The Bird” it ALWAYS hurts their feelings and I win and I when I type my fingertips convey ACTUAL EMOTIONS through the keyboard. Also, I can taste things with the ring finger of my left hand. Not always a bonus.