WATCHMEN [review]

[Venetia]

WHO WATCHES THE WATCHMEN ?



... I did


***Warning: There may be very minor spoilers here, as I compare scenes between the comic and the movie. It is recommended that you read the comic before seeing the movie anyway.***

First, I'd like to say that I am a Watchmen fag. But I am not necessarily an Alan Moore fag. I'm not going to deconstruct the thing because Moore never wanted it to happen. I've heard plenty of reviews already from people who had already written their take on it before they'd even seen the movie. And I think that's pretty unfair. Anyway.

Watchmen begins very quickly. There is little pomp--in fact, I was only halfway paying attention as I was rattling off a text message when I realized the previews were over and the movie'd already started. Being so used to comicbook movies, where the opener is always overdone and schmaltzy, I was instead surprised. The director turned the opener into a long montage, rather, of Minuteman events. Most were direct adaptations from the comic panels (most notably, the INCREDIBLY done Minutemen photo that is pasted above), however there are a few new things spliced in that were just hinted at in the lectures at the end of every issue (i.e. more "taboo" dissections of the frailties of the original heroes). Sadly however, Hooded Justice was not touched upon very much (which is lamentable mostly because I always liked him a lot for his extreme duality).

"... The world will look up and shout 'Save us!'... And I'll whisper 'No.'"

I'll put this out there--this would have been MUCH better translated into a longer medium. A miniseries, a set of movies. While I can see, from a financial standpoint, why they chose to only make one rather long movie, however I will tell you that this definitely feels rushed. The pacing is very, very quick. If you have never read the comics, I have a feeling that you will be lost in the dark very quickly. I overheard the voices of some people around me who were mentioning their confusion with the events. If you've read the comics, everything will make perfect sense, but you will be struck with a sense of loss ... The director, burdened with a very large body of work in a very short span of time, tried to crunch so much in, that something about the drama is lost. Some scenes feel like they could have been so much more dramatic.

This segues into the scenes themselves. The scenery is superb, and the costumes and visuals are top-notch. Spared no expense there. It was all gorgeous. However, the cinematography was lacking in my opinion. I was surprised, as 300 suffered no loss of beautiful camerawork, and this is by the same guy. But I feel like Zach Snyder (the director) tried to be SO faithful to the original medium, the realm of good cinematography was ignored. Some scenes are, quite literally, DIRECT from the panels. But that doesn't necessarily mean that the correct angles were captured at the right times. One thing you may notice is a bewildering lack of extreme close-ups, and tilted angles, which draws drama into a situation. When the camerawork suffers, it's 100% up to the actors to carry the scene. But only a few of them could foot that tall order.

The costumes are a hell of a lot better than the 80's-ized versions from the comic.

Jackie Earle Haley (Rorschach) stands out, first and foremost, as INCREDIBLE. The hugely multifaceted character of Walter Kovacs is flawlessly pulled off. Not only does he look the part, but he sounds the part, he DOES the part. He IS Rorschach, through and through. And since this is one of my favorite characters from anything ever, I am very pleased to let you know that there's nothing to worry about in the execution.

Billy Crudup (Dr. Manhattan), Patrick Wilson (Nite Owl II/Dan Dreiberg) and Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Comedian/Edward Blake) are all very good as well. Particularly Morgan, who makes a Comedian that is very easy to love to hate. Though I really feel like a few key dramatic scenes of Comedian's could have been milked so much more, what little screentime the man had was superb. Crudup came off as a little too mechanical at the beginning, but he seems to work into the character well (and Manhattan, being generally cold and difficult to emote, couldn't have been an easy role). Wilson is the perfect Dan Dreiberg. He plays the awkward roles particularly well, and though he's not the greatest looking man to walk the earth, he actually is pretty hot in costume d.

Ok ... this guy is pretty hot to me. I'm sorry, I guess I have a thing for nerdy jews!!!

I've heard a lot of crits against Matthew Goode (Ozymandias/Adrian Veidt), but I don't think he did a bad job. Ozy, too, is a difficult role. I feel like the screenplay writer could have done more to add in opportunities for exploiting Veidt's personality flaws, and that would have set off Goode in a much better direction. As-is, he can come off a little TOO pretentious ... Maybe not suave enough. But I don't think it was BAD.

Malin Akerman (Silk Spectre II/Laurie Jupiter) was alright. She did what needed to be done, but nothing really drew me in about her as compelling. Laura Mennell (Janey Slater) did a much better job IMO, despite getting much less screentime.

She's good-lookin but just not a good fit for the role, acting-wise

Carla Gugino (Silk Spectre/Sally Jupiter) I think was a bad choice. She just doesn't feel right to me. The whole time she was acting I kept seeing her as the suicidal bulimic girl from Girl, Interrupted. While she made a good LOOKING Silk Spectre I, her mannerisms and facial expressions were just not right. And even when Gugino was aged, and even though the makeup job was done VERY well, she kept coming off as looking/seeming younger than Akerman (which kind of knocks you out of the scene as she's playing Laurie's well-aged mother).

Good ole Tricky Dick.

The only part of the movie though that kind of hit me as laughable was Robert Wisden (Richard Nixon). I just saw a FANTASTIC portrayal of Nixon in Frost|Nixon at the performing arts center a few weeks ago, so seeing Wisden's portrayal of him left a bad taste in my mouth. He was also the only character with bad makeup. His features were too cartoonish.

As the final negative note, I'd like to mention that their use of period-music in exposition was overdone. The soundtrack for this movie is tremendous, and most of the music is very good, but there was too much of it. They had to rush through scenes and while I think they figured music would help the segue, it didn't. It made it feel a little MORE rushed to me.

Though despite all the negative points I've laid out here, I liked the film a lot. The director was HUGELY faithful to the series. There were certain VERY important parts which never left the cutting-room floor (Bernie & Bernie are mere cameos --I have to mention what a disappointment that is), but there was a LOT of material that wasn't. While I can't say that Moore's brilliant vision shines in this medium, I CAN say that the artistic vision is intact and the story is almost entirely unchanged (apart from the ending ... Which I am still satisfied with, as the comic's end wasn't very easy to translate the same way).

Ror's shape-shifting inkblot mask is consistently cool.

I'd give it 4 Venny's out of 5. Good, and satisfying, but not perfect.
:venny: :venny: :venny: :venny:

And if you haven't read the comic, fucking read it!!!!!

Spoiler: P.S.

Yes, you see a L-O-T of Dr. Manhattan schlong. Be prepared for lots of giggles and finger-pointing from the juveniles around you.
But bravo, IMHO, to Zach Snyder, for putting in the intense sex scene between Laurie and Dan. You actually see thrusting, and pretty much an accurate portrayal of lovemaking. Which I liked a lot. You never really see that in movies, not that intimately. But I would not recommend seeing this with your family because the sex content is fairly intense for a rated-R film.

 

[Vadon]

I remember when I first read the series. I had an older brother ask me if I had read it, I replied honestly that I hadn't, so he literally threw it at me. I read it and am thankful for his forceful approach towards getting me to read it. In spite of the bruising.

I haven't seen the movie yet, mostly because I'm not much for the very crowded theater experience. But I intend to, and hopefully fairly soon. One thing on your review that might give you hope, if the wikipedia article means anything, there is a director's cut with 30 minutes more content. So a lot of the rushed feeling may be solved by that.

Thanks for the great review, though! I've been hearing lots of reviews, and so far I'm optimistic that I'll greatly enjoy the movie. I have laughed at some though. Apparently there were some teens watching where one whispered to the other, "Who's Richard Nixon?" It is in my nonprofessional opinion that if you don't even know who Nixon is, you're not even close to being ready to watch this movie and absorb its meaning and historical context.

 

[Venetia]

Yeah Kissinger was there, too. But he was portrayed a lot more accurately.

 

[Substant]

This is likely to be rambling, but here goes.

I'm of the same opinion concerning Rorschach and his portrayal - it was awesome. I've never been so impressed with a film-adapted version of a literary character before. The Comedian was great too, he definitely got the "amoral, psychopathic yet strangely likeable bastard" angle right.

Quite a few people I know STILL won't stop bitching about the ending, but honestly, I liked it. The actor who played Ozy and his weird delivery threatened to ruin what was supposed to be one of the most, dare I say, epic moments

Spoiler

35 minutes, yo

but overall, I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. I am far from an Alan Moore fangirl, in fact Watchmen is the only thing of his that has managed to capture my interest, but damned if it didn't completely captivate me from the very first moment I started reading. All things considered, it was probably the best film-adaptation one could hope for.

But... a miniseries or something? Oh hell yes, I would be all over that shit.

And to you folks who haven't read Watchmen yet... DO IT. or I will hide in your fridge and gitcha when you come home

 

[Mundane]

It was great. I only had time to read some of the comic before going to see it. But overall, besides a few little quirky things, the movie was intense and matched the parts of the comic that I read quite well. I did, however, feel that the end was really rushed and smashed together. Things happened a little too fast for a movie. It may have been pulled off in the comic, but in the movie it just didn't flow incredibly well. Overall, the action was intense, the acting was well done. And the music was amazing - All Along the Watchtower in Antarctica was my favorite. A good movie, indeed.

 

[tofurkey]

The thing about it is that there's way too much to happen in a movie like this. Like Vennie said, it would've been much better as a miniseries but then it wouldn't have gotten nearly the publicity or attention. For example, the John Adams miniseries they just did on HBO was fantastic, but I guarantee you that 9/10 people on this site have never seen it or at the very least heard of it.

I actually LIKED the tweaks to the ending, though I know a lot of people had gripes about it, but I don't quite understand why they kept the Bubastis in since they did change the ending.

I didn't have any real gripes with the actors except for Patrick Wilson (though he played his part fine, I kept thinking back to Lakeview Terrace, which was a terrible movie featuring him). Malin Akermann was defintely the weakpoint in the cast for sure, though, but she had the look.

My biggest problem definitely had to be the sex scene(s) with Dan and Laurie. I enjoyed the music choices for the rest of the movie up until this point, but the Leonard Cohen version of Hallelujah is so goofy to me, and it would've been much better served to use Jeff Buckley there, in my opinion. Regardless, it felt a little awkward.

I hadn't read the comic in a long time since I saw the movie, but I didn't really find myself lost at any point. I thought the pacing was fine, but like I mentioned earlier, it would've been better served to be longer.

7.5 - 8/10, I'd say.

 

[Grathea]

I have to say, it was really good. I went and saw it in IMAX (really damn fun), and although the lineup was HUGE, and we had to buy our tickets like two days in advance, it was well worth it.
I thought that the music was very well done, and the music choices were (for the most part) excellent.
I think that the guy playing Nixon was absolutely incredible, despite being a (relatively) minor character.
I agree that if you hadn't read the book, it would have been difficult to understand - I went and saw it with friends, two of whom hadn't read the book, and while they agreed it was still a good movie, they missed out on a lot of stuff.
All in all, it was a really good movie, and most of you guys would really enjoy it, I think.

 

[Venetia]

Like I said I'm probably biased on Nixon. I saw Stacy Keach play him in the stage adaptation of Peter Morgan's Frost|Nixon, and Keach could act circles around Robert Wisden.

And a 12-episode miniseries aired on a major network would have been sooooo much better. So much drama they could have milked.

Spoiler: lamentable losses (spoilers)

I regret that Bernie & Bernie were only cameos. All the people there at the newspaper stand were such excellent foils for the social issues surrounding the period.
And Nite Owl I wasn't offed! That is my biggest regret. Nite Owl I was like the only hero who was a good, working man, who was honest, caring, and true. And he dies in a horribly violent and savage manner, it's so significant. I have a feeling (or, a hope, rather) that that scene will make it into the Director's Cut of the film.
The biggest area I saw needing more time was the scene of Comedian off'ing his pregnant Vietnamese girlfriend. That scene was pivotal to Comedian's character (and Dr. Manhattan's!) and it went by sooo quickly.

 

[So fist]

I would add what was taken out of this scene.

Spoiler

Janey and Manhattan's break up scene. We didn't get the why didn't you intervene in Jack Kennedy's assassination. Which hits to the heart of the question of benevolent god. Why does the American god allow suffering to occur? Like Venetia I would've liked to see more Janey the actress was good.

 

[e]

Spoiler

I pretty much thought the same thing, except I liked the older Jupiter; the character is miserably trying to look younger and act younger than her age, and I think she did a good job; I didn't like the younger Jupiter, though. She was great in the sex scenes, but that's about it.

I have one big complaint about Rorschach though; he seemed too passionate without his face on. For the character himself, it was pretty important that without his face he is near emotionless, which he wasn't.

I also found the movie generally too violent; not that I dislike violence, but it felt forced, as if it had to be "spectacular" to appeal to the average viewer. There was much less explicit violence in the comic, and I never felt that it suffered from it. I mean, hell, the alley fight starts off with a slow-mo of a guy's arm breaking and the bloody bone jutting out; it felt unnecessary and, like I said, forced to be like the usual comic book adaptation...Alan Moore isn't Frank Miller. While the Watchmen has its share of violence, it's never completely gratuitous with the gore.

Also, on a side note, as a standalone piece, the move lacks a lot of details; for those who read the comics, it's great and you spot everything, but a lot of the scenes seem useless and elongated for those who haven't. Think about it; when you read the comics, you don't get EVERYTHING right away, but you can go back, pause, stare, scrutinize, whereas at the movies you have a blink of an eye to spot everything and magically understand.

I completely agree with the rushed up part; the last half of the movie felt rushed, i.e.: "fuck we already spent an hour on background shit nooooo"

But thoroughly enjoyable anyway. I just went "wtf" at Mozart's Requiem at the end, after all the sweet pop songs (except for the Valkyries in Vietnam, but that was cool).

 

[Fayte]

I saw this movie right when it hit the theaters here. at 12am.

I've never read the comic book, fuck, I've never even heard of the watchemn but this movie was fuckin amazing @__@. me and my friends can't stop talking about how at the beginning the mystery man punches the comedians kick instead of blocking it normally. it was fucking cool. and the part where silk and drybird were in the alley fighting those thugs and fighting those people in jail pffff it was too ill.


p.s rorschach is the fuckin man

 

[Grathea]

Like I said I'm probably biased on Nixon. I saw Stacy Keach play him in the stage adaptation of Peter Morgan's Frost|Nixon, and Keach could act circles around Robert Wisden.

Well, I'm likely biased as well, though, since I've met the guy, and he teaches drama in a local high school. Or did a year or so ago, anyways - not sure if he still is. So that's probably part of it as well.

 

[Justice]

i have a lot of gripes with the film

Spoiler

i said in the last Watchmen thread that i thought Snyder wasn't an ideal choice for director and it pretty much turned out to be the case. his huge passion for the comic ruined it by making it too faithful. he sticks to it so much but also has to compromise in order to fit it into the film's runtime, which ends in all the characters becoming charicatures of how they're displayed in the comic. Rorschach for example was just too nihilistic and his 'bleak' running commentary just seemed quite laughable. he also wanted to transition so much of the comic faithfully, like replicating buildings and so on, that he didn't actually take into account the setting. sure, you could recognise the places, but there was no sense of bleakness or that the world would end, he focused too much on the main characters and didn't give any breathing space to the setting. the whole world just seemed very fake. but the main gripe was his style of directing, the ultra-flashy look was just annoying, it didn't fit the dark, gritty, realistic look i got from the comic. it reminded me of V For Vendetta in this sense, another film that was too flashy and didn't stick to the bleak tone of its source material

the performances were imo all quite poor, no one really stood out to me as great though most of it was acceptable. Jackie Earle Haley was quite decent but was marred with silly lines, just given the most nihilistic snippets of Rorschach's dialogue lifted straight from the comic instead of actually building the complex character and showing his worldview, like i said it just seemed quite funny because it was so YEAHBADASS rather than complex or interesting. whoever played Laurie was terrible, and Veidt was okay (not the handsome billionaire i was expecting, he was obviously quite cold and slimy from the offset which i don't think is how it should have been done) but really poor at the end once he was in costume, he certainly wasn't comfortable in it

as Ven said the soundtrack was annoying, totally overused some songs and could've done with more of its own score in there (apparently they scrapped Philip Glass's score which is sad, Glass is excellent), but the biggest crime was that they didn't use any Devo songs!

this sounds a lot like a hated it which i didn't, it was a good stab at bringing Watchmen to the screen. it just seemed quite juvenile in its adaptation, insofar that it just lifted the source material from one medium to another rather than actually adapting it. it was enjoyable and i didn't find myself bored of it at all, it didn't really drag or anything. but ultimately Watchmen was a landmark piece of literature in its medium, but does anyone believe Watchmen will ever be considered a landmark piece of cinema?

 

[SolstICE]

so um a question. heard this movie has lots of sex scenes and a guy who walks around with his thingy sticking out. why do so many guys like it? or is it not like that bad?

 

[Luminier]

so um a question. heard this movie has lots of sex scenes and a guy who walks around with his thingy sticking out. why do so many guys like it? or is it not like that bad?

are you for real

 

[Venetia]

so um a question. heard this movie has lots of sex scenes and a guy who walks around with his thingy sticking out. why do so many guys like it? or is it not like that bad?

this can't be a real post.

honey if you're bothered by sex and penises, please wait until you're old enough not to be bothered by them to see this film. Yes, there is semi-gratuitous nudity and sex in the movie.

 

[united washcloth express]

I'll admit, I was a little intimidated by the sheer size of the infamous blue penis at first. You get over it quickly though.

 

[e]

It's an R movie; what are people expecting? This isn't the first time I see the comment about the penis, the sex scenes and the violence. When did R movies become "correct" for 13 years old?