We Watch the Watchmen - The Review
Mar. 7th, 2009 11:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eumeliaI got a spanking new icon in honour of this post.
[Southern!Girl] and I just returned from a pleasant outing to the movie theatre.
We went to see Watchmen.
Now, as a comic book aficionado (and movie buff) I saw the movie quite differently from her. She who is not a comic book reader or a particular movie buff (I know, I'm trying to cure her of this "deficiency").
I thought it would be interesting to write a dual review from the perspective of an Alan Moore and specifically Watchmen fan and from the perspective of someone who is very much not.
First thing's first.
It's not a bad movie.
It was hardly the best movie (or even comic book movie I'd ever seen), but as a work of cinematic craft it was very well done and enjoyable.
Yes, even with Zack Snyder's signature slow-mo.
Oh, Zack Snyder, you terrible, horrible, tasteless director.
-----Spoilers-----Spoilers-----Spoilers------
Visually, it was freakin' awesome. The montage in the beginning, which really set the tone of the entire film - other than, you know, the murder - was very well done. It's been a while since I saw a really good cold open.
The music was so well put together, I'm definitely getting the Soundtrack when I can.
It's not a particularly memorable movie, already I'm forgetting details that I found titillating and interesting.
Though I don't think I'll forget Dr. Manhattan's blue penis swaying through scene after scene after scene.
I must say... I'm shocked at that.
It's rated R, but as far as I understand full frontal male nudity usually gets an NC-17, but [Southern!Gril] posits it's because it was animated dick and not a real one.
S!G: There's something to be said about blue-balls.
Quote, not from one minute ago.
The movie tried very, very hard to stay true to the book, making the gruesome and morally questionable moments exactly that.
One of the things that Alan Moore always does well is be morally questionable, I think the attempted rape of Sally Jupiter in Watchmen the book was one of the most correct I'd ever read, it was terrifying and I just wanted it to be over.
The movie manages to convey the same urgency without making it erotic. I was sure Snyder was going to make it look like an elaborate D/s game between the Comedian and Silk Spectre I. I think he may have made the violence more gratuitous that it needed to be, but still it felt so wrong, that it seemed real.
The watch motif was so ham-handed.
Doomsday clock, we get it.
There is no watchmaker, we get it.
All times are now and all places are here and everything is wibbly-wobbly... whoops, wrong fandom! Backtracking now.
The silhouette (not the Lesbian) of the couple embracing is an iconic image both within comics and without, I felt that in this instance the attempt to stay loyal to the comic compromised that artistic integrity of something else. Not sure what, but comic iconic, is not the same as movie iconic.
The sex scene on Archie (Nit Owl's Owl-mobile) was painful.
Really.
I thought I was going to have to gouge my eyes out. It lasted too long and it was completely and totally objectifying of Laurie who was already flattened to one-dimensional nothing more than her mother's daughter (and in the book she overcomes this!). In this scene she has the same capacity of a blow up sex doll, facial expressions and all.
Archie shooting a flame would have been funny had it not been juxtaposed with the bad, oh so bad, sex scene!
I absolutely loved the references to other films! Dr. Strangelove is heavily felt throughout (Henry Kissinger?! WTF!) and my god Vietnam in which Doctor Manhattan and the Comedian kill the Viet Kong to Ride of the Valkyries was just too good.
Anything that makes you think Apocalypse Now! is good in my book, along with with the despair and utter horror that is evoked.
The ending fit with the way the movie operated. Genre wise, despite the super-heroics, it is realism. If the movie went the way of the book, it would of probably just bordered on the parody, thus losing the edge of the satire that was imbued throughout.
Character wise, as I said Laurie was completely flattened. Her rage and anger and cigarette ticks are gone. I always felt her smoking habit was comparable to the Comedian's.
Rorschach is brilliant.
Personally, he's never been my favourite, I know I speak fanboi blasphemy here, but I always liked Doctor Manhattan the best.
Life is an accident.
A fortunate one.
But an accident none the less. Humans would live much healthier lives if we stopped imagining that the universe, life and everything revolved around us.
To conclude.
The movie, as far as movies go, was above average. As a comic book movie, it was okay. A new Dark Knight it is not.
As a different reviewer I read said, it had no chance to be adapted from the book. What Alan Moore created with Watchmen was a new way of writing comics, taking the genre and turning it on its head.
Watchmen enabled and pushed comic books to go beyond what they were at the time and all the genre comic books today can only look back and thank Watchmen for existing.
This movie has not changed the way I look movies.
It didn't teach me anything about humanity that I didn't learn about from the movies it referenced - humans are cruel and self-destructive and everybody thinks they know best.
Nothing new.
But it certainly looked good.
[Southern!Girl] and I just returned from a pleasant outing to the movie theatre.
We went to see Watchmen.
Now, as a comic book aficionado (and movie buff) I saw the movie quite differently from her. She who is not a comic book reader or a particular movie buff (I know, I'm trying to cure her of this "deficiency").
I thought it would be interesting to write a dual review from the perspective of an Alan Moore and specifically Watchmen fan and from the perspective of someone who is very much not.
First thing's first.
It's not a bad movie.
It was hardly the best movie (or even comic book movie I'd ever seen), but as a work of cinematic craft it was very well done and enjoyable.
Yes, even with Zack Snyder's signature slow-mo.
Oh, Zack Snyder, you terrible, horrible, tasteless director.
Visually, it was freakin' awesome. The montage in the beginning, which really set the tone of the entire film - other than, you know, the murder - was very well done. It's been a while since I saw a really good cold open.
The music was so well put together, I'm definitely getting the Soundtrack when I can.
It's not a particularly memorable movie, already I'm forgetting details that I found titillating and interesting.
Though I don't think I'll forget Dr. Manhattan's blue penis swaying through scene after scene after scene.
I must say... I'm shocked at that.
It's rated R, but as far as I understand full frontal male nudity usually gets an NC-17, but [Southern!Gril] posits it's because it was animated dick and not a real one.
S!G: There's something to be said about blue-balls.
Quote, not from one minute ago.
The movie tried very, very hard to stay true to the book, making the gruesome and morally questionable moments exactly that.
One of the things that Alan Moore always does well is be morally questionable, I think the attempted rape of Sally Jupiter in Watchmen the book was one of the most correct I'd ever read, it was terrifying and I just wanted it to be over.
The movie manages to convey the same urgency without making it erotic. I was sure Snyder was going to make it look like an elaborate D/s game between the Comedian and Silk Spectre I. I think he may have made the violence more gratuitous that it needed to be, but still it felt so wrong, that it seemed real.
The watch motif was so ham-handed.
Doomsday clock, we get it.
There is no watchmaker, we get it.
All times are now and all places are here and everything is wibbly-wobbly... whoops, wrong fandom! Backtracking now.
The silhouette (not the Lesbian) of the couple embracing is an iconic image both within comics and without, I felt that in this instance the attempt to stay loyal to the comic compromised that artistic integrity of something else. Not sure what, but comic iconic, is not the same as movie iconic.
The sex scene on Archie (Nit Owl's Owl-mobile) was painful.
Really.
I thought I was going to have to gouge my eyes out. It lasted too long and it was completely and totally objectifying of Laurie who was already flattened to one-dimensional nothing more than her mother's daughter (and in the book she overcomes this!). In this scene she has the same capacity of a blow up sex doll, facial expressions and all.
Archie shooting a flame would have been funny had it not been juxtaposed with the bad, oh so bad, sex scene!
I absolutely loved the references to other films! Dr. Strangelove is heavily felt throughout (Henry Kissinger?! WTF!) and my god Vietnam in which Doctor Manhattan and the Comedian kill the Viet Kong to Ride of the Valkyries was just too good.
Anything that makes you think Apocalypse Now! is good in my book, along with with the despair and utter horror that is evoked.
The ending fit with the way the movie operated. Genre wise, despite the super-heroics, it is realism. If the movie went the way of the book, it would of probably just bordered on the parody, thus losing the edge of the satire that was imbued throughout.
Character wise, as I said Laurie was completely flattened. Her rage and anger and cigarette ticks are gone. I always felt her smoking habit was comparable to the Comedian's.
Rorschach is brilliant.
Personally, he's never been my favourite, I know I speak fanboi blasphemy here, but I always liked Doctor Manhattan the best.
Life is an accident.
A fortunate one.
But an accident none the less. Humans would live much healthier lives if we stopped imagining that the universe, life and everything revolved around us.
To conclude.
The movie, as far as movies go, was above average. As a comic book movie, it was okay. A new Dark Knight it is not.
As a different reviewer I read said, it had no chance to be adapted from the book. What Alan Moore created with Watchmen was a new way of writing comics, taking the genre and turning it on its head.
Watchmen enabled and pushed comic books to go beyond what they were at the time and all the genre comic books today can only look back and thank Watchmen for existing.
This movie has not changed the way I look movies.
It didn't teach me anything about humanity that I didn't learn about from the movies it referenced - humans are cruel and self-destructive and everybody thinks they know best.
Nothing new.
But it certainly looked good.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-03-08 02:18 am (UTC)I always liked Doctor Manhattan the best.
Including that.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-08 05:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-13 10:56 pm (UTC)I completely agree with you that Lori lost her edge as a character completely. She was so much less angry, and when she was upset, it was mostly in a whining sort of way that made her concerns seem completely invalid. The sex scene was fucking ridiculous (aside from the great music -- I think that's the first time I've heard Leonard Cohen in such a mainstream movie!), and a lot of her dialogue was changed for no discernible reason. I was really unhappy about that. Whoever it was that played Lori also wasn't the best actor, which didn't help the character any.
I also thought Ozymandias was really toned down. I liked that they made him out to be kinda gay, but wish that he could have been a stronger character.
Yeah, the music and visuals were amazing. I was a little bit sad that they cut out the alien plot, but actually it makes a lot more sense this way. That was always a little too out of left field for me.
Hooray for equal opportunity nudity!
no subject
Date: 2009-03-14 01:43 pm (UTC)Then again, like other Snyder films, there is a very strong homosocial and homoerotic theme going on.
And yeah, equal opportunity nudity! A friend of mine said that the reason they had to have a (very bad, oh so horrible) sex scene was because we'd been spending the past hour and a half staring at a big blue guy, with a big blue cock and the straight nerd-boys would have just died somewhere there.
That is a good point, once again showing the way Hollywood considers demographics of their audiences.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-15 07:31 pm (UTC)