[MOVIE] Watchmen Reviews

[Emperor]

The Bad:

 

Note:  Most of the reviews are going to pan the ending.  If you don't already know or want to be suprised by the ending... well... don't read.  I am even saying this to those of us that read the comic book... because... it is different.

 

 

Notes to consider before continuing with my review of Watchmen:

 

1) It will not contain a plot synopsis. Over the last two weeks of online reviews and musings, magazine covers and myriad articles across multiple forms of media, I’m pretty sure you got the idea by now. In the interests of catering to those who might be making this the first review of Watchmen they’ve read, here’s the gist: What if superheroes were real? Well, they’d probably be pretty fucked up individuals. Let’s examine that, shall we? WATCHMEN.

 

2) It will not be novel length. You’re gonna be spending almost 3 hours with the movie as it is, probably after spending countless hours already in the course of reading the book multiple times. Spending another 20 minutes spinning your scroll wheel to read my character-by-character musings all the way down to “Stage Manager at Jon’s interview taping” is probably a little much. Speaking of which, that Stage Manager guy was Lt. Thorne from Battlestar Pegasus and I was happy to see him in a big-budget superhero blockbuster because otherwise he’d just be that bald dick who rapes hot asian robots and that’s a hell of a role to be typecast in.

 

And now, The Review Itself:

 

Alan Moore is a crotchety, pissy old bastard. Adaptations of his works are typically, in the oft-used critical parlance of our times, teh suck. His magnum opus is “Watchmen,” a deconstruction of the superhero, a 12 issue miniseries so dense it could be classified as an element on the periodic table, its entry represented by a shifting inkblot. Alan Moore has said it is an unfilmable property. Alan Moore says a lot of things, so it’s easy to dismiss his goofy, hairy ass. Dude wears those gaudy Saturday market rings where a purple rock forms the torso of a pewter scorpion. Genius or no, you can’t take a guy rocking one of those things that seriously.

 

Unfortunately, Moore was right this time. Watchmen is unfilmable. Or more to the point, the things that make Watchmen work haven’t been captured on film. Zack Snyder tried. The effort expended, the sweat, the passion for the book, it’s up there. It’s visible. This is a beautifully constructed work of art, much like Jon Osterman’s Glass Ship on Mars. It cracks easily and doesn’t hold together too well.

 

I find myself using the character of Doctor Manhattan himself as a stand-in for the movie overall. There are moments where it coalesces into something substantial, where it ties together plot, theme, performance, editing and music into something that transcends the book and achieves its own sort of magic, a magic I’m sure our favorite shaggy wizard might even appreciate, but like Jon in his early days of achieving minor godhood, Snyder can’t maintain the form, and the momentum dissipates in flashes and blasts of loud noise.

 

The movie spends about half its time in a cinematic uncanny valley. Panel-perfect transitions from page to screen, density of visual information translated flawlessly, moments that for all the sincerity behind the scenes, comes off as superficial. “300” was thematically thin, but felt fuller, more robust than the sum of its parts. “Watchmen” is the opposite, maybe because there’s so much more going on under the surface than Miller’s sophomoric, flexing masculine fantasy-epic, the stuff between the panels didn’t make it to the screen intact.

 

It’s unfair to compare the movie to the book at every turn, to catalog changes like an autistic continuity nerd dragging a red pen across a series of boxes like “no squid. Gets mask back from psychiatrist. Rorschach’s using meat cleavers now. Adrian’s triggering things instead of just doing them.” But I almost can’t blame those pedantic fun-sucker types, because if the movie was working right, viewers would be too enamored with the film to concern themselves with changes. This plays closer to a Chris Columbus-esque racing through of collected moments, as if Snyder was directing via his own checklist. It felt less like a film Snyder made for Snyder, and more like a film made for the kind of people who create memes on the internet as a form of film criticism.

 

Maybe studio interference has something to do with that. Maybe with 10-15 minutes of the movie reintegrated, the connective tissue holds the movie together better, the pacing isn’t so herky-jerk disjointed, the characters are given time to breathe and become their own moving, living things onscreen. But that’s a lot of burden to place on 10-15 minutes, and the movie has to stand on it’s own merits once the film moves through the projector, and those merits are these:

 

It’s pretty as hell. Snyder knows how to block a scene, how to move his camera, and generally how to make almost everything in front of his lens look, for lack of a better phrase, “Fuckin cool.” His speed-ramping fetish (overstated online in the last few months) is very subdued in this movie, but when he uses it, it’s quite effective.

 

Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Eddie Blake (The Comedian,) Jackie Earl Haley as Walter Kovacs (Rorschach,) and Patrick Wilson as Dan Dreiberg (Nite Owl II) inhabit their characters in ways that are faithful to the text and also alive on their own. My girl offered this observation on the train ride home: “It’s like the movie kept forgetting to breathe. It spent all this time holding its breath, and only exhaled maybe once or twice.” These actors, more often than not, were remembering to work those lungs.

 

The action sequences are very well done. The Prison break reminded me of Oldboy, which really surprised me. The Alley fight intercut with Manhattan’s interview, the sequences flashing back to the origins of both Rorschach and Doc Manhattan are probably the best things Snyder has ever done, the closest he comes to proving Moore wrong. But this leads us to some the demerits of the film:

 

Malin Akerman as Laurie Juspeczyk (Silk Spectre II) and Matthew Goode as Adrian Veidt (Ozymandias) are kind of just there. They don’t suck outright, nor do they impress. They are ciphers. Robert Wisden as Richard Nixon and Carla Gugino as Sally Juspeczyk (Silk Spectre) are buried under bad old age makeup and turn in hammy, lazy performances.

 

Billy Crudup’s voice work as Jon Osterman (Doctor Manhattan) is good, but the decision to make the Doc all CGI was ultimately, a bad one. They apparently had someone specifically working on the jiggle physics of his wang, but they couldn’t crack the problem of making his mouth move correctly. So many cool little things going on just under the surface of his translucent skin, wasted because when they needed Jon to emote even in the minor degrees someone as omniscient and detached as Jon is, they couldn’t get it right.

 

Again, we’re in the realm of uncanny valley, it’s pretty disorienting, and not in the manner I felt upon first reading the book, and not just because humanity was saved after the smartest man in the world teleported a telepathic space squid into New York and ostensibly got away with it–Oh yeah, obligatory comment on the changed ending: The film’s replacement works on its own, full of sick, eerie majesty, disorienting in the right way–Anyway, upon finishing the book, I knew I didn’t get it all, but I got enough, and was so swept along by the relentlessness of it that I wanted to dive back in. I’m not so sure I want to dive back into this translation. I heard myself telling people “Well, I had to read the book about 2 or 3 times to really pull the whole thing together, maybe it’s the same with this movie.”

 

Maybe not. Maybe that’s me doing the fanboy thing and trying to stave off disappointment by hoping a repeat viewing would open up new layers. I was hoping that maybe the text was being repurposed into a deconstruction of superhero movies in the same way the book tore apart the conventions of superhero storytelling. But I don’t think that’s what I saw. I saw a shiny, pretty, almost panel-perfect adaptation that played more subdued and buttoned-down than anything else. Reverential and respectful, yes, but a little staid and rote too.

 

My dad used to buy top of the line stereo equipment, and then forbid anyone to actually play CD’s on it. He was afraid that he’d break it and ruin his investment. This movie feels like Snyder was so afraid to break “Watchmen,” that he didn’t actually use it properly. Maybe this film represents the best crack anyone is gonna get at taking one of Time magazines 100 greatest novels of the 20th century, and capturing its dour, introspective, paranoid, and nihilistically hopeful tone on celluloid. Maybe it’s just that the old hairy wizard with the stupid pinky rings is right this time, unfortunately: Maybe “Watchmen” is simply unadaptable.

[Emperor]

Everything good but the ending ruined the movie...

 

Hola all. Massawyrm here.

 

I want to love WATCHMEN so bad it hurts. I mean I really, really want to love it. But I can’t. It is the cinematic equivalent of a Penguin Blowjob, delivering the goods for a solid two and a half hours before overdrafting every last bit of goodwill it has earned in the last fifteen. It’s not that there’s nothing to love here. There’s a LOT to love. There’s a lot that Snyder not only got right from the comic, but actually did better. But, for me, it doesn’t excuse what he did to the ending. What, Wyrm? You mean the squid? No, not the god damned squid. I’ve written it before and I will no doubt write it again: when you are adapting something it is not the details that are important. It is the SOUL that is important. As long as the adaptation SAYS the same things and MEANS the same things as the original work, then I don’t care if it is a squid or a giant baboon or a nuclear warhead. As long as the story remains intact.

 

Here? It doesn’t.

 

Look, WATCHMEN is the HAMLET of comic books. It is our one great tragic masterpiece. As many have said and will continue to say, it is literature. The ending isn’t just IMPORTANT to WATCHMEN, it is the point of the story. The entire thing works up to it. The whole of the 12 issue series is filled with brilliant foreshadowing and little jokes about what is to come. Every character arc finds its end beautifully tied up without a single, unnecessary, dangling thread left behind. And while it does not end well, it ends exactly as it should to make the statement that it needs to make. Some people hate it the first time they read it. But many revisit it as it sets in and marinates over time. Well, Snyder understands that hate. And Zach Snyder would really like it if you didn’t hate the ending to his movie. So he changed it.

 

Imagine if you will the ending of the aforementioned HAMLET. As directed by Zach Snyder. (INSERT slo-mo/speed up jokes of choice here.) Now, this version of Hamlet is AWESOME. Everything is just as you saw it in your head, and while it isn’t a word for word adaptation, it captures every major scene in just the same way as the play did – only in less time and with much better production values. But then you get to the end. And it’s…different. Gertrude doesn’t drink the poisoned cup – instead she catches a nick from Laertes poison tipped sword. Hamlet, thrown into a rage drives his sword through Laertes, and then charges the king, killing him as well. Then hamlet, distraught over what he’s just done, falls to his knees and drives his unblunted sword (because blunted swords would look lame) through his own gut. Horatio lunges forward screaming “HAMLET! NOOOOOOO!” But it is too late. Hamlet is dead. Horatio gives a speech – and Fortinbras doesn’t show up, because let’s face it, it always was a little too convenient of time to arrive, don’t you think, and today’s audience won’t buy that.

 

You see, technically, it’s the same ending. Everyone who lives, lives, and everyone who dies, dies. But this is an ending today’s audiences will like more, right? Maybe. But that’s not how HAMLET is supposed to end. And this isn’t how WATCHMEN is supposed to end, either. This ending is a little too happy. A little too Hollywood. And the reason everyone goes their separate ways and the mood in which they do so just so contradictory to the original work that it is very jarring to fans of the book. I was LOVING the movie until the final chapter. I mean LOVING it. I was seeing the film everyone else had been writing about. Snyder had nailed it. And as everything started falling into place, I could feel it all slipping away. It was one of those “loss of erection” moments in which you pray that it stands back up, but in doing so it only gets limp and useless in your hand. NONONONONONON! Come back to me! Don’t fail on me now! But it’s over. It’s gone.

 

But the two and a half hours before that – fucking exquisite. What he gets right, he really gets right. There are a lot of things he leaves behind or under-explained, but it works for the most part. There are plenty of visual cues that convey a lot of the books in-jokes that might require longer explanation. And his work at putting you in the universe of WATCHMEN is incredible. The book really does come alive right in front of you. In fact, there are two elements I find superior here than in any other presentation of the work.

 

The first is Adrian Veidt. Matthew Goode lends a real humanity to the role that never quite came across to me on the page. READING Ozymandias speak is something like listening to an arrogant college professor drone on – what he has to say is important, but it never comes across like he FEELS what he is saying. Goode lends a delightful, excited touch of madness to Ozy, letting him come across as a guy who really believes in what he’s doing. I never fully understood Veidt until I saw Goode’s portrayal of him. I never liked him or cared at all until he was presented just so.

 

The second is Jackie Earl Haley as Rorschach. He. Is. Rorschach. Period. Once you’ve seen this, sit down and reread the comic and you can’t escape Haley’s voice. His portrayal. It is seeing Shakespeare performed the way it was meant to be seen, an Oscar caliber performance that carries the film (and many of the weaker actors in the cast.) This is his movie, his truly epic performance. Even the people who hate the living shit out of this film will find it hard to knock what he’s done with the character. The look (even without the mask), the voice, the staccato of his speech. It all captures the book and at times elevates the material.

 

Entire patches of the film are thrilling, funny or downright heart-wrenching. Say what you will about the changes that were made (and I’ll have more to say later) it is clear that Snyder LOVES this book and its characters. Everyone is presented in a way that you feel for them; even the guys you never feel much for in the book. The stuff that’s gone – Captain Metropolis, the newsstand owner, the Psychiatrist’s home life – that’s all the stuff that I was fine with being left by the way side. It’s stuff that probably only worked best in the book anyway.

 

But many of the complaints out there are right on. The film IS dense. The makeup is occasionally complete ass, with almost every bit of “aging makeup” looking AWFUL. The lack of score is a bit jarring – I was kind of hoping for a healthy mix of era appropriate music and original orchestral – but several of the songs that weren’t era appropriate seemed terribly out of place. A few of the actors were a bit uneven, especially Malin Ackerman as Laurie Jupiter who comes off a bit stiff most of the time. And while I applaud Snyder’s stick-to-it-ness in bringing us dangling blue dong, after a while it becomes a bit excessive. They didn’t have to give the brother pants or anything – but Zach, come on. Medium shots? From the waist up, maybe? Once in a while? There comes a point at which I was reminded of SUPERBAD and wondered if Snyder sat around drawing Dr. Manhattan all day in school as a child. Put that together with 300 and it begins to paint a picture…

 

So will you like it? Fuck if I know. The audience opinion was across the board, from people wanting to name their first born Rorschach to people walking out in disgust and bitching for a solid hour. Not to mention all points in between. What I find most interesting is that Harry and I both equally love and hate almost the exact same things. And yet he walked out thrilled and I walked out dumbstruck, disappointed and completely unsure of what had just happened. I saw this film a week and a half ago and I’ve finally found the words to write about how I feel. And I have a lot more to say – so next Monday, once you folks have all had your shot at seeing it, I’m going to write something I almost never write: a spoiler heavy dissection of where I felt this went right and where it went VERY wrong. I look forward to the discussion with you all. Until then, I’m dying to see how this plays out. It is a divisive film, a mixed bag that everyone will react to differently. And right now I am absolutely fascinated by everyone’s reactions. See you guys Monday.

 

Until next time friends, smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em.

 

Massawyrm

[Dunbar]

I've heard mixed reviews, but hey, Ebert liked it : p

 

I'm going to see it for myself, and I think I'll like it, but I'll reserve judgement 'til I actually see it. Worst case scenario is I'll have to go back to loving the novel all the more ^^

[ChronoCrosS]

It opens tonight in Canada. I'll probably see it on the weekend though. I torrented the pdf file of the novel last night.

[Majsju]

I will probably download it sometime when I got nothing better to do. I do not really see it as something I absolutely must see, and I am certainly not interested in wasting any money on it.

[Emperor]

I plan to watch it tomorrow.  I am not a big comic fan but enjoyed the story.  Changing the ending might make me hate this though.

[SinisterDeath]

I plan to watch it tomorrow.  I am not a big comic fan but enjoyed the story.  Changing the ending might make me hate this though.

 

I wonder how exactly they changed the ending... But I have a feeling they replaced one thing with a nuke that you see in the trailer in the background.