WATCHMEN - Movie Discussion and Grading (SPOILERS)

I saw Watchmen earlier today and I enjoyed it. It wasn't a perfect film but they did a pretty good job of bringing the graphic novel to the screen. Personally I thought the new ending worked much better on the screen then the giant squid would of.

Some of the things I was most disappointed with were the little things, like how we barely saw the street corner people, or how we didn't see Mason's death. However, some of the changes were for the better, like how Rorschach got his face back.

 

What was wrong with the original way he got his face back?

 

My impression from the film was that the Keane (sp? I would have said "Cain" based on the one or two mentions in the film) Act outlawed the vigilante heroes as a response to the bloodshed the Comedian (and possibly others) brought back from Vietnam and wreaked on the American people. It wasn't brought about by Manhattan, but by people acting irresponsibly, illegally, and arguably immorally without having any sort of oversight or control on them.

 

I did no research, and one shouldn't have to expect to do research before going to see a movie on the big screen. The previews painted a different picture of this movie which was obviously done to get people who are uninformed into simply spending money at the theaters.

 

Other than the missing stuff, which I understand was a necessary aspect of adapting the story to film, the only real complaint I had was that Matthew Goode was miscast. He was simply not physically imposing, nor charismatic, nor truly arrogant enough. He felt like he was compensating, and not genuinely beleiving his own delusions of grandeur.

 

There was nothing wrong with it other than that it would have been a side excursion that really wasn't worth the screen time. In the movie version, Rorshach gets a good line out of remasking - the kind of thing that works great in a movie and that got a big cheer and a laugh out of the audience when I saw it, but would probably read as mildly ironic at best.

The audience did love Rorschach, BTW. There will be at least a few idiots at Warners wondering on Monday if they could get away with a prequel featuring him, almost guaranteed.

 

Yeah.

It was nice that Snyder was able to get the essence of that moment in the comic where those "ordinary" characters begin to come together, just before destruction - the shot of all those folks beginning to cling to one another in the face of the "intrinsic field effect."

 

Agreed. I mean, is there any other novel this dense that has been successfully adapted into a movie?

I think the movie we got here is probably the best movie we could have gotten with the source material. However, Alan Moore was right. Watchmen is "unfilmable." There is no way that a film can capture all of the rich detail that made the novel so good. And once you strip that away, there's not really a solid story for the movie to latch onto. The characters drag it into so many different directions that it never congeals into a satisfactory whole. There is nothing about the story that is enhanced by making it a movie instead.

Whereas in the book, the Keane Act comes about when the police get sick of the Masks' vigilante actions and go on strike in protest. This, of course, leads to anarchy & chaos since the masks are a supplement to the police, not an adequate replacement. Thus, the government outlaws Masks so that the police will agree to come back.

 

The police strike is actually mentioned during the riot sequence, but a viewer would have to infer a lot.

Which is fair. "Blade Runner" explained virtually nothing but the basic set-up. Notably, "Blade Runner" has worn very well over time but was not an unalloyed success on first release.

Beyond that, of course, if you tell an American audience that at some point the Federal government has outlawed a group of non-conforming vigilantes - which the movie does, straight out - it doesn't require any explanation to be plausible.

 

/\Actually, as I was watching the movie, I was thinking that this is the Bladerunner of comic book films. Especially when John was giving his 'speech' toward Ozzymedas. Incredible film. Well, in my eyes Snyder is two for two now. I can't wait to see what he does next. I could see him directing The Avengers, and taking the film seriously. The Comedian was definately the stand out character, as was Rorschach. The Comedian was awesome even though he's the most vile person in the group, and Rorschach is like a cross between Batman and Wolverine. I might actually see this again. After I get the graphic novel, and fill in the gaps. I bet that GN gets a huge boost in sales.

 

Opening credits sequence posted here...

 

I love the idea of that credit sequence but not the execution. I would have rather seen the same moments presented in still photos and news reel footage. Instead of that lifeless slow motion. Plus the cinematography makes all those scenes seem to modern, to staged looking.

 

Yeah they're still pretty dark and flawed, but they also move and fight and jump around like they're the freakin X-Men. And they're all shot in such a cool and sexy way that they essentially look like typical movie superheroes (hell, they look even cooler than Batman and Spidey did in THEIR movies!)

And that's not how they're presented in the book at all. Except for Dr Manhattan, they were basically just average, everyday people (with a little bit of fight training) who used to like to run around in colorful costumes and pretend to be comic book superheroes. They weren't actual superheroes though, and that's the key that the movie seems to miss.

I understand Snyder had to make the movie more audience-friendly and everything; I just think he went too far in that direction. Watchmen was never supposed to be a flashy, action-packed superhero story, but that's what he seems to be trying to turn it into.

 

I was amazed at how much of the novel was in there, and I hope the Director's Cut on Blu-Ray contains even more. I wasn't offended by the Matrix-y nature of the fighting. Veidt was always supposed to be able move like that, as can his inspiration, Peter Cannon. As for Nite Owl and Silk Spectre taking down the gangs, I think it only showed why the hell these unpowered people even thought dressing up was a good idea.

My friend who went with my brother and me seemed stuck on the thought that Janey Slater set Jon up to be locked in the chamber, a notion I have never ever thought of before, and that I believe is nowhere in evidence in the novel. Like a blue elephant, I now can't get this thought out of my head, though I think it a result of how the scene was filmed, possibly one of the few real mistranslations of the effort. Another one would be actually using the name 'Watchmen' for the abortive team, and not making it clearer that a team from these newer heroes never materialized (unless the film is contradicting that as well, along with an older Captain Metropolis, not Veidt, being the one who tries to form it)

During the opening montage, when Dollar Bill's fate is shown, my brother leaned over and said : 'No Capes, Dahling.'

 

A-

I saw Watchmen last night and I am very pleased with it. The actors were terrific, the visuals were amazing, it seemed shorter than 2 hours 40 minutes and it was very faithful to the original work. Maybe there were a few problems with pacing (a very minor complaint).

I enjoyed the amusing little pop culture elements that were placed in the film. There was the McLaughlin Group on TV, the Village People with Ozymandias in front of Studio 54, corporate icon Lee Iacocca and Henry Kissinger. Was Henry in the book? I don't remember.

I liked the brief moments that were invented for the screen, such as the retirement bash for pregnant Sally Jupiter. I wanted more of Carla Gugino in the film.

I don't have any problems with the ending. Ozymandias' framing of Dr. Manhattan was a plausible and effective substitute for the original scenario (i.e. the squid monster).

Great movie. I plan to see it again.

Incidentally, there were a couple of sociopathic jerks in the theater. They cheered and laughed when The Comedian was brutally assaulting Sally Jupiter. Did anyone else witness such a reaction to events in the film?

 

I didn't laugh but I felt a bit immature because instead of reacting to the character being beaten all I was thinking about was how nice Carla's rack and legs looked during that scene and I had to remind myself, "Oh yeah, this is supposed to be unsettling not titillating." But I blame Carla Gugino for being such a babe.

 

Here's some interesting stuff I found online...

- Malin Akerman Interview (Maxim Online/Maxim Magazine, April 2009 Issue).

- Matthew Goode's reported reaction to "fanboys'" complaints.

 

A bit defensive, eh? That said, the man is right. This kind of thing should be addressed to obsessive fanboys more often - performers soft-soap them too much.

Folks complaining about movies and tv on the Internet do so in remarkably vulgar and mean-spirited ways. They should get used to being addressed in the same manner by people who are willing to use their own names.

 

All of the famous period people in the movie appear in the comic, including Kissinger.

 

Except that they do the same things in the book that they do in the movie - they beat lots of folks that they shouldn't if they were just "normal" folks (especially middle-aged portly Dan). Because Snyder likes the fight scenes to be cool doesn't really detract from that - supposedly "normal" people fight like superhumans in every action movie made for decades, whether slo-mo and freeze-frame is used or not. So to actually portray these people realistically in any way would be to show them as physically inferior to Will Smith playing a cop. Wouldn't work.

The only "superhuman" moment in the movie that really took me out of it was early on - Blake's remaining conscious (hell, remaining alive) after his head was used to shatter a two-inch thick marble countertop into dust.