WATCHMEN - Movie Discussion and Grading (SPOILERS)

Well most sites put the budget at $120 million, so the other figure I have seen may include $30 million for post production marketing, et al.

RAMA

 

I didn't even know the movie was rated R until I saw the last few posts in this thread. I just go to movies and don't look at the rating.

 

I still can't get over the hard-on Ebert seems to have for this flick. I thought he would hate it.

 

I've seen two budget figures. The $120m and $150m, both include post work(ie cgi,sound etc).BOM is usually right and it has $150m. I also read they spent $50m on marketing. So a final cost is either $170m or $200m and since I trust BOM I'm looking at $200m for total cost.

Watchmen has been holding up well in the dailies. I speculate that is because various Spring Breaks at the University and H.S. level are spread out over this week and the next. Its second weekend will give us insight into what type of legs the movie is going to have. Most speculate it should hit at or about $100m regardless after just 10 days in release. Not bad really, it will only be about $50m off its production costs then.
The lawsuit with FOX is really going to hinder it being as profitable in the end since they have to pay out to them.

 

Just saw it a second time this afternoon. Fuck me I love this film. The opening credits are just a thing of beauty
Easily goes into my all time Top 5

 

The opening credits are amazing. Not what you'd expect from a standard superhero film - but then again, Watchmen is hardly a standard superhero film, is it?

 

The movie has a great opening that's made even better if you read the graphic novel. You understand all the scenes like Dollar Bill and the revolving door and Mothman being taken away by the nurses.

 

Oh, I'm a long-time fan of the original. I love how the rise and fall of the Minutemen is told in the credits.

 

That and "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" playing in Veidt's lobby.

 

Buy the soundtrack. As I listen to those 12 tracks it takes me to moments in the film. Having seen the film twice I picture sequences in my 'minds eye' and I appreciate the film more. I'll likely see it once more before leaving theaters.

Not really a film more spectacular on my personal horizon of to see films till Wolverine. Fast & Furious 4 will be fun but its a guilty pleasure.

 

I'll be generous and give it a C+. The historical impersonations really were as problematic as reviewers made them out to be, especially Nixon. Anthony Hopkins couldn't have made the character believable in that make-up, and the actor portraying Nixon certainly wasn't Anthony Hopkins. For a movie that cost as much as this, this version of Nixon should never had made it on screen.

'Hallelujah' over the Nite Owl II and Silk Spectre II having sex was embarrassingly stupid--and they managed to keep the scene from being sexy, too. And don't get me started over the flame-thrower symbolism. Don't care if it's in the book. Lacking in any form of subtlety--much like most of the musical choices in this film. 'Ride of the Valkyries" over the Vietnam sequences? Really? Francis Ford Coppola must have died just so he could roll over in his grave after seeing these scenes.

Ozymandias was obviously the villain from the get-go--Snyder made no effort to hide this fact and the actor's weak performance didn't help.

I wasn't able to finish the book before school started up again (I only read the first three chapters), but just from those I can see that the film misses out on a lot of details that would keep the world afloat. How the hover ship exists in 1985, for example? How Rorschach's mask works? Nite Owl's laser gun that is briefly used in the finale? Nite Owl's vision goggles? And how did Nixon serve more than two terms, anyway? The paranoid world starts to fall apart without Moore's attention to detail (although I'll readily concede that the ending has been improved, from what I've read).

I will laud the performances behind Dr. Manhattan (the CGI was pretty convincing, too), Rorschach, the Comedian, and both versions of the Nite Owl.

I'll say one thing, though. I'm sure another director wouldn't have made a better film. I shudder to think of a Hollywood-ized version of Watchmen.

 

How exactly does Rorschach's mask work anyway?

 

It was a specially made dress for Kitty Genovese, the girl in NYC who was raped and murdered before dozens of witnesses who never called the cops, which inspired Kovacs to become Rorshach in the first place. It's some kind of special fluid suspended between two sheets of a plastic material.

 

The fact that they left out how much Manhattan's presence changed technology in the world was a bit of a problem. Maybe it was a misguided idea that they could make Adrian seem like a good guy by having him opposed to Big Oil, but it lessens the impact of Dr. M on the world at large.

 

No capes, dahling.

In all seriousness, I got the impression from the graphic novel that Mothman's was a slow descent, and he was put away by his friends well after retirement, not while still active. The scene did convey his fate well, though.

 

I thought it was a good way to portray it - in the few seconds that the silent scene is onscreen, you think "Mothman's gone loony and they're locking him up!". Not subtle, but effective.

 

It's also a nearly three-hour long, R-rated movie based on a comic book little known to non-comic book fans that was released in March instead of the summer. Didn't work for Daredevil, Ghost Rider, V for Vendetta, etc. (which are each inferior for their own specific reasons, but that's not the point), so it's no surprise that Watchmen is underperforming per expectations. I won't exactly be bummed out if this isn't another $300 million dollar success story, especially since average box office returns would ensure that no one will attempt a sequel to a story that was never meant to have one. A prequel (chronicling the days of the Minutemen in the 1930's-40's) MIGHT be interesting, but that'd be as far as I'd ever wanna see this go.

 

I take it thats the music soundtrack, as there's the score soundtrack as well.
Thing is I know I'm gonna go merchandise mad with this film. I plan to get the Companion and Art of the Film books, and really want the Rorschach and Silk Spectre action figures, and if I get them I'll have to get the other four Watchmen for the set

It's likely I'll be going to see it again too at the cinema. Which isn't something I normally do at all. Usually I go see a film once and that's it untill the DVD if I really enjoy it. On rare occasions I'll make a second trip (The Dark Knight for example), but even that was a few weeks after the first viewing.
My second viewing today was only four days after my first, and I walked out thinking I could easily sit through it again



btw, I love the clip in the intro with Ozzy outside Studio 54 with Ziggy Stardust in the background
And does anyone else think when Silhoutte is kissing the other woman in Times Sqaure, one of the people gawking looks exactly like Scarlett Johansson

 

The montage was fantastic.

I liked them having Silhouette recreate the famous picture of the nurse being kissed after WWII. That was a real nod to the comic.

 

And of course parts of the young Walter and Laurie's backstories were seeded in there as well. Nice.