I watched Watchmen...
And I really, really liked it.
The good
- I thought the casting was great, for the most part. I mean, it wasn't perfect. Malin Akerman was slightly wooden as Silk Spectre II, and definitely too young to be the superhero past her prime. But Rorcharch, Dr Manhatten and The Comedian were absolutely bang on, and I really liked what they did with Ozymandias. Rather than him being a Robert Redford type, they had him as slightly effete, charming and sinister, and he might as well have had a sign over his head saying 'I AM UP TO NO GOOD', which I though made the headfuck at the end even more effective. On an entirely shallow note, he was also really fucking sexy.
- The sense of time and place was brilliantly done; it felt like a period piece without losing any of its effectiveness, though I think there are excellent points about the estrangement between our attitudes towards the cold war which have been made here and here. The opening sequence sets it all up perfectly; the editing company which did it have uploaded it here: go watch.
- The music was just brilliant. Slightly too much 60s and 70s stuff for a film in which most of the action takes place in the 80s, but the quiet piping in of Tears For Fears 'Everybody Wants To Rule The World' while Veidt outlines his worldview to assembled captains of industry was brilliant.
- That they kept in all the stuff I thought was going to end up watered down or washed up for a big audience. While there's no giant squid at the end, what happens is just as conflicted. Dan can't get it up out of costume. The attempted rape and the aftermath are just as weird and problematic.
The Bad
- I'm not sure the stylisation of the violence really worked. Some sequences were hugely effective, particularly Laurie and Dan kicking the shit out of a street gang, and while it was hardly comfortable viewing, Rorcharch losing it with an axe on the child-murderer was appropriately brutal. But the Comedian's murder was too long and too keen on the slo-mo.
- I didn't really like the change they made at the end. I thought it worked, and cut the screen time down, for which my bladder was grateful, but while 'aliens are invading from another dimension' sounds like a pretty convincing reason to start holding hands and singing Kumbaya, I'd think 'your crazy blue man went nuts and killed millions' wouldnt. Plus, it did beg the question of how the Comedian of all people worked out what was going on. Besides, to quote me_ves_y_sufres, "WHERE ARE THE STREETS FULL OF CORPSES, SNYDER. YOU KNOW. THOSE PAGES AND PAGES OF CORPSES."
- There was the odd moment, usually when tied to a particularly awesome piece of music, which did make my brain feel like it was going to explode. But i felt like that for the entire comic, and while I was seventeen then I had genuinely never read anything like it. A lot of the film just feels like they're jumping from plot point to plot point, and the jumping flashbacks just made the pacing feel slightly stilted. It really is one of those things that just works much better in the comic book medium. It does clip along at a good pace, and some of the best moments are in the flashbacks, but I don't think it has the same effect it does in the comics; while you get the same sense of the older generation looking fondly back on simpler days, for me at least it meant the emotional world of the characters in 1985 felt... less complex. Maybe if I didn't have a good idea of where it was going, I would have felt a greater sense of dread and terror, but they seemed a little too resigned to nuclear holocaust.
- MY FUCKING CHEMICAL ROMANCE COVERING DESOLATION ROW. WHAT. WHAT. WHY?
I am finding the general response on the Internets much as I expected it to be; some panning it, some loving it, most breathing a sigh of relief that it wasn't a total travesty. But I think the key thing for me is that even if I didn't love the comic and didn't cherish a deep and burning desire to kick back with Alan Moore and talk about magic, I think I would still have enjoyed it as a cinematic experience, and been just as stumped by the ending. It's also funny; while it didn't have the same slightly hysterical edge of absurd humour as the comic, it at least made a stab at it. To be honest, that sums up my views almost completely; even if it didn't fulfil all my wildest dreams, I'm glad someone serious and respectful of the source material made a stab at all the things I wanted to see done. I'll proably go see it again, even if I may have to schlep across to Manchester or London to go see it in the IMAX, as for some reason they aren't showing it at the one in Bradford.
Now can we all please, please shut up about the mystic blue wang of Dr. Manhattan? It's there, it's blue. More interesting things happen on other parts of the screen.
The good
- I thought the casting was great, for the most part. I mean, it wasn't perfect. Malin Akerman was slightly wooden as Silk Spectre II, and definitely too young to be the superhero past her prime. But Rorcharch, Dr Manhatten and The Comedian were absolutely bang on, and I really liked what they did with Ozymandias. Rather than him being a Robert Redford type, they had him as slightly effete, charming and sinister, and he might as well have had a sign over his head saying 'I AM UP TO NO GOOD', which I though made the headfuck at the end even more effective. On an entirely shallow note, he was also really fucking sexy.
- The sense of time and place was brilliantly done; it felt like a period piece without losing any of its effectiveness, though I think there are excellent points about the estrangement between our attitudes towards the cold war which have been made here and here. The opening sequence sets it all up perfectly; the editing company which did it have uploaded it here: go watch.
- The music was just brilliant. Slightly too much 60s and 70s stuff for a film in which most of the action takes place in the 80s, but the quiet piping in of Tears For Fears 'Everybody Wants To Rule The World' while Veidt outlines his worldview to assembled captains of industry was brilliant.
- That they kept in all the stuff I thought was going to end up watered down or washed up for a big audience. While there's no giant squid at the end, what happens is just as conflicted. Dan can't get it up out of costume. The attempted rape and the aftermath are just as weird and problematic.
The Bad
- I'm not sure the stylisation of the violence really worked. Some sequences were hugely effective, particularly Laurie and Dan kicking the shit out of a street gang, and while it was hardly comfortable viewing, Rorcharch losing it with an axe on the child-murderer was appropriately brutal. But the Comedian's murder was too long and too keen on the slo-mo.
- I didn't really like the change they made at the end. I thought it worked, and cut the screen time down, for which my bladder was grateful, but while 'aliens are invading from another dimension' sounds like a pretty convincing reason to start holding hands and singing Kumbaya, I'd think 'your crazy blue man went nuts and killed millions' wouldnt. Plus, it did beg the question of how the Comedian of all people worked out what was going on. Besides, to quote me_ves_y_sufres, "WHERE ARE THE STREETS FULL OF CORPSES, SNYDER. YOU KNOW. THOSE PAGES AND PAGES OF CORPSES."
- There was the odd moment, usually when tied to a particularly awesome piece of music, which did make my brain feel like it was going to explode. But i felt like that for the entire comic, and while I was seventeen then I had genuinely never read anything like it. A lot of the film just feels like they're jumping from plot point to plot point, and the jumping flashbacks just made the pacing feel slightly stilted. It really is one of those things that just works much better in the comic book medium. It does clip along at a good pace, and some of the best moments are in the flashbacks, but I don't think it has the same effect it does in the comics; while you get the same sense of the older generation looking fondly back on simpler days, for me at least it meant the emotional world of the characters in 1985 felt... less complex. Maybe if I didn't have a good idea of where it was going, I would have felt a greater sense of dread and terror, but they seemed a little too resigned to nuclear holocaust.
- MY FUCKING CHEMICAL ROMANCE COVERING DESOLATION ROW. WHAT. WHAT. WHY?
I am finding the general response on the Internets much as I expected it to be; some panning it, some loving it, most breathing a sigh of relief that it wasn't a total travesty. But I think the key thing for me is that even if I didn't love the comic and didn't cherish a deep and burning desire to kick back with Alan Moore and talk about magic, I think I would still have enjoyed it as a cinematic experience, and been just as stumped by the ending. It's also funny; while it didn't have the same slightly hysterical edge of absurd humour as the comic, it at least made a stab at it. To be honest, that sums up my views almost completely; even if it didn't fulfil all my wildest dreams, I'm glad someone serious and respectful of the source material made a stab at all the things I wanted to see done. I'll proably go see it again, even if I may have to schlep across to Manchester or London to go see it in the IMAX, as for some reason they aren't showing it at the one in Bradford.
Now can we all please, please shut up about the mystic blue wang of Dr. Manhattan? It's there, it's blue. More interesting things happen on other parts of the screen.