Watchmen Movie Review

[Jobu]

Yeah, be careful - cgi wang might make you gay!!! 

No, I'm actually scared I might like it.   

[Monster Dave]

NPR's review as of this morning:

This week's big movie â€" Watchmen, a 12-part DC Comics series turned graphic novel, and now turned film â€" opens with a nervous but hopeful fan base preparing to turn out in droves.

Rumors have swirled about story changes for more than a year; then, just before the movie's scheduled release, a rights dispute threatened to land Watchmen in court rather than in theaters.

Now it's out, though, and it's ... well, it's quite a picture. The title sequence in Watchmen, arguably the film's smartest four minutes, welcomes us to an alternate 1985. Richard Nixon has begun his fifth term as president, and partly because he's outlawed costumed superheroes, the world is a messy place on the verge of nuclear war.

As the titles end, one thoroughly unpleasant guy who once wore the spandex â€" he called himself The Comedian, and he still sports a signature smiley-face button â€" gets a late-night knock at the door.

Well, not a knock really. His door gets kicked in, and a sort of aerial fisticuffs ballet ensues â€" a battle that sends him crashing around his high-rise apartment, through walls and cabinets and finally out the window in a fatal 40-story back-dive. Tuck position, I think. I'd give him about a 3 for execution, but it's flashy in that digitally unreal way you expect in superhero epics.

The Comedian's death prompts a reunion of five vigilant vigilantes who were his buds back when costumes were legal. There's a fellow named Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley), whose mask has constantly moving blotches; Nite Owl II (Patrick Wilson), a nebbishy gadget nut; Ozymandias (Matthew Goode), allegedly the smartest guy in the world; Silk Spectre II (Malin Akerman), a raven-haired beauty who looks like a walking shampoo ad; and Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup), a onetime physicist who's been demolecularized in a lab accident, which both gave him superpowers and turned him blue.

As he lacks a spandex suit â€" or for the most part a suit of any sort â€" full-frontal shots of him also qualify as blue, come to think of it.

Collectively, Dr. Manhattan and his less "super" super-buddies â€" their powers otherwise seem to start and end with martial arts prowess â€" were once known as Watchmen. And in Alan Moore's graphic novel, they're intriguing as a sort of collective deconstruction of the very notion of superherodom.

The moviemakers, though, are too busy digitizing ice castles on Mars to bother with much in the way of meta. Or personalities. So the characters make do with the kind of complicated backstories that are just riveting in graphic novels.

Alas, backstories tend to clutter up a movie, especially when there are six of them to get through. So director Zack Snyder is still doling out origin flashbacks two hours and seven minutes into his little epic.

Mind you, the movie has almost 40 minutes to go at that point. Most of them will take place in what looks to be a cross between The Mummy's tomb and Superman's frozen Fortress of Solitude, where catastrophic scenarios will be debated at length. I'll leave you to discover how all that works out.

For the record, the director recycles some of the better effects from his gladiator epic 300 â€" that 40-story back dive, for instance. And when he's not splattering blood a good deal more liberally than he needs to, he's being so faithful to the work of comics artist Dave Gibbons that he might as well have used the graphic novel's illustrations as a storyboard.

This will no doubt seem a good thing to really rabid Watchmen fans, but it's going to leave everyone else wondering if the director knows much about movie pacing or movie narratives. Or movie audiences.



Another critic went on to say:

"...what went wrong with Watchmen is not really anyone's fault. It never should have been turned into a film in the first place."

OUCH!!

[erkishhorde]

Boobies!  Softcore porn!  Penis! 
Sadly there is more penis than boobies but for the ladies, maybe they'll appreciate this more.   Malin Akerman is a hottie, though their make-up hiding of the mole on her cheek was kinda annoying to me. I would have preferred if they didn't try to hide it since it really stands out in the angle shots.

I thought it was OK. Keep in mind that I find very few things great or bad. Most are just plain OK. It's not an action film. There i some action, quite gory at times, but I found many of the fights to be awkward due to either poor timing. A lot of the punches and kicks are pulled immediately like wrestling moves and there are a lot of pauses after and before hits. Oh well, like I said, it's not an action movie, there is just action.

I would classify it more as a drama.

[superjohn]

I went to see it, worried that the "changed" ending would be typical Hollywood crap, but I was very pleasantly surprised. I liked the graphic novel and the movie is pretty much a direct adaptation without any sugar coating, or "re-imagining" crap that I absolutely hated in movies like X-Men and Spiderman.

I will be buying it on DVD when it comes out. 

[Sinister]

Saw it last night...dark as make the beast with two backs, that's for sure.  That said, Ms. Jupiter can throw some nice Thai kicks.  Fights were good and I like Rohrschach.  I never was a fan of the comic, so I don't know from "deviated from the original story line."

[derby]

I went to see it, worried that the "changed" ending would be typical Hollywood crap, but I was very pleasantly surprised. 

yup... not the original ending, but very much in the spirit of the original ending.

I will be buying it on DVD when it comes out. 

i'm looking forward to all the extra footage and the super-extended, full-length director's cut.

[derby]

Saw it last night...dark as make the beast with two backs, that's for sure. 

check out the book. it gets darker.

That said, Ms. Jupiter can throw some nice Thai kicks.  Fights were good and I like Rohrschach. 

rorschach is easily my favorite character. he gets all the good lines.

I never was a fan of the comic, so I don't know from "deviated from the original story line."

like i said, check out the book.

[Nitewaif]

Boobies!  Softcore porn!  Penis! 
Sadly there is more penis than boobies but for the ladies, maybe they'll appreciate this more.  

The bouncy blue penis was appreciated.  There are tons of gratuitous boobie shots in movies.  Penis was nice for a change. 

I just got home from seeing it.  I'll go see it again.  Rorschach definitely had the best lines.  I especially enjoyed his time in prison.

[DucFanatic]

so is  Dr. Manhattan a God?

[ROBsS4R]

I saw it tonight. I never followed the GN so I was going in with a blank Slate

I loved the look and general feel of the movie but some people were just miss cast in my opinion.

I thought Matthew Goode ( Adrian Veidt  ) was a total miss and the acting of Malin Akerman ( Laurie Jupiter ) was rather weak.

Now Jackie Earle Haley ( Walter Kovacs ) I think is on the borderline for deserving a Oscar Nod....

I think IGN summed up the review very well for me http://movies.ign.com/articles/959/959494p1.html

As a whole the movie did not work for me... I am not saying I didn't enjoy it but I would consider it rotten. So rottentomatoes has it as 65% fresh and cream of the crop 43% rotten. I would agree more on the cream of the crop reviews =)

Oh and on a side RANT... I HATE stupid parents. Some retarded parents took there 3 year old daughter to see the movie tonight and guess who they sat by. I feel bad for this child who had to sit through all the Nudity, Sex and Violence. Some people should not have children 

[superjohn]

Oh and on a side RANT... I HATE stupid parents. Some retarded parents took there 3 year old daughter to see the movie tonight and guess who they sat by. I feel bad for this child who had to sit through all the Nudity, Sex and Violence. Some people should not have children 

What's up with that? There were a couple of parents that brought their young kids to the showing I saw as well. The kicker was, they didn't even sit with them. They let the kids run up and sit well away. At the same time, the usher dude refused to let some teenagers in since they didn't have a parent with them.

[DucHead]

I went to see it, worried that the "changed" ending would be typical Hollywood crap, but I was very pleasantly surprised. I liked the graphic novel and the movie is pretty much a direct adaptation without any sugar coating, or "re-imagining" crap that I absolutely hated in movies like X-Men and Spiderman.

I will be buying it on DVD when it comes out. 

Jeezus dude, did we watch the same movie?!  That thing sucked!  Too long, too much extraneous detail unrelated to the plot, a plot that didn't make too much sense.  That was one of about three movies that i've considered leaving after the first hour.      

[superjohn]

Jeezus dude, did we watch the same movie?!  That thing sucked!  Too long, too much extraneous detail unrelated to the plot, a plot that didn't make too much sense.  That was one of about three movies that i've considered leaving after the first hour.      

I assume you never read the comic?

[Sinister]

check out the book. it gets darker.

The wife almost walked out, at one point. 

[derby]

The wife almost walked out, at one point. 

...when the comedian killed the pregnant vietnamese girl?