Here it is, folks: my official Watchmen review. For simplicity's sake, I'm going to approach the review from two perspectives: a fan's perspective (my perspective) and I'll sit in the seat of a Watchmen neophyte to try and review this film. Note that I'm GOING TO SPOIL THE ENDING, so beware if you haven't seen the film yet.First, from a fan's perspective, this movie does a GOOD (not great, but good) job of capturing the major themes and feel of the novel.
Watchmen the movie looks flashy enough, with gritty "superhero" action (a little too stylized for my tastes, but hey this IS Zack Snyder of "300" right?) and essentially a scene-by-scene and chapter-by-chapter adaptation of the novel that is remarkably faithful to the storyline. The subplots are of course eliminated for time's sake, but the fact that the movie consciously recognizes the subplots' existences wins big points from me (eg. the inclusion of the psychologist towards the end of the film). The iconic scenes look AMAZING, like Dr. Manhattan's watch-inspired palace on Mars. I can easily see this film being nominated for Art Direction at the next Academy Awards because, quite simply, the film is gorgeous.
The acting (ironically enough) is another MAJOR strength. All of the characters, with the exception of Ozymandias, are extremely convincing in their roles, especially Jackie Earl Haley as Rorschach. Dialogue is 85% lifted directly from the novel, taking advantage of Allen Moore's brilliant writing style. All the actors use it wonderfully and make the characters come alive on screen. Ozymandias is a little tougher, only because the character has changed so much that it's a little off-putting for a fan to convincingly accept Matthew Goode's portrayal.
As to the cinematography, it is decent, but the "300" visual style gets clunky in awkward places when slow-motion just seems to take too long and can be completely unnecessary. The other major problem is that Zack Synder's antics are no longer "revolutionary" (if they ever were) and now just seem a little overdrawn in the film.
I'll talk only briefly about the Music and score, both of which are sub-par simply because it is too explicit in the film instead of going for subtlety. "All Along the Watchtower" being the most notorious example. Not that it's bad, it just isn't great. The "Desolation Row" cover during the credits, however, is fantastic and fits the mood perfectly.
Now, onto the big "love-or-hate" controversy of the film: the TREMENDOUS amounts of nudity, sex, and violence. Yes, Watchmen the novel is an extremely sexy and violent graphic novel, but the movie takes it to horrifying new levels (eg. when Rorschach confronts the child killer). The problem with this is that it takes Watchmen's axioms of subtlety and deconstructing the superhero archetype and turns it, in the words of my brother, into a "freakshow". I agree that, for a fan, this is one of the most strange and unfortunate changes about the movie.The other is the ending. I personally can reconcile the new ending due to the fact that a giant H.P. Lovecraftian alienthing can be hard to explain and construct in a 2-hour movie. However, the new ending has the major disadvantage is that it changes the character of Dr. Manhattan into a scapegoat, something that was NEVER in the novel and that Allen Moore would NOT have ever approved of. The other problem about the movie ending is that the CHOICE of whether or not to agree with Oxymandius's actions is taken from the audience. Now, the ending is presented as a lesser-of-two-evils situation in which Nite Owl explicitly states to Ozymandias that it is wrong, although they're forced to go along with it....NOT AT ALL analogous to the Watchmen novel. The movie BEGS to have the "I did the right thing didn't I?" scene in it, instead of Laurie paraphrasing the scene.
To wrap it up from a fan's perspective, the greatest aspect of the Watchmen film is the fact that it DOESN'T suck. Adapting Watchmen into movie format is a bit like adapting Shakespeare for the screen: you know you won't be able to do it better than the original, so you're going to have to make it different, or comparably true to the original. Watchmen opts for the latter and does so effectively, allowing it to appease most non-hardcore fans with a action-packed, visually spectacular rendition of the story.
For a non-fan or a Watchmen neophyte, I imagine the film would be extremely disappointing. It moves quickly, assuming you know the basic storyline, and its complex interworking of flashbacks is otherwise incomprehensible. Synder does attempt to draw in some of the non-superhero crowd by including some well choreographed action sequences (complete with bone-shattering action). It's icing on the cake for Watchmen fans, and a B-grade "Kung-Fu Panda" imitation for others. In short, if you know nothing about Watchmen the novel, I'd avoid the movie like the plague.
MY RATING:
Good for fans, confusing for non-fans. Suffers from some notable plot changes, but en masse, captures the spirit and themes of the novel. Enjoyable and replayable.
So I mostly agree with you. But only mostly.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I think you singled out the wrong imperfect actor. That would go, in my book, to Malin Akerman as SS2. She did an excellent job of displaying no emotion at all when she should have been ultra-pissed at the Doc's 'multitasking.' I thought Matthew Goode played his part with exactly the right amount of superciliousness and (ironically so) coldness.
Re the music, I thought it generally worked. All Along The Watchtower was the one I was most concerned about, but it endedup being totaly acceptable to me. Not high praise, I know, but I think it was the best way possible to retain the song reference from the book. Would instrumentals that referenced those songs while still integrating with the score have been better? Almost definitely. But using the original songs did help provide one of the most awesome movie soundtrack CDs in history.
My own review of the movie: Zack Snyder missed the point directorially, particularly in the first half of the movie. The only way to make WATCHMEN work at all is to make the movie feel as close to reality - as if it were happening in the real NYC - as the book did. The slo-mo shots and severe reticence to allow two or more people to be talking at the same time were huge missteps on that front. But I did feel that once Rorschach got himself arrested, it revitalized the movie to a large extent. Then again, that might just have been Jackie Earle Haley being awesome.
And concering the ending: I don't come down on it as hard as you do. Was the last convo between Ozy and the Doc left out to the SEVERE detriment of the movie? You bet. Do I secretly wonder if the Doc-as-scapegoat idea was inspired by THE DARK KNIGHT? Sure do. But I have to say that Ozy tapping in to the Doc's own power in order to kill 15 million people was inspired. I can only imagine (because, unsurprisingly, Snyder missed the emotional point) the devastation people would have felt at discovering that their beloved protector had betrayed them, and it would have played into Ozy's hand perfectly. The only serious misstep I noticed in the ending, apart from the missing Ozy question, was that he actually tried to subtract the Doc again. We all knew he'd put himself back together again.
I give it the same rating you do, maybe even a touch lower because of the weaker first half. But I think we're both looking at the same movie from different angles here.
Great review! I obviously had more negative feelings toward the film version of Watchmen, though I can understand why people in the middle of the fan spectrum might like it. Even so, I cannot compare with the brilliance of the novel. I just hope that the film excites more people into reading the novel, but I doubt it.
ReplyDeleteI think you hit this one pretty much on the money. I enjoyed the film for what it was and even though it may not necessarily be exactly the same as the graphic novel, it's not a big deal to me. This is mostly because I found the graphic novel pretty cumbersome and difficult to get through, especially with all the social commentary in the middle of the story where the plot gets completely lost. The same thing happened in the movie to some extent, but I almost felt like the movie made the actual storyline a little more cohesive by dropping all the social commentary that, in my opinion, detracted from the original story.
ReplyDeleteOf all of Alan Moore's works, I still don't think that Watchmen is necessarily his "best". Personally, I liked "V for Vendetta" more than any of them, as it was simple enough where anyone could understand it yet the message was clear. In Watchmen, as was said by several of my friends who came to see it with me, the message was pretty convoluted and even though I understand what the ending was about, I felt like there was a bunch of useless social commentary in the middle that had nothing to do with the actual story.
So in a nutshell, I'm not really sure what all the fuss is about. Watchmen the graphic novel was okay, but not that great. Watchmen the movie was also pretty good but I feel like it cut out a bunch of that social commentary that just felt cumbersome in the book, so for that I applaud the movie for sticking more to the story and not getting lost in whining about how much society sucks like Alan Moore does.
No offense, Mr. Moore, but you are one whiny son-of-a-bitch. And please take a shower, you look like a hillbilly.