Watchmen

[number8]

This comment is hilarious:

I hated the movie...this is not a super heroes movie, it is about people that happen to have extra powers and used them on a bad way.

OMG SAY IT AIN'T SO!

[NickGlass]

why?

I really don't care much about all this Watchmen hoopla, but you don't need to look very hard to notice the horrible acting (for which the terrible dialogue should be partly held culpable), abysmal pacing and disjointed (and not in a good way) narrative. Tantamount to those flaws, though, is that the film seems to fetishize everything that the original source intended to expose. Aside from American anxiety/paranoia and superhero deconstructionism, it's a sort-of parody of fallen bigwigs within a capitalist world, but nearly every
hokey calculation in the film seemed to be a decision made by the director in hopes that it would look cool, or by big companies hoping to gain massive profits from greasy 19-year-old boys. There are some very talented actors in the cast (Wilson, Crudup), and they just stumbled through, happy they are part of a product so large, yet seeming really embarrassed in the moment.

I haven't read the graphic novel, but I get what it was going for (and what the film misunderstood in a messy, big-time Hollywood way), and all I can salvage is a bunch of half-baked capital-b Big Issues mixed in with "cool" graphic violence and lame-brained sexuality. Don't even get me started on the depiction of females. It's probably symptomatic of why I generally dislike the genre. I most certainly agree with Spinal that so much of the film is more concerned with "being awesome," as opposed to challenging the viewer with its ideas.

[number8]

Is this true? Because it just ruined my day.

Yes, I've seen it happen often. They look at a title, they ask the emloyee what it is, then ask "Is it good?"

[Watashi]

Is this true? Because it just ruined my day.

It happens every day.

Customer: I haven't heard of any of these movies. What do you suggest?

Me: Well, I really liked Benjamin Button, but it's not for everyone and is 3 hours long.

Customer: That's the one with Brad Pitt in it? That sounds nice. One for that one please.

::30 minutes later::

Customer: This movie is boring. It's too weird and doesn't make any sense.

Me: Le sigh.

[Watashi]

One of my favorite general public Watchmen moments was watching the trailer for it before Gran Torino.

At the end of the trailer where Rorschach goes "The world will look up and shout save us and I'll whisper no". Some old lady near the front went "well, that wasn't very nice". I could barely hold my laughter.

[Watashi]

Can't a film be awesome and both challenge the viewer? I didn't know they had to be separated.

[number8]

I love these comments!

This movie was horrible. I brought my 12 & 15 year old. I will admit I did not do my research as I normally do but I though what do I have to worry about it is a superhero movie. Man was I wrong! I was very happy that my 12 yr old fell asleep before any of the sex scenes. The blood & gore was not that bad I have seen worse in some video games. I can not belive the movie got an R rating it should have been X rated.

[eternity]

Do people still really think that the X rating still exists?

[number8]

Do people still really think that the X rating still exists?

I think it's just a way to call the movie pornography.




Uh oh.

[Henry Gale]

Having thought about it since I saw it on Friday (and since then being thoroughly entertained by this thread and reactions elsewhere), I have to say that I really enjoyed it, thought the ending was perfectly fine for this telling of the story, was really impressed by the performances, etc. BUT, my problems with the movie can be summarized best by the JFK shot in the opening credits.

Basically to me showing the assassination and pulling back to show Morgan out of costume with a smoking rifle in his hand is the best case for the movie's problem of sacrificing subtext for pretty visuals. In the comic, the Comedian's line of "don't ask me where I was the day Kennedy died" works so well because it's dropped in the middle of a conversation about drugs in that era with a slight possibility he is referring to his shady government work over the years. But of course Snyder decides that not only was he most definitely speaking as if it were the latter, but that presenting it is not only important but necessary for the audience to take in so early into the picture.

The best thing I can say about it is that it doesn't entirely misinterpret the themes of the novel and that it's still an extremely interesting, entertaining little movie. I just wish it weren't so many people's first experience with the material and I hope Snyder's extended cut brings me more into an atmosphere of a place similar to what I feel when I read Moore and Gibbons' pages.

[number8]

So here's a question. Are you guys going to see the Director's Cut, or are you going to wait for the 3.5 hours Ultimate Cut that has the Black Freighter spliced in?

[BirdsAteMyFace]

Snyder's extended cut

More blue penis?

[Sycophant]

More blue penis?

Just longer.

[lovejuice]

More blue penis?

Just longer.

he's dr. manhattan. why can't it be both? step aside. mr. fantastic!

[Spinal]

People shocked by R-rated content in an R-rated movie should be kicked repeatedly in the genitals.

[KK2.0]

i enjoyed the movie but agree with many criticisms, i admit the main reason for me liking it was out of pure fan-service most of the time.

regarding the whole talk about violence and sex/nudity, i was surprised a big budget studio movie actually came out intact like this, dunno who Snyder had to blow at the MPAA but i hope it's not an isolated case, i miss popcorn movies more oriented to adults rather than teenagers.

the crowd was silent most of the movie also, turning heads on the more gruesome violence, i've noticed a couple walking out early on, a few laughs at Rorschach prison line, more laughs to the Hallelujah sex (obviously intentional, after shrek used this song, it's ruined for any attempts of seriousness).

i'm probably getting the Director's Cut, for the extra fan-service

[Skitch]

So here's a question. Are you guys going to see the Director's Cut, or are you going to wait for the 3.5 hours Ultimate Cut that has the Black Freighter spliced in?

Both. I would have been fine with the movie being longer. Fastest 3 hours I ever spent in a theater.

[jamaul]

Basically to me showing the assassination and pulling back to show Morgan out of costume with a smoking rifle in his hand is the best case for the movie's problem of sacrificing subtext for pretty visuals. In the comic, the Comedian's line of "don't ask me where I was the day Kennedy died" works so well because it's dropped in the middle of a conversation about drugs in that era with a slight possibility he is referring to his shady government work over the years. But of course Snyder decides that not only was he most definitely speaking as if it were the latter, but that presenting it is not only important but necessary for the audience to take in so early into the picture.

I would agree, but I loved the fluid pan from Kennedy shot, in the background, to Comedian with gun in foreground. It was one of the many instances in the movie where I would commend Snyder for handling something that could have been done gratuitiously instead with a surprising amount of style and grace. The opening credits sequence is, to me, one of the film's greatest achievements: it tells so much in such little time, but that's not even its biggest feat - the most impressive thing about it is that it contains so much detail and texture, and does so with no dialogue.

[number8]

Zack Snyder would be a pretty great music video director.

[Spinal]

I would agree that the credit sequence is excellent, but the shot of Kennedy with half his head blown off is, for me, the most gratuitous, objectionable image in the film.

[jamaul]

I would agree that the credit sequence is excellent, but the shot of Kennedy with half his head blown off is, for me, the most gratuitous, objectionable image in the film.

Right. Cuz that never happened, right?

[MadMan]

So here's a question. Are you guys going to see the Director's Cut, or are you going to wait for the 3.5 hours Ultimate Cut that has the Black Freighter spliced in?

If they come out on DVD, yes. But if it was released in theaters? Hell no.

And it wasn't the violence that made me feel a bit squeamish at times, but rather the gore. Just cause some of it was really, really in your face and obvious. Maybe I just failed to recall that being the case in the graphic novel (its been a couple of months since I last read it), or that gore in general makes me a bit uneasy. The latter might be more true than the former.

Oh and LOL at the people who, in the era of the Internet, newspaper film reviews, and tons of info at their fingertips go into movies not knowing about them or even a small hint of what happens in them. I don't feel sorry for them at all. Do your goddamn homework. Its really easy.

[Spinal]

Right. Cuz that never happened, right?

I have no idea what your point is.

[jamaul]

For one thing, it was shot almost exactly the way the newsreels show it: extreme wide. Plus, the camera never makes it an obvious focal point . . . it's happening in the background as the camera is panning right to its actual subject. Explain how this is gratuitous.

Oh yeah, and the part about it happening: JFK got the back of his head blown off. Oliver Stone showed the footage, and also staged it from alternate angles (if I'm not mistaken) in JFK.

[Spinal]

For one thing, it was shot almost exactly the way the newsreels show it: extreme wide. Plus, the camera never makes it an obvious focal point . . . it's happening in the background as the camera is panning right to its actual subject. Explain how this is gratuitous.

Oh yeah, and the part about it happening: JFK got the back of his head blown off. Oliver Stone showed the footage, and also staged it from alternate angles (if I'm not mistaken) in JFK.

JFK is a film about JFK. Watchmen is not. The footage adds nothing of substance to the film's plot or themes. It is an image of a recent American president with half of his face blown off. This is an historical figure still beloved by many who are alive today and who experienced great pain when he was assassinated. The film uses an inflammatory and emotional historical image, uses no restraint in regards to the gory details and does so for no good reason. That, to me, is the very definition of gratuitous.