Semi-Movie Rec: "Watchmen"
Saturday, March 7th, 2009 03:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
retsukoPart of me wishes that Alan Moore had contributed to "Watchmen" in some small way instead of forsaking all association with it, because I feel like the movie would have been better for it. Of course, I also feel like the movie would have been better with 20 minutes trimmed and a few more sentences of exposition, but then again, I feel that way about many films.
This is not an easy or "fun" movie, but it is a strong adaptation of the original. And just like the original work, it takes itself very seriously. (Or perhaps I should type "VRY SRS MOVIE.")
The Goods:
* The set dressing and costuming are amazing--in many shots, it's as if you're watching a panel of Dave Gibbons' work come to life. It is clear that the creative team behind the film aspired to make something that was respectful and authentic to the original, but worked on the big screen, and they succeeded.
* I want an Archie. Seriously, what an awesome little ship, full of cool superhero gadgets and neat tricks... seeing it made me remember why superheroes are cool (which I don't think was the film's intention at all).
* A riveting performance by Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach. I cannot decide when he was more compelling--with the mask or without.
* The romance between Silk Spectre and Nite Owl II is very believable and (except for the least sexily filmed sex I've seen in a long time) touching. In fact, I rather liked Nite Owl because he seemed like a character waking up from a bad dream as the story progressed and his reactions to the events of the narrative were entirely reasonable. Silk Spectre is vastly improved in the film and decidedly more kick-ass. In fact, except for her long hair, I thought her crime-fighting costume looked rather practical.
* Dr. Manhattan's palace on Mars is mesmerizingly beautiful. I don't care that it's all CGI--it was such an amazing visual.
The Bads:
* SO. MUCH. VIOLENCE. I was a little gratified that I wasn't the only one in the theater who didn't like this (there were several gasps of surprise and revulsion), but it was largely cold comfort. "The Dark Knight" pushed my buttons on the violence front, but this pushed all my buttons and then threw out the switchboard. The story necessitates most of it, and at least what is shown is realistic--none of the Disney nonsense where someone is hit or killed, but there's no blood. OTOH, seeing Rorschach murder a murderer with a cleaver to the head is pretty frikkin' intense, as is hot oil to the head, assorted bullets to assorted body parts, and the center of NYC blown up.
* (*points to above*) Also, the (attempted) rape scene... just awful. The only good thing that the movie does with it is not have the dialogue that follows in the book, where Hooded Justice tells Silk Spectre that she's a filthy whore and to clean herself up. At least the writers got rid of that.
* The soundtrack, while chock-full of classic songs, was overbearing and far too obvious for its own good.
The "I Don't Know What to Think"s:
* The whole "is humanity worth saving?!" argument got extremely tiresome extremely quickly. You can't have a satisfying discussion on this topic in three hours. You only sort of have it in the course of 250 or so pages.
* What is with the anti-liberal/anti-intellectual thing? When did it become bad to be smart and well-educated? (This question isn't specific to this film, I know, but it seemed hammered home several times too many.)
* I STILL want to know what this story would have been like were Alan Moore a woman.
tl;dr version: The movie is not quite the mindf*** that the book is, but it's not a simplified version of the story, either. Be prepared for overly serious exposition and philosophical meanderings against the backdrop of a (sometimes too) violent and action-packed story.
This is not an easy or "fun" movie, but it is a strong adaptation of the original. And just like the original work, it takes itself very seriously. (Or perhaps I should type "VRY SRS MOVIE.")
The Goods:
* The set dressing and costuming are amazing--in many shots, it's as if you're watching a panel of Dave Gibbons' work come to life. It is clear that the creative team behind the film aspired to make something that was respectful and authentic to the original, but worked on the big screen, and they succeeded.
* I want an Archie. Seriously, what an awesome little ship, full of cool superhero gadgets and neat tricks... seeing it made me remember why superheroes are cool (which I don't think was the film's intention at all).
* A riveting performance by Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach. I cannot decide when he was more compelling--with the mask or without.
* The romance between Silk Spectre and Nite Owl II is very believable and (except for the least sexily filmed sex I've seen in a long time) touching. In fact, I rather liked Nite Owl because he seemed like a character waking up from a bad dream as the story progressed and his reactions to the events of the narrative were entirely reasonable. Silk Spectre is vastly improved in the film and decidedly more kick-ass. In fact, except for her long hair, I thought her crime-fighting costume looked rather practical.
* Dr. Manhattan's palace on Mars is mesmerizingly beautiful. I don't care that it's all CGI--it was such an amazing visual.
The Bads:
* SO. MUCH. VIOLENCE. I was a little gratified that I wasn't the only one in the theater who didn't like this (there were several gasps of surprise and revulsion), but it was largely cold comfort. "The Dark Knight" pushed my buttons on the violence front, but this pushed all my buttons and then threw out the switchboard. The story necessitates most of it, and at least what is shown is realistic--none of the Disney nonsense where someone is hit or killed, but there's no blood. OTOH, seeing Rorschach murder a murderer with a cleaver to the head is pretty frikkin' intense, as is hot oil to the head, assorted bullets to assorted body parts, and the center of NYC blown up.
* (*points to above*) Also, the (attempted) rape scene... just awful. The only good thing that the movie does with it is not have the dialogue that follows in the book, where Hooded Justice tells Silk Spectre that she's a filthy whore and to clean herself up. At least the writers got rid of that.
* The soundtrack, while chock-full of classic songs, was overbearing and far too obvious for its own good.
The "I Don't Know What to Think"s:
* The whole "is humanity worth saving?!" argument got extremely tiresome extremely quickly. You can't have a satisfying discussion on this topic in three hours. You only sort of have it in the course of 250 or so pages.
* What is with the anti-liberal/anti-intellectual thing? When did it become bad to be smart and well-educated? (This question isn't specific to this film, I know, but it seemed hammered home several times too many.)
* I STILL want to know what this story would have been like were Alan Moore a woman.
tl;dr version: The movie is not quite the mindf*** that the book is, but it's not a simplified version of the story, either. Be prepared for overly serious exposition and philosophical meanderings against the backdrop of a (sometimes too) violent and action-packed story.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-03-09 03:02 am (UTC)In the context of the movie at least, it was largely spouted by characters who are portrayed as arch-conservatives. Interestingly, the Watchmen who do the most anti-liberal spouting are the two characters who are unwilling to go along with Ozymandias' plot.
In this, I think that someone, perhaps Moore, captures the limitations of both the "liberal" and "conservative" worldviews. Stereotypical conservatives are typically more "grounded" and "pragmatic" but sometimes lose the forest for the trees. Stereotypical liberals, conversely, tend to think in abstract, global terms without regard for the "on the ground" reality.
For instance, Ozymandias is a liberal, vegetarian pacifist seeking to create a warless utopia at the cost of several million lives. He "feels" responsible for the lives he takes, yet he kills those people by remote control.
Rorschach, on the other hand, is a brutally violent conservative who wants to clean up the world one bad guy at a time. His worldview is absolutely black-and-white and he accepts no shades of grey in determining the rightness or wrongness of his actions.
The conflict between them exists on numerous levels. For instance, Rorschach would prefer to face his victims, while Ozymandias looks on remotely. Rorschach views any innocent person as absolutely undeserving of death, while Ozymandias plays a dispassionate numbers game. Ozymandias chooses to work by deception, whilst Rorschach believes that the deception is wrong. Ozymandias believes that he can end war, but Rorschach believes that conflict is part of human nature.
This is the typical conflict between liberals and conservatives. Liberals see the big picture and the possibilities and complain that the conservatives are being obstructionistic. Conservatives complain the liberals have their heads in the clouds and need to pay more attention to the "real world" because the liberals' grand plans aren't panning out the way they intended.