I've never read comic-books, but I am a fan of movie series like X-Men, Spiderman and Batman. I thought they all had great plots, characters, action and special effects. I had no problem jumping into the story line being unfamiliar with the source material. In Watchmen, so much emphasis is placed on recapturing the exact details of Alan Moore's "graphic novel", that pieces of the big picture were left out. For instance, how exactly did all these regular people become super-heroes? They don't have any special powers; the only explanation given was "because nobody else would". Also, after trying to rape his best fried The Comedian later "sealed the deal". How exactly did that come about? I felt like somewhat of an outsider watching this movie.Of course, Watchmen cult followers have a different view; Time Magazine's Matt Selman writes: "Sitting in that screening room and watching the visual world of the Watchmen movie unfold was one of the most powerful experiences I've ever had. Not film experiences. Just EXPERIENCES. I don't think I realized how close I was to the original book until I saw such a loving, detail-rich, almost obsessive recreation of that universe. It had my heart pounding and head swimming. I barely slept that night. Someone took the most special personal thing of my adolescence and put it on a movie screen. That doesn't happen every day."
...Okay, but I think The Baltimore Sun's Michael Sragow hit it spot on: "The ultimate question raised by the movie version of the celebrated graphic novel Watchmen may not be "Who watches the Watchmen?" but "Who will check their watches during Watchmen?" Ticking in at two hours and 43 minutes, this slavish exercise in revisionist comic-book lore takes more than an hour to get started, and then never gets its scale or proportion right."
It seems that a big part of the hype surrounding the Watchmen is director Zack Snyder's statement that it would "transcend the perceptions of the superhero genre", being a film with more depth and substance than its comic-book predecessors". If having more depth and substance means being really long and showing scene after scene of a giant blue guy's ass and penis then mission accomplished, Zack Snyder!
Yeah, I get it, Dr. Manhattan has isolated himself from society and no longer has a connection with human kind, hence, doesn't feel the need to conform by wearing clothes. But did every camera shot really need to be full body? Blue ass in the lab, blue penis on Mars, blue ass and penis about town. If exhibitionism is a super power, then reality tv show such as VH1's Flavor of Love need to be reevaluated.
Boring... who hasnt seen a radiant blue glowing penis before? I do live by a WW2 nuclear manufacturing facility afterall. I am curious if being a superhero automatically renders you hairless or if that is an option you get to pick. " I would like the power of flight and no back hair. Which radioactive pool should I fall into?"
ReplyDeleteThat's a good question. You may have to refer to the "Nerd's Comic-book Superhero Handbook" for that answer. I would also like the power of flight and no back hair... let me know what you come up with and we could maybe be energy efficient and use the same nuclear powered explosion to get our super powers.
ReplyDeleteThe book was weird but I imagine better than the movie. I haven't seen the movie but recommend the book but again have to warn people about some of the weird subplots. I hear the ending of the movie didn't involve a giant squid, which the book does. Seriously it's a stretch to imagine why anyone thought Watchmen would appeal to a wider movie watching audience. 300 was at least a straight forward action movie, not a weird 1985 where Nixon is still President.
ReplyDeleteI'm somewhat curious about the book now. I may have to check it out just to see what the difference is between a "graphic novel" and a plain old comic-book.
ReplyDeleteThe incorporation of a giant squid would be a great addition to nearly any movie. That could very well have made up for Watchmen's disappointments. It would also have been more realistic than Nixon still being president :)