Who Watches the Watchmen?

Published
by
jason
on March 6, 2009
in Just Cool and Movies
. 4 Comments

Well… um… we do? I mean it’s out now in theaters.

Luckily that question is not the only one I have answers for today as we were able to catch the Watchmen at  a midnight showing last night.

Here’s another question: Was it any good?

Hell yes it was. Brutal, graphic, pretty to look at, well paced, well acted and it hit a very large majority of the books major points right on the head.

Here is where things get tricky. If you did not read the book, you’ll likely be confused as hell at times and you’ll probably be surprised by the overall adult nature of it. You see this is not the Xmen, or Spiderman or any other average comic book. The majority of the ‘heros’ have some heavy pyschological issues, 0 superpowers and are basically masked vigilantes that the majority of society would like to see locked up permanently. The only guy that actually has any real super-type abilities is mostly devoid of emotion and really doesn’t give a shit about the human race.

So if you read the book and loved it and you’re not a detail nazi (ZOMG!!!11!! RORSHACH IS SUPPOSED TO GO HOME FOR HIS SECOND MASK!!! THIS MOVIE IS RUINED!!!) then you’ll love it. They pulled no punches when it came to the graphic nature of the novel, so don’t be surpised to see shredded flesh, attempted rape, a bunch of breasts, compound fractures, blue penises (penii??) and more.

Bottom line is this. It’s not for everyone, but for the fans of the graphic novel it seems like the movie version you could have only hoped for.

BTW: yes the ending has been changed and that entire plotline that goes into the construction of the ‘squid’ has been scrapped, but I think it’s for the best. The movie’s ending not only performs the exact same function, it actually feels more legit.

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4 Responses to “Who Watches the Watchmen?”

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  1. 1 Dodge Saxton
    March 7, 2009 at 12:09 am

    Saw the film Friday morning when I got off from work. Yes Im calling it a film, not a movie. I thought it was very well done.
    I cant agree more that there were moments during the film that I was thinking to myself that if I hadnt read the novel Im not sure I would know what the hell was going on. But I did read it twice, so it was easy for me to put the pieces together. Non readers may have a problem from time to time.
    One moment I loved from the graphic novel left out of the film was Rorscharch breaking the guys fingers one at a time in the bar. I loved this part of the book. In the film he squeezed the guys hand on a broken glass, nice, but I liked the fingers better.
    One of my fav segments of the graphic was Chapter IV. I thought the film lacked a bit in this area. I liked how Dr. manhattan kept bouncing through time as he told his story in this chapter. I thought the underplayed it in the film.
    I loved all the music in the movie, but there were times that I thought I would have chosen differently. The apocalypse now music during the vietnam scene was a bit obviouse.
    Anyway, Im picking it appart. bottom line is I loved it. even the changes mage to the end were ok. they didnt totaly fuck it up like they did I am legend. Small changes that worked.
    Lastly, Ihave comments on two of the actors.
    first, I thought Patrick Willson as Night Owl two was sooo bad, it came close to ruining the film for me, and I am of the oppinion that there hasnt been a bounce back performance as strong as Jackie Earle Haleys Rorscharch since Travoltas Vincent Vega. In fact, if someone said to me tomorrow that they were going to make a movie about Rorschach, I wouldnt be surprised. He was awesome.

  2. 2 Brett
    March 8, 2009 at 2:53 pm

    So, Chuck and I saw it las night, and I must say…I was very underwhelmed by the flick.

    Let me start by saying visually, it was an outstanding achievement. From this aspect, I feel like Zach Snyder was successful in translating the visuals from the page to the screen. In some scenes, almost exactly.

    Acting…I’d have to disagree with you Dogde…I felt Patrick Wilson did a pretty solid job of portraying Dreiberg…remember back to the book and how nerdy he really was. If anything, I though Wilson and the writers made him a little too cool. Jackie Earl Haley was clearly the stand out here though. A lot of his story was left out, and that’s a shame. I agree with you that a Rorschach movie would be really cool.

    As far as chapter IV is concerned, I think they really missed a big part of the story line there. That whole section provides the story with a real look into Dr. Manhattan and Laurie Juspeckzzwajehajckea-whatever. I was left feeling that those two characters were incomplete in the end…now that I think about it more, I feel like this applies to The Comedian and Sally Jupiter. It started out in the right direction with both of these characters and portraying their respective issues, but this all got lost at some point about half way through.

    I’m not about to say that I think Snyder sucks and shouldn’t have made this movie, or anything like that. I’m really just saying that this graphic novel was constructed in such a way by Alan Moore, that it really is not possible to fully translate it as a 2+ hour movie.

    Chuck and I were discussing it, and the way I explained it to him was that this type of story, translated to a movie is most readily available for the Batman franchise. More specifically, a few of the themes touched on, were also explored by the Dark Knight Returns novel. What would make this even easier to digest is that there is really only 1 character to digest, rather than more than 8 in Watchmen.

    As for the ending…I actually prefer Snyder’s version over the original. The whole squid thing was a little ridiculous, and the way they incorporated blaming Dr. M to save the masses worked much better. (do you find it ironic that The Dark Knight used this exact same plot point less than 1 year ago??? I’m just saying….)

    I would rate this somewhere between a 6 and a 7. Visuals, effects and cinematography were outstanding…story, character development and flow weakened the over all story…

    I’ll be expected a lot for X-Men Origins: Wolverine in a few weeks

  3. 3 jason
    March 8, 2009 at 3:16 pm

    Brett underwhelmed… what a shock!

    I’m pretty sure that we could have a nuclear holocaust and Brett would look up moments before the blastwave and say “These explosion effects really are not so fantastic, and my fellow citizens… C’mon people, I’m really not believing your fear… I give this a 5 out of 10″

    I thought that Dreiberg was pretty spot on, but Ozymandais was pretty bland(and scrawny).

  4. 4 Brett
    March 8, 2009 at 4:27 pm

    Ozy’s story was definitely lacking, but how much longer could it be…5 hours?

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