Two stars out of a possible four.
Roger Ebert, a film critic I hold in high esteem, has famously said on numerous occasions (I am paraphrasing) that the quality of a film is not determined by what the film is about; rather it is determined by how it is about it. I am going to be quite up-front about it: Zach Snyder does not make great movies. He makes flawed films with great ideas and a supremely admirable degree of fidelity to the source material. If you're a person who gets off on slow motion death, Zach Snyder is the man for you.
Watchmen begins with the death of The Comedian, and his last words are poignant if you’ve never seen a film with even the barest hint of a dying joke-teller. Down in the street, a smiling pin with a drop of blood fades into the opening credits. If there is one way to get into the heart of this reviewer, it's for damn sure playing a Bob Dylan song with pictures and names scrolling by. The score of this film is, honestly, a mix-tape that anyone with decent taste could put together in about ten minutes, but that doesn't detract from the raw power of perfectly chosen songs, as my already established opinion is that this is not a good movie. It is, however, about some very good things.
Many of the shots in the film feel as though they are lifted unchanged from the comic, and I suspect many of them are. There are many quick cuts, much slow motion, and too many words spoken that are never meant for any placement than the pages of a well-worn book. I am certainly not the only person in the nation that cringed when Rorschach said "abattoir" out loud, but I think that my cringe was associated with knowing that practically no one knew what that word meant. I am absolutely uncertain as to where I picked the word up, but I did read a dictionary before and that may have done it. I understand the concept of faithfulness to the source, and the importance of the clichéd nuance of language in film noir, but that doesn't excuse whoever it was that penned this screenplay from the vast incompetence that is his work. If he was a carpenter I wouldn't hire him to build a bookshelf, and if I did he'd probably only make it big enough for one book, and that book would probably be Pride and Prejudice.
To say that the acting is unremarkable is to do this film the greatest kindness I have granted today. Dr. Manhattan seems as though Keanu Reeves should have played his part, although even the patented "whoa" may have been too emotional for the jolly blue giant. Two and a half hours is simply not enough time for the character development that is necessary for the amount of faces we see. Nite Owl II and Silk Specter II have just enough chemistry to renew my conviction that covalent bonds exist. Their absurd coupling makes me wonder if Snyder just wanted to have a sex scene in the film that didn't involve rape or glowing people, although the particular version of Hallelujah used seemed so non-erotic as to be perhaps satirical. The really violent hornet in my eye, though, is the absurdity of Dr. Manhattan's moment of clarity regarding why human life is special: this guy manipulates quantum particles in entirely bullshit ways, but has never considered the astronomical odds against any particular person existing?
Watchmen is visually arresting, especially on IMAX (on which I had the pleasure to see it). The relentless onslaught of the rain drowns away preconceptions, shifting us into a framework for which no one is particularly prepared. The mere concept of a five-term Nixon is enough to turn my stomach. The "costumed heroes" are almost absurdly non-costumed with a few exceptions; it strains credulity to think that tiny little eyepieces would be sufficient to protect one's identity. The fight scenes are well choreographed, as is to be expected from Snyder's previous work, but Ozymandias's apparent ability to jump super-high and other trivialities regarding the non-super-but-still-more-powerful-than-human heroes are present. What all filmmakers need to do is take an oath, somewhere, that states that the damage of physical blows cannot be ignored merely because it'd be inconvenient for the main character to be cold-cocked in the first round.
A person would be forgiven for hating this film on the basis of our (unfortunately) constantly reinforced belief that of "The book is always better than the movie." These are people that either forget The Godfather's existence or cite the exception proving a rule cop-out. That, however, is no excuse for having boring actors, myriad clichés, and a fatal lack of directorial vision. Zack Snyder has nearly dogmatically converted two graphic novels to the screen, and they end up being mediocre films because film is a different medium and MUST be treated differently. If you sit down and ask yourself what the really unavoidable difference between Sin City and Watchmen is, it is that Robert Rodriguez actually fucking knows how to make a great movie.
Whether or not Moore intended it, the word watchmen refers to a Latin phrase which, roughly translated as all Latin usually is, can mean lots of things: two of the relevant definitions are "who will guard the guards" and "who watches the watchmen." I'm not knocking the quote, because it's a rather good one. It is subtle, has meanings on a number of different levels, and is pointed in both directions. Inability to guard oneself from one's guards is the nightmare of every cruel tyrant who yet breathes. Alternately, who will ensure that the populace is protected from their police force? However, the problem with Watchmen is not that it does not resolve its question. It is that the film never makes you care enough about it to ask it any question at all.
-------The text above concludes the review proper, what follows are thoughts and thematic ramblings, largely unedited from notes taken while drinking coffee at Waffle House at 2 a.m.
Parallels between The Dark Knight and Watchmen are impossible to ignore and irrelevant to spend much time upon. Nolan gave us a masterwork of the genre with only the merest hint of the phantoms behind his character's masks. The concern of Snyder's film is maniacally focused on masks, and as everyone knows, masks are important because they are chosen.
It is in the desperation and the dejection of the costumed heroes that thematic unity is achieved. Rorschach's mask, ever changing, effectively begs an age-old question: when does the mask become the face? The double-edged blade of his mask is that, of course, Rorschach blots do not actually represent anything. They are projectives, and this is in itself the most scathing condemnation of human nature this side of the Mississippi. Rorschach is a creature without a self, and staring into his mask is as dangerous as Nietzsche’s abyss.
Nite Owl II is a really boring character. The stereotype he represents, as a soldier who never really comes home from the war, is tragic in case-by-case studies but not remotely useful as a person with whom we are expected to be involved. Much of his character could have been played by Robin, and Robin is not a character that is usually associated with the word Watchmen.
Silk Specter II is apparently in the plot because it has no other women, and sexy business is useful to sell tickets. Her costume does not even have a mask; it is as though the filmmakers did not take her character even seriously enough to stroke the "ooooo secrecy" of the masked heroes properly.
Watchmen could easily have been enumerated by Nietzsche, and Dr. Manhattan is as ubermensch as they come. I couldn't stop myself from wondering if all of his body got relatively bigger when he got unnecessarily large to talk shit to Ozymandias and break his roof. Furthermore, Ozymandias is great fucking poem and it's sloppy to misquote it on that sphinx-like thing's plaque. I've got lots to say about Ozymandias, the poem and not the character, but that is a subject for another day.
The narrative places us following an admittedly insane man tracking down a conspiracy. Too soon we wonder (if we don't know already) if a conspiracy exists: The Comedian seems unsavory enough. Rorschach is predictably convinced and a trope progresses: where is the delineation between the mad and the sane? Who makes this distinction, and how many are sacrificed for following orders, and later denied recognition and platitudes from the very masses they have shielded?
And what is to be done when the moral thing is no longer the right thing? Justice is perhaps the most abstract of all ideals, and yet Rorschach has defined it in ways that (predictably) initially defy comprehension. The central statement of the film, insomuch as it makes one at all, comes when The Comedian shoots that one barely relevant lady and Dr. Manhattan tries to act concerned, and The Comedian says " You coulda changed the gun into steam or the bullets into mercury or the bottle into snowflakes, but you didn't."
The accusation is not directly pointed at our darling blue giant. The discomfort is attached to our own psyches: are we watching the Watchmen? How much are we willing, really willing, to cede to the reprehensible in order to preserve our specific way of life? How powerful do we want our guards to be? And if they were true ubermensch, we need look ourselves in the eye and admit that there is no good reason to expect them to help us at all.
This movie should have been five hours long, or else it should have not been made.
Roger Ebert, a film critic I hold in high esteem, has famously said on numerous occasions (I am paraphrasing) that the quality of a film is not determined by what the film is about; rather it is determined by how it is about it. I am going to be quite up-front about it: Zach Snyder does not make great movies. He makes flawed films with great ideas and a supremely admirable degree of fidelity to the source material. If you're a person who gets off on slow motion death, Zach Snyder is the man for you.
Watchmen begins with the death of The Comedian, and his last words are poignant if you’ve never seen a film with even the barest hint of a dying joke-teller. Down in the street, a smiling pin with a drop of blood fades into the opening credits. If there is one way to get into the heart of this reviewer, it's for damn sure playing a Bob Dylan song with pictures and names scrolling by. The score of this film is, honestly, a mix-tape that anyone with decent taste could put together in about ten minutes, but that doesn't detract from the raw power of perfectly chosen songs, as my already established opinion is that this is not a good movie. It is, however, about some very good things.
Many of the shots in the film feel as though they are lifted unchanged from the comic, and I suspect many of them are. There are many quick cuts, much slow motion, and too many words spoken that are never meant for any placement than the pages of a well-worn book. I am certainly not the only person in the nation that cringed when Rorschach said "abattoir" out loud, but I think that my cringe was associated with knowing that practically no one knew what that word meant. I am absolutely uncertain as to where I picked the word up, but I did read a dictionary before and that may have done it. I understand the concept of faithfulness to the source, and the importance of the clichéd nuance of language in film noir, but that doesn't excuse whoever it was that penned this screenplay from the vast incompetence that is his work. If he was a carpenter I wouldn't hire him to build a bookshelf, and if I did he'd probably only make it big enough for one book, and that book would probably be Pride and Prejudice.
To say that the acting is unremarkable is to do this film the greatest kindness I have granted today. Dr. Manhattan seems as though Keanu Reeves should have played his part, although even the patented "whoa" may have been too emotional for the jolly blue giant. Two and a half hours is simply not enough time for the character development that is necessary for the amount of faces we see. Nite Owl II and Silk Specter II have just enough chemistry to renew my conviction that covalent bonds exist. Their absurd coupling makes me wonder if Snyder just wanted to have a sex scene in the film that didn't involve rape or glowing people, although the particular version of Hallelujah used seemed so non-erotic as to be perhaps satirical. The really violent hornet in my eye, though, is the absurdity of Dr. Manhattan's moment of clarity regarding why human life is special: this guy manipulates quantum particles in entirely bullshit ways, but has never considered the astronomical odds against any particular person existing?
Watchmen is visually arresting, especially on IMAX (on which I had the pleasure to see it). The relentless onslaught of the rain drowns away preconceptions, shifting us into a framework for which no one is particularly prepared. The mere concept of a five-term Nixon is enough to turn my stomach. The "costumed heroes" are almost absurdly non-costumed with a few exceptions; it strains credulity to think that tiny little eyepieces would be sufficient to protect one's identity. The fight scenes are well choreographed, as is to be expected from Snyder's previous work, but Ozymandias's apparent ability to jump super-high and other trivialities regarding the non-super-but-still-more-powerful-than-human heroes are present. What all filmmakers need to do is take an oath, somewhere, that states that the damage of physical blows cannot be ignored merely because it'd be inconvenient for the main character to be cold-cocked in the first round.
A person would be forgiven for hating this film on the basis of our (unfortunately) constantly reinforced belief that of "The book is always better than the movie." These are people that either forget The Godfather's existence or cite the exception proving a rule cop-out. That, however, is no excuse for having boring actors, myriad clichés, and a fatal lack of directorial vision. Zack Snyder has nearly dogmatically converted two graphic novels to the screen, and they end up being mediocre films because film is a different medium and MUST be treated differently. If you sit down and ask yourself what the really unavoidable difference between Sin City and Watchmen is, it is that Robert Rodriguez actually fucking knows how to make a great movie.
Whether or not Moore intended it, the word watchmen refers to a Latin phrase which, roughly translated as all Latin usually is, can mean lots of things: two of the relevant definitions are "who will guard the guards" and "who watches the watchmen." I'm not knocking the quote, because it's a rather good one. It is subtle, has meanings on a number of different levels, and is pointed in both directions. Inability to guard oneself from one's guards is the nightmare of every cruel tyrant who yet breathes. Alternately, who will ensure that the populace is protected from their police force? However, the problem with Watchmen is not that it does not resolve its question. It is that the film never makes you care enough about it to ask it any question at all.
-------The text above concludes the review proper, what follows are thoughts and thematic ramblings, largely unedited from notes taken while drinking coffee at Waffle House at 2 a.m.
Parallels between The Dark Knight and Watchmen are impossible to ignore and irrelevant to spend much time upon. Nolan gave us a masterwork of the genre with only the merest hint of the phantoms behind his character's masks. The concern of Snyder's film is maniacally focused on masks, and as everyone knows, masks are important because they are chosen.
It is in the desperation and the dejection of the costumed heroes that thematic unity is achieved. Rorschach's mask, ever changing, effectively begs an age-old question: when does the mask become the face? The double-edged blade of his mask is that, of course, Rorschach blots do not actually represent anything. They are projectives, and this is in itself the most scathing condemnation of human nature this side of the Mississippi. Rorschach is a creature without a self, and staring into his mask is as dangerous as Nietzsche’s abyss.
Nite Owl II is a really boring character. The stereotype he represents, as a soldier who never really comes home from the war, is tragic in case-by-case studies but not remotely useful as a person with whom we are expected to be involved. Much of his character could have been played by Robin, and Robin is not a character that is usually associated with the word Watchmen.
Silk Specter II is apparently in the plot because it has no other women, and sexy business is useful to sell tickets. Her costume does not even have a mask; it is as though the filmmakers did not take her character even seriously enough to stroke the "ooooo secrecy" of the masked heroes properly.
Watchmen could easily have been enumerated by Nietzsche, and Dr. Manhattan is as ubermensch as they come. I couldn't stop myself from wondering if all of his body got relatively bigger when he got unnecessarily large to talk shit to Ozymandias and break his roof. Furthermore, Ozymandias is great fucking poem and it's sloppy to misquote it on that sphinx-like thing's plaque. I've got lots to say about Ozymandias, the poem and not the character, but that is a subject for another day.
The narrative places us following an admittedly insane man tracking down a conspiracy. Too soon we wonder (if we don't know already) if a conspiracy exists: The Comedian seems unsavory enough. Rorschach is predictably convinced and a trope progresses: where is the delineation between the mad and the sane? Who makes this distinction, and how many are sacrificed for following orders, and later denied recognition and platitudes from the very masses they have shielded?
And what is to be done when the moral thing is no longer the right thing? Justice is perhaps the most abstract of all ideals, and yet Rorschach has defined it in ways that (predictably) initially defy comprehension. The central statement of the film, insomuch as it makes one at all, comes when The Comedian shoots that one barely relevant lady and Dr. Manhattan tries to act concerned, and The Comedian says " You coulda changed the gun into steam or the bullets into mercury or the bottle into snowflakes, but you didn't."
The accusation is not directly pointed at our darling blue giant. The discomfort is attached to our own psyches: are we watching the Watchmen? How much are we willing, really willing, to cede to the reprehensible in order to preserve our specific way of life? How powerful do we want our guards to be? And if they were true ubermensch, we need look ourselves in the eye and admit that there is no good reason to expect them to help us at all.
This movie should have been five hours long, or else it should have not been made.
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