Who Watches the Watchmen? Apparently me. - A Review
Hey all;
I went and saw Watchmen on opening day. There may be some spoilage here...so if you haven't seen it and want to...don't read further.
OK now that that is out of the way...
Watchmen as directed by Zach Snyder is NOT a comic book superhero movie. No matter what you read, see, or hear...this is NOT a movie that you should EVER EVEN CONSIDER bringing a kid to.
It is based upon a 12 issue mini-series published in 1986 by DC Comics. However...it is NOT Superman, Batman or even Doom Patrol. It is a dark, gritty and very thought provoking drama using Heroes and masked vigilantes as a looking glass into a world teetering on the edge of nuclear armageddon. The heroes are not 'white hats' and not without their own hangups, issues and motivations for being 'heroes'. The book is 23 years old...and for me still very readable and relevant today (unlike much of the 80's comics). It's not a 'feel good' or uplifting story...but a morality play and one that doesn't end very well at all. However the bad ending in my opinion lends credence to the art form now known as Graphic Novels and what was then "Funny Books". It was a gutt shot ending...something that you walked away from feeling that while it wasn't the best you could hope for...because of the sheer chutzpah and form it took to write...you just felt that it was far more REAL than other comics can feel like. This book changed the face of comics for the next 23 years and I imagine will continue to have an impact moving forward.
Since it's finale in mid-87...many have talked of adapting it to the screen. However with it's dark ending, flawed characters, and incredible effects needed for the one super powered hero...no major studio would TOUCH the property. Fast forward 20 years. In 2007, Zach Snyder signed on to do an adaptation of Frank Miller's 300. When he did he managed to get Warner Bros to sign off on letting him tell the story as visually accurate of the 'novel' as he could. They agreed, and rolled the dice.
It came up with a Hard Six.
300 was a HUGE success. It made MILLIONS more than anyone thought it would, and even made more on DVD and BluRay. Snyder has said often that he was hoping that would work...because he REALLY wanted to tackle another 'pet' project. He played his cards close to the vest and then when 300 hit big...it came out. He wanted to make "Watchmen".
The announcement was met with skepticism in many online movie site circles. We've heard it before...gotten our hopes up, but had them dashed by Fox again and again. Hearing WB was going to do it, Snyder was directing, and it was being 'fast tracked' gave us hope however. Then we heard the casting rumors. Rohrshach played by at one point Nick Cage, then another the dude who played the pitcher on the Bad News Bears (Who got the part), the dude from Grey's Anatomy playing Comedian, the rest some no-name actors. Once these started pouring in...people started getting excited. We ate every MORSEL they gave us in regards to pics, vids, storyboards. When the promo images of the characters came out...everyone was on board. While I (and others) thought Adrien was a miscast (still do)...you couldn't disregard how screen accurate everything was. It was AWESOME.
Fast forward to last week.
I struggled I have to say with the decision of seeing this movie. I know the material...and have been waiting 23 years to see it 'move'. I knew that Snyder was an adapting genius. Maybe not a REAL filmmaker...but more like an author who writes the novelization of a popular movie. Doing his best to put his stamp on material that with luck...is embedded on the mind of the reader. His skills came out obviously in how he presented the material, solved the issues of how to render Doc Manhatten, solve Owl-man's no doubt issues...with the way his costume would translate in a gritty world and whether Silk Spectre's costume would be the sheer type or using more rubberized as we're used to seeing. However I also know the darkness of the material. My struggle came with my own issues of being able to seperate the beliefs I hold in regards to morality and purity...and allowing myself to seeing some of the things I knew that would be in there.
In the end I decided to go. Deciding to avoid the issues I had with the no doubt "Over the top"-ness of the sex scene in Archie (the owl-ship)...and decided that at that moment I would not watch...(and didn't)...and should there be anything else...I was resigned to walking out should it get too bad. Again I knew the material, and was not gonna be surprised I imagined after reading some of the reviews.
So I sat in the theatre. Eating my Skittles and Nerds and drinking my swimming pool sized soda (Complete with Life Guard) and from moment 1...I was transported into one of my favorite comic stories of all time.
What an amazing look/feel and environment. Snyder managed to make a comic page come to life. From the opening montage which managed to go into a lot of the deeper subtlties of the work involving the first group of heroes from the 40's and 50's...and their various 'less than stellar' endings...to the rise of the 'watchmen' (a movie change...in the book they were called "Crimebusters" and the title was more about the idea of Watchmen than the team name). When we open...we see the beating of the Comedian and how he was forced to take the express to the street beneath his building. From the minute Rorshach shows up...the movie is almost frame for frame a panel remake of the book. Amazingly vivid, and engrossing.
Jackie Earl Haley's Rohrshach is AMAZING. Sounding and looking exactly as I heard him in my head for the last 20 years of numerous readings of the piece. The actor they got for Owl-Man2 is also...VERY dead on. The dead dude on Grey's Anatomy playing Blake was CHILLING! Ya know I've never dug the guy on GA...but as I've seen him in other roles...I can see how amazing an actor he is. Just AWESOME. Crudup as Doc Manhattan was by far the best casting in the flick. His voice is NATURALLY distant and crisp. So when he starts losing his emotions, and tether to reality...Crudup's dialect changes from the way he started...talking to Blake in the bar in Vietnam...to how he handled Adrien at the end. Adrien and Silk Spectre...Frankly these two were BY FAR the weakest. I mean MAN...Adrien looked far more like my impression of how Nicolae Carpathia would be in a remake of Left Behind..then the 'magazine cover' superhero of this world. He was FAR too small, far too short, and overall just NOT Adrien Veidt. The woman playing Laurie Juspeczyk (not Jupiter) was no doubt hired because of her looks and not ability to convey emotion...her role in the movie and book are meant to really set off action in the various men in the flick. She's attached at one time or another to all but Rorshach...and is used to move them in newer directions in their lives overall. However the actress they got was almost a carbon copy of Kate Bosworth in Superman Returns. She could not truly convey emotion with her voice, body or eyes. She looked good in spandex, and funny with a brown wig on. None of the miscasts (with the exception of Adrien) took me out of the action though. The secondary characters (Moloch, Silk Spectre 1, and Owl Man 1) were SPOT ON PERFECT. Carla Gugino was AMAZING as Sally Jupiter, and Matt Frewer (Max Headroom) did his part as the semi-crazy enemy of Comedian amazingly well.
The entire movie served to take me to another world...a world where Nixon was never ousted, that was teetering on the brink of nuclear armageddon, where only 1 superhero existed and masked vigilantes while once normal...were outlawed. Which is what a flick is supposed to do.
What was great about this...is that this isn't like other superhero movies. Batman, Superman, XMen, Spiderman etc....they all take a character, and Hollywood-ize them a story. They don't go into Batman and write "The Killing Joke" (which I'd love to see), or Superman and do "Death of Superman" or...they renege on promises (I'm looking at you Fox...with the ending of X2 and the promise of Phoenix...to the sheer CRAP FACTORY you created 2 years later with X3, and how you just killed the franchise), and in some cases shoot too high.
Watchmen instead of making a story involving these characters...instead takes the work and adapts it. It's what we as comic fans want to see. I for one would LOVE to see Fox say "We're going to make "the Dark Phoenix Saga". You know who these characters are...now watch the flick. Superman is going to die on screen in Death of Superman...but don't worry...it's just a story and you'll be ok. Doing that would probably net the studios BILLIONS as most comic fans WANT an adaptation true to the story. With Watchmen we get it...and I for one was in a geekish state for 2 hours afterward.
The big story of course is the ending. If you've read the book...you know what is SUPPOSED to happen. One of the heroes believes he can save humanity by uniting them against a common foe...in this case a squid like genetic creation meant to resemble an alien who when he materializes in NY's Times Square will kill half of New York City with the psychic backlash upon death. It served as a tool for our 'heroes' who discover the plot to decide what to do with the knowledge when the plan works and they must decide whether exposing the plot and sending the planet headlong into nuclear armageddon is worth their own discomfort at such an abject horror being carried out and they being 'in the know'.
Fact is...the ending they came up with is different but serves the story well. So I won't ruin it.
In any event...this movie is amazingly true to the source material. It's exactly what I expected. I enjoyed it. If you liked the book...you'll love the movie. If you didn't read the book...know this is an R-Rated movie and go in knowing that. It has violence, sex, and adult themes...it's not Superman and Batman meeting up to go after Penguin. So know what you're watching before checking it out.
On my scale...of 1 to 10...I give it 8...but again I'm a comic geek. :)
Have a great day and thanks for reading.
I went and saw Watchmen on opening day. There may be some spoilage here...so if you haven't seen it and want to...don't read further.
OK now that that is out of the way...
Watchmen as directed by Zach Snyder is NOT a comic book superhero movie. No matter what you read, see, or hear...this is NOT a movie that you should EVER EVEN CONSIDER bringing a kid to.
It is based upon a 12 issue mini-series published in 1986 by DC Comics. However...it is NOT Superman, Batman or even Doom Patrol. It is a dark, gritty and very thought provoking drama using Heroes and masked vigilantes as a looking glass into a world teetering on the edge of nuclear armageddon. The heroes are not 'white hats' and not without their own hangups, issues and motivations for being 'heroes'. The book is 23 years old...and for me still very readable and relevant today (unlike much of the 80's comics). It's not a 'feel good' or uplifting story...but a morality play and one that doesn't end very well at all. However the bad ending in my opinion lends credence to the art form now known as Graphic Novels and what was then "Funny Books". It was a gutt shot ending...something that you walked away from feeling that while it wasn't the best you could hope for...because of the sheer chutzpah and form it took to write...you just felt that it was far more REAL than other comics can feel like. This book changed the face of comics for the next 23 years and I imagine will continue to have an impact moving forward.
Since it's finale in mid-87...many have talked of adapting it to the screen. However with it's dark ending, flawed characters, and incredible effects needed for the one super powered hero...no major studio would TOUCH the property. Fast forward 20 years. In 2007, Zach Snyder signed on to do an adaptation of Frank Miller's 300. When he did he managed to get Warner Bros to sign off on letting him tell the story as visually accurate of the 'novel' as he could. They agreed, and rolled the dice.
It came up with a Hard Six.
300 was a HUGE success. It made MILLIONS more than anyone thought it would, and even made more on DVD and BluRay. Snyder has said often that he was hoping that would work...because he REALLY wanted to tackle another 'pet' project. He played his cards close to the vest and then when 300 hit big...it came out. He wanted to make "Watchmen".
The announcement was met with skepticism in many online movie site circles. We've heard it before...gotten our hopes up, but had them dashed by Fox again and again. Hearing WB was going to do it, Snyder was directing, and it was being 'fast tracked' gave us hope however. Then we heard the casting rumors. Rohrshach played by at one point Nick Cage, then another the dude who played the pitcher on the Bad News Bears (Who got the part), the dude from Grey's Anatomy playing Comedian, the rest some no-name actors. Once these started pouring in...people started getting excited. We ate every MORSEL they gave us in regards to pics, vids, storyboards. When the promo images of the characters came out...everyone was on board. While I (and others) thought Adrien was a miscast (still do)...you couldn't disregard how screen accurate everything was. It was AWESOME.
Fast forward to last week.
I struggled I have to say with the decision of seeing this movie. I know the material...and have been waiting 23 years to see it 'move'. I knew that Snyder was an adapting genius. Maybe not a REAL filmmaker...but more like an author who writes the novelization of a popular movie. Doing his best to put his stamp on material that with luck...is embedded on the mind of the reader. His skills came out obviously in how he presented the material, solved the issues of how to render Doc Manhatten, solve Owl-man's no doubt issues...with the way his costume would translate in a gritty world and whether Silk Spectre's costume would be the sheer type or using more rubberized as we're used to seeing. However I also know the darkness of the material. My struggle came with my own issues of being able to seperate the beliefs I hold in regards to morality and purity...and allowing myself to seeing some of the things I knew that would be in there.
In the end I decided to go. Deciding to avoid the issues I had with the no doubt "Over the top"-ness of the sex scene in Archie (the owl-ship)...and decided that at that moment I would not watch...(and didn't)...and should there be anything else...I was resigned to walking out should it get too bad. Again I knew the material, and was not gonna be surprised I imagined after reading some of the reviews.
So I sat in the theatre. Eating my Skittles and Nerds and drinking my swimming pool sized soda (Complete with Life Guard) and from moment 1...I was transported into one of my favorite comic stories of all time.
What an amazing look/feel and environment. Snyder managed to make a comic page come to life. From the opening montage which managed to go into a lot of the deeper subtlties of the work involving the first group of heroes from the 40's and 50's...and their various 'less than stellar' endings...to the rise of the 'watchmen' (a movie change...in the book they were called "Crimebusters" and the title was more about the idea of Watchmen than the team name). When we open...we see the beating of the Comedian and how he was forced to take the express to the street beneath his building. From the minute Rorshach shows up...the movie is almost frame for frame a panel remake of the book. Amazingly vivid, and engrossing.
Jackie Earl Haley's Rohrshach is AMAZING. Sounding and looking exactly as I heard him in my head for the last 20 years of numerous readings of the piece. The actor they got for Owl-Man2 is also...VERY dead on. The dead dude on Grey's Anatomy playing Blake was CHILLING! Ya know I've never dug the guy on GA...but as I've seen him in other roles...I can see how amazing an actor he is. Just AWESOME. Crudup as Doc Manhattan was by far the best casting in the flick. His voice is NATURALLY distant and crisp. So when he starts losing his emotions, and tether to reality...Crudup's dialect changes from the way he started...talking to Blake in the bar in Vietnam...to how he handled Adrien at the end. Adrien and Silk Spectre...Frankly these two were BY FAR the weakest. I mean MAN...Adrien looked far more like my impression of how Nicolae Carpathia would be in a remake of Left Behind..then the 'magazine cover' superhero of this world. He was FAR too small, far too short, and overall just NOT Adrien Veidt. The woman playing Laurie Juspeczyk (not Jupiter) was no doubt hired because of her looks and not ability to convey emotion...her role in the movie and book are meant to really set off action in the various men in the flick. She's attached at one time or another to all but Rorshach...and is used to move them in newer directions in their lives overall. However the actress they got was almost a carbon copy of Kate Bosworth in Superman Returns. She could not truly convey emotion with her voice, body or eyes. She looked good in spandex, and funny with a brown wig on. None of the miscasts (with the exception of Adrien) took me out of the action though. The secondary characters (Moloch, Silk Spectre 1, and Owl Man 1) were SPOT ON PERFECT. Carla Gugino was AMAZING as Sally Jupiter, and Matt Frewer (Max Headroom) did his part as the semi-crazy enemy of Comedian amazingly well.
The entire movie served to take me to another world...a world where Nixon was never ousted, that was teetering on the brink of nuclear armageddon, where only 1 superhero existed and masked vigilantes while once normal...were outlawed. Which is what a flick is supposed to do.
What was great about this...is that this isn't like other superhero movies. Batman, Superman, XMen, Spiderman etc....they all take a character, and Hollywood-ize them a story. They don't go into Batman and write "The Killing Joke" (which I'd love to see), or Superman and do "Death of Superman" or...they renege on promises (I'm looking at you Fox...with the ending of X2 and the promise of Phoenix...to the sheer CRAP FACTORY you created 2 years later with X3, and how you just killed the franchise), and in some cases shoot too high.
Watchmen instead of making a story involving these characters...instead takes the work and adapts it. It's what we as comic fans want to see. I for one would LOVE to see Fox say "We're going to make "the Dark Phoenix Saga". You know who these characters are...now watch the flick. Superman is going to die on screen in Death of Superman...but don't worry...it's just a story and you'll be ok. Doing that would probably net the studios BILLIONS as most comic fans WANT an adaptation true to the story. With Watchmen we get it...and I for one was in a geekish state for 2 hours afterward.
The big story of course is the ending. If you've read the book...you know what is SUPPOSED to happen. One of the heroes believes he can save humanity by uniting them against a common foe...in this case a squid like genetic creation meant to resemble an alien who when he materializes in NY's Times Square will kill half of New York City with the psychic backlash upon death. It served as a tool for our 'heroes' who discover the plot to decide what to do with the knowledge when the plan works and they must decide whether exposing the plot and sending the planet headlong into nuclear armageddon is worth their own discomfort at such an abject horror being carried out and they being 'in the know'.
Fact is...the ending they came up with is different but serves the story well. So I won't ruin it.
In any event...this movie is amazingly true to the source material. It's exactly what I expected. I enjoyed it. If you liked the book...you'll love the movie. If you didn't read the book...know this is an R-Rated movie and go in knowing that. It has violence, sex, and adult themes...it's not Superman and Batman meeting up to go after Penguin. So know what you're watching before checking it out.
On my scale...of 1 to 10...I give it 8...but again I'm a comic geek. :)
Have a great day and thanks for reading.
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