Baaaadass

I went into Watchmen with a lot of anticipation, but I was also skeptical because I’m not a big fan of Zack Snyder. 300 was a piece of shit. However, Watchmen’s source material is incredible (the only comic book I’ve ever really loved), but parts of it are totally unfilmable. For better or worse, those parts were blatantly ignored in this film.

The original comic was respected, to a point. The movie was true to the themes of the corruption of humanity, sex, the uselessness of superheroes, etc. It was also true to the nature of the characters. Rorschach was nuts, Dr. Manhattan was detached, Ozymandius was a weirdo with his own odd version of morality.

But Watchmen cut out some awesome sequences (I was real pissed when Rorschach didn’t jump out of a fridge), but also left in some that I figured wouldn’t be there (ie. a midget sawing through his henchmen’s arms, Nightowl not being able to get it up with the Silk Spectre until he was in his costume…). The 3+ hour director’s cut will probably include a lot that was left out. Realistically, it would take at least 5 hours to cram

Somehow both homophobic ... and gay.

everything in, and that would still not include all of the great “under the hood” segments. All the fans want an HBO miniseries, and they’re right in asking for it, but this is as close as it’ll probably ever get. It felt like Snyder did everything he could to make the movie the way Alan Moore (the books co-author) would have envisioned, but he did fall short. Maybe Hollywood wouldn’t let him, maybe he’s a dick.

So on to the actual movie. The opening fight between the comedian and a mysterious stranger (who’s name rhymes with smozymandias) was awesome. Snyder’s use of slow motion was effective, the steady camera work was a refreshing departure from the choppy shit I see everywhere in the wake of the Bourne movies, and the combat was interesting and intense. The CGI was alright, but it was far from the best; I was always aware that I was watching CGI. Really, it’s kind of cheating anyway.

Aside from that fight there were several parts that stuck out. The opening credits were the best I’ve ever seen; pans of half-static, half 3D pictures over a great Bobby D song that revealed a lot of back-story. The camera work was varied, interesting and full of cool techniques,  and overall the visuals, especially the use of color, was bang on in terms of the feel of the comic. 300 certainly wasn’t visionary, but I think the label can be applied to Snyder after directing Watchmen.

The character development was really well done, which I didn’t expect. The film did feel a bit rushed, despite being almost 3 hours, but you still got to know and feel for the characters, even if you hadn’t read the comic. Superhero movies too often skip character development in favour of cramming in more explosions (the dickhead Brett Ratner’s X-men 3 being the shining example), which leaves me uncaring.

Oh, and then there was the infamous Leonard Cohen sex scene. Did not see that coming, but fucking awesome.

This was also good.

But it wasn’t all good.

First off, WAY too many superhero poses. Every time someone landed a jump they kneeled, looked down, then looked up slowly. I have no idea why Superheroes would choose to look that fucking stupid. Something

Literally 2/3 of the movie.

to do with invincibility or free sex … or something.

Anyway, the acting was largely mediocre, but Jackie Earl Haley (Rorschach) and Billy Crudup (Dr. Manhattan) stood out.  Patrick Wilson (Night Owl) was alright too. Most everybody else, especially Malin Akerman (Silk Spectre) sucked.  However, that’s more the fault of the source material; there’s a reason comic books don’t translate well into on-screen dialogue.

My biggest disappointment was the ending. It stayed true to the original point, but was not nearly as stunning an image as the comic book. In the book there were panels of a giant tentacle monster surrounded by thousands of bloody corpses in downtown New York with a clock striking midnight. The movie had … a big fucking hole. It was pretty anti-climatic considering my expectations, and a somewhat arbitrary scene, most likely due to the time limitations. About 15 more minutes of dialogue might have been needed to explain the monster. But it would have been worth it to stay true to the greatest ending in comic book history (in literature history?).

But overall, the worst thing wasn’t even in the movie. The Watchmen did alright, but not as good as its budget would suggest. So now Hollywood is going to steer away from darker, more violent R-rated movies, presumably to produce more Joel Schumacre-esque nippled Batman shit. There is a time and a place for dark superhero movies. But there is never a place for Bat skates.

All in all, The Watchmen was what you’d expect. It was an incredible story with difficult characters and strong themes that was slightly compromised for profit. Snyder proved he could film something of substance, the CGI department proved it spent a lot of time making true-to-life blue dick swinging physics, and the actors proved that comic book dialogue sounds roughly about as retarded when spoken as a George Lucas script. Zing.