Swapping Darth Vader for the Comedian would have made both movies extremely interesting.

[kjpepper]

Saw Watchmen last night.

I didn't have massively high expectations for the movie so I was rather pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it. As a a movie, it was about thirty minutes too long and needed a bit of pacing help, but in general pretty solidly entertaining. As an adaptation of the original... it was so so.

What I REALLY liked:
Rorschach. Pretty much bang on. <3 Jackie Earle Haley nailed this so damn hard the wall came down.

Dr. Manhattan. anzovin said it was too uncanny valley, but I thought they did a great job animating him (though along with everyone else, I feel sorry for the folks in charge of the Giant Blue Cosmic Schlong). But I'm very glad they didn't put him in a thong for the duration of the movie, and I thought they did a very good job of conveying emotion subtly while keeping his face and voice as affectless as possible. You can convey a lot with a very small change of expression or a tilt of the head. And I thought that one shot where he has picked up Laurie's bra and is inspecting it curiously was both amusing and heartbreaking.

The soundtrack, was all very Hell Yes.

The title sequence was amazingly well done.

Dr. Manhattan's Giant Pink Palace of CGI Clockwork on Mars. That... was... pretteh.

Very nice touch award: lots of little things in the set dressing that nailed the time period. Blake's Nagel prints on the walls. Analog clocks. Grainy TV signal and displays. Gritty trash filled dark New York streets. Veidt's shoulderpads, while ridiculous-looking, were sadly period appropriate. Laurie's mascara abuse. And, haunting for any New Yorker, intact Twin Towers. (Though they shouldn't have survived the nuke blast. Come on.)

What I didn't like:
Veidt's plastic armor. (didn't we learn anything from Batman and Robin people? Nipples on superhero uniforms=bad.) Or the fact that none of his stunts seemed remotely believable as someone who is supposed to have no superpowers. Now granted if anyone had access to SuperGinsengNOSBatshitPowerthirst, it would be Veidt, but still, this skinny Bowie impersonator should not have been able to pick up the offensive tackle of the Comedian and put him through a plate glass window.

Nite Owl should not have been able to get into his old uniform that easily.

Zack Snyder's clear obsession with slow-mo. And Marin Ackermen's wig. In combination. Than and oh look! Another blue-filter softcore porn scene! (also - Nite Owl's butt should not have been tighter and firmer than Dr. Manhattan's. It was just... distracting.)

"Nixon's" prosthetic nose was incredibly distracting and fake looking.

Okay, you really didn't have to spell out that the Comedian was Laurie's father. Even with recognizing that the average moviegoing audience has the deductive reasoning skills of angry squirrels with rabies fighting over nuts, that was painfully obvious without the exposition.

What made me squicky but I respected:
HOLY CRAP this movie was fucking BRUTAL. There were more than a few moments that made me wince with the in your face violence, and I had to kinda ball up in my seat for a few minutes after the beating and near rape of Silk Spectre. That said, I did giggle when the Comedian blew someone's head off with a tear gas cartridge.

And speaking of The Comedian... Another character nailed, though I put him here because... yeah, he's not a likable character at all.


What was kinda eh:
Carla Gugino needs to take a vacation. I used to like her, but she's pretty much been in every off the beaten track comic book movie ever and she's usually playing sex kittens. I thought she was okay as Young Silk Spectre, they didn't age her believably into Old Silk Spectre. They should have gotten a different actress for her.

They could have clipped that entire sequence with the burning building.

While I didn't object to the ending change, it really really could have been executed better.

Wanted more Bubastis. I know, it's silly and her CGI wasn't that great, but she was one of my favorite minor characters in the book and the reasons for her existence were interesting. Here... I dunno she just kinda seemed like an afterthought.

There could have been more Rorschach stuffing people into or popping out of fridges. Also they left out the fact that he eats. Constantly.


I think overall I enjoyed it. I think it was, perhaps, respectful to its source to a fault in the fact there really wasn't anything all that new and different done with the story, but I think as a "see see? Watchmen IS filmable" exercise, it passes. That said... I think it would probably have made a far better miniseries than a movie, but I think that about a lot of things.

Comments

[anangelssilence.livejournal.com]

Yeah!! Nixon's nose drove me crazy! I kept having to look away when he was on screen because I was going to burst into laughing hysterics...lol

[kshandra]

And it was a bloody shame, because all of the OTHER duplicates in the various scenes were letter-perfect. (I mean, really, Bowie outside Studio 54? SWOON!) Indeed, I think having that frighteningly-accurate Kissinger in almost every single one of Nixon's shots just made it that much worse....

[aersi.livejournal.com]

Jackie Earle Haley deserves a friggin Oscar.
(Of course he won't get one because Hollywood is full of elitist prigs, but eh.)
Honestly, I thought that most of the characterization was spot on.

And there's probably something horribly wrong with me because I LOVE The Comedian. And I think JDM did excellently.

My only serious "Ahhh can't look at the screen" moment was the bit with the hands in prison.

[lysscat.livejournal.com]

One thing I noticed was that everyone was better looking and more likable than they were in the book. I would have liked the soundtrack a lot better if some girl had not been SINGING ALONG during the goddamn funeral scene. I thought the rape scene was squicky-violent in the book, and kind of sexy-violent (but still scary) in the movie. Mr. Snyder kind of puts a sexy gloss on everything (and he sure does love him some CGI blood!). My favorite minor touch - the billboard ad for Millennium perfume at the end.

[kjpepper.livejournal.com]

>.>

<.<

I seriously doubt it was me you heard, as I was doing it fairly under my breath, but I _was_ singing along at that point as well.

ETA: and yeah on the better looking and likable bit. Hell, even Walter Kovacs was kinda hot on screen. I couldn't stand Silk Spectre II in the book, I rather liked her in the movie.

[lysscat.livejournal.com]

It was someone directly behind us, so no, not you. Plus you'd remember drdevice calling you a douchebag. :x)

[kjpepper.livejournal.com]

quite.

[kshandra]

One of the folks on my f'list actually was on the Dr. Manhattan team at ImageWorks (zie did his eyes), and noted that while they were aware of uncanny valley issues, they figured they had a little leeway because the character is other-than-human at this point.