Paul (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} happyfunpaul) wrote,@ 2009-03-08 01:43:00 |
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"As long as I'm insomniac" reviews: "Watchmen"
For those who haven't seen it yet:
3 stars. Maybe 3 1/2. A much better adaptation than I ever thought possible, absolutely perfect in parts, and I definitely want to see it again. It helped that I've read the original graphic novel, but it's probably not necessary, and it's certainly not necessary to have read it recently (it's been over a decade since I have). There are some flaws, though, which hold down my overall rating.
For those who have:
In general: I'm quite happy. My three biggest criticisms are with the ending, the music, and the violence, about which, more below.
GOOD: Overall sense of "yep, that's 'Watchmen'. Clearly the filmmakers used a lot of the original as a story board, and it worked well. They also did a nice job translating juxtapositions and other effects.
GOOD: Visually, this movie rocks!
GOOD: Story adaptation. First off, they keep it in an alternate-universe 1985; I think any attempt to "update" it from a Cold War setting would have been doomed to failure. I don't really understand objections that the filmmmakers were "too slavish". Yes, the film does follow the graphic novel pretty closely in sections (and yet, the filmmakers actually excised huge parts, from "Tales of the Black Freighter" to some of the backstory to parts of the conspiracy, and yet I didn't notice because they did it so neatly). But "closely following the original" is not a problem in its own right, it's a problem when either (1) the movie has no life of its own-- not a problem here-- or (2) the movie is indecipherable to those unfamiliar with the original. And while I can't speak directly to #2, I think the film works better for new initiates than I would've expected, from what I've heard from a couple people who've seen the film without having read the graphic novel.
OK: A lot of people have complained that the movie isn't as cerebral as the graphic novel. True. It isn't. But I don't think it could have been-- there just isn't time to fit such a text-dense narrative into the movie-- and as it is, the film has got plenty of the dialogue, the sense that "y'know, in a world of actual costumed heroes, they'd have to be pretty fucked up" (yet still sympathetic), and the philosophical ruminations on human nature and the nature of power.
BAD: The ending. I don't have a problem with changing it, because the original "alien squid" ending was, frankly, pretty lame. But the new "blame it on Dr. Manhattan" ending doesn't work for me either. Sure, it makes the story less "messy" and tied up tighter, but it's even less convincing that the cold war nations would actually put aside their differences to unite (and stay united) against a common danger.
There probably can't be a good ending to "Watchmen", frankly. But I'd like one that made more sense and didn't kill the momentum of the previous scenes so badly. My rating was definitely going to be higher had the ending lived up to the rest of the movie. (On the up side, they did leave in the ambiguous Rorschach's-journal-on-the-crank-pile finale.)
GOOD: Rorschach. Jackie Earle Haley absolutely does a masterful job in the role, capturing the tone, the black humor, and the psychotic single-mindedness. (Good to see Haley back in acting; I don't think I've seen him in anything since "Breaking Away", 30 years ago!) The Rorschach role is crucial to "Watchmen" and I don't have a single bad thing to say about it.
GOOD: Dr. Manhattan. Absolutely spot-on in the acting (Billy Crudup), the tone, the effects, everything. This role was also crucial for the movie to work, and it did.
NOT-SO-GOOD: Ozymandias / Adrian Veidt. Nope. I wanted more of a charismatic Nordic Adonis type (Robert Redford in his prime) and Matthew Goode just seemed miscast. He gets better at the end but there are several bits (the bullet-catch, the Dr. Manhattan comeupannce) that should have been much more powerful than they were, but weren't, because of Goode's "meh" performance earlier.
GOOD: Nite Owl II / Dan Dreiberg. I've heard mixed things about Patrick Wilson's looks (that he was too pretty) and performance, but I thought he was perfect in the role as the most normal of the characters who has some deep issues nonetheless. And the Owl Ship is fabulous.
OK: Silk Spectre II / Laurie Jupiter. I've read some very negative reviews about Malin Akerman ("worst actress in Hollywood", "Valley Girl style line readings"), but I don't agree. I thought she was fine in a role that's pretty difficult, because Laurie has to be both "kick-ass male fantasy" and "very broken person to be in that role in the first place". Akerman conveyed that duality quite well. The latex costume and preposterous heels did nothing for me, but that was to be expected. The ridiculousness of it was part of the point.
GOOD: Use of nudity. I've been reading some negative things about both Dr. Manhattan's nudity ("big blue torpedo") and about the Dan/Laurie sex scene, but I don't agree. The former was really necessary to convey Dr. Manhattan's detachment from human norms; had they wimped out and covered him up, I think it would have hurt the movie a lot. I myself have no special reaction to the naked male form but I thought the filmmakers did a good job of making it "just there" and not making a big deal out of it. And I thought the sex scene (which some have snickered at and labeled "one of the worst movie sex scenes" ever) was nicely done. It conveyed both sexiness (I of course focused on Akerman's form, but the filmmakers were pretty evenhanded about the nudity) and the crucial awkwardness (some reviewers didn't seem to realize that the awkwardness was intentional). The scene made me feel for both characters. Insert standard rant about how perhaps many Americans can't deal maturely with sex and/or nudity.
BAD: Music. OK, there is one thing I hated about the sex scene-- Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah"? Look, I like the song, it s a familiar standard, it fits the scene fine. That's exactly the problem. It's too obvious, too cliched, too well-known. It threatened to take me right out of the movie by its overfamiliarity and lack of subtlety. And there were 3 or 4 other songs in the movie with the same problem. The worst offender was Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin'" to the otherwise flawless alternate-history montage during the opening credits. "99 Luftballons" to "establish" the mid-1980s Cold War paranoia. Simon and Garfunkel was in there too. Movie songs (and movie music in general) should fit the tone and convey ideas without me being fully aware of them, not be overly familiar tunes with the subtlety of a brick.
GOOD: That opening montage (aside from the music). [Edit: It's online already! Although it'll probably get taken down.] That montage gets across (in an entertaining and visceral way) a lot of information quickly yet effectively. And the "alternate history version" of the famous "end of WWII, sailor-kisses-nurse" scene was hysterical yet powerful.
BAD: Lingering violence. Yes, the original is violent and gory. But there were scenes in "Watchmen" that just went on with the violence for too long. Rorschach's "the day Kovacs died" scene goes on and on and on. Really, I think one cleaver-to-the-head shot would've gotten the point across fine. Same thing with the Comedian-in-Vietnam scene, the Comedian-killing-street-rioters, etc. I wish more filmmakers would learn that "less is more". In this film, with its already long running time, anything that "lingers" is especially bad; long violent scenes took me out of the film momentarily. (Though, from the director of "300", I wasn't expecting any better.)
GOOD: The Comedian / Edward Blake. Jeffrey Dean Morgan did a perfect job, and the handling of the character (aside from the too-long scenes of violence) was awesome. I got a better sense of the character's complexity than I did from the graphic novel.
GOOD: Silk Spectre I / Sally Jupiter. Carla Gugino is fantastic.
GOOD: Other cast members. Matt Frewer (!) was sad and sympathetic as Moloch the Mystic / Edgar Jacobi, Stephen McHattie was fine as Nite Owl I / Hollis Mason (the genial old man with a fascist streak), and Laura Mennell is great as Janey Slater (it's always interesting when a minor character really sticks with me).
NOT-SO-GOOD: Some of the "celebrities". Robert Wisden wasn't as bad as Richard Nixon as some reviews indicated, but he wasn't actually "good". I didn't mind the "bad makeup" (for Nixon and others) because somehow that sort of fit with the off-kilter visual feel of the movie, but some of the appearances, like Walter Addison as Lee Iacocca, just seemed unnecessary and called attention to themselves too much. Now that I think about it, the "real world people" usage was kind of like the music in "Watchmen"-- I see the point, but it was overdone, not subtle.
GOOD: Mars. Awesome, alien, stupendous. I just loved those scenes.
OVERALL: I liked the "Watchmen" movie a lot, I just wish the negative aspects didn't stick with me so much.
What did you think?
For those who haven't seen it yet:
3 stars. Maybe 3 1/2. A much better adaptation than I ever thought possible, absolutely perfect in parts, and I definitely want to see it again. It helped that I've read the original graphic novel, but it's probably not necessary, and it's certainly not necessary to have read it recently (it's been over a decade since I have). There are some flaws, though, which hold down my overall rating.
For those who have:
In general: I'm quite happy. My three biggest criticisms are with the ending, the music, and the violence, about which, more below.
GOOD: Overall sense of "yep, that's 'Watchmen'. Clearly the filmmakers used a lot of the original as a story board, and it worked well. They also did a nice job translating juxtapositions and other effects.
GOOD: Visually, this movie rocks!
GOOD: Story adaptation. First off, they keep it in an alternate-universe 1985; I think any attempt to "update" it from a Cold War setting would have been doomed to failure. I don't really understand objections that the filmmmakers were "too slavish". Yes, the film does follow the graphic novel pretty closely in sections (and yet, the filmmakers actually excised huge parts, from "Tales of the Black Freighter" to some of the backstory to parts of the conspiracy, and yet I didn't notice because they did it so neatly). But "closely following the original" is not a problem in its own right, it's a problem when either (1) the movie has no life of its own-- not a problem here-- or (2) the movie is indecipherable to those unfamiliar with the original. And while I can't speak directly to #2, I think the film works better for new initiates than I would've expected, from what I've heard from a couple people who've seen the film without having read the graphic novel.
OK: A lot of people have complained that the movie isn't as cerebral as the graphic novel. True. It isn't. But I don't think it could have been-- there just isn't time to fit such a text-dense narrative into the movie-- and as it is, the film has got plenty of the dialogue, the sense that "y'know, in a world of actual costumed heroes, they'd have to be pretty fucked up" (yet still sympathetic), and the philosophical ruminations on human nature and the nature of power.
BAD: The ending. I don't have a problem with changing it, because the original "alien squid" ending was, frankly, pretty lame. But the new "blame it on Dr. Manhattan" ending doesn't work for me either. Sure, it makes the story less "messy" and tied up tighter, but it's even less convincing that the cold war nations would actually put aside their differences to unite (and stay united) against a common danger.
There probably can't be a good ending to "Watchmen", frankly. But I'd like one that made more sense and didn't kill the momentum of the previous scenes so badly. My rating was definitely going to be higher had the ending lived up to the rest of the movie. (On the up side, they did leave in the ambiguous Rorschach's-journal-on-the-crank-pile finale.)
GOOD: Rorschach. Jackie Earle Haley absolutely does a masterful job in the role, capturing the tone, the black humor, and the psychotic single-mindedness. (Good to see Haley back in acting; I don't think I've seen him in anything since "Breaking Away", 30 years ago!) The Rorschach role is crucial to "Watchmen" and I don't have a single bad thing to say about it.
GOOD: Dr. Manhattan. Absolutely spot-on in the acting (Billy Crudup), the tone, the effects, everything. This role was also crucial for the movie to work, and it did.
NOT-SO-GOOD: Ozymandias / Adrian Veidt. Nope. I wanted more of a charismatic Nordic Adonis type (Robert Redford in his prime) and Matthew Goode just seemed miscast. He gets better at the end but there are several bits (the bullet-catch, the Dr. Manhattan comeupannce) that should have been much more powerful than they were, but weren't, because of Goode's "meh" performance earlier.
GOOD: Nite Owl II / Dan Dreiberg. I've heard mixed things about Patrick Wilson's looks (that he was too pretty) and performance, but I thought he was perfect in the role as the most normal of the characters who has some deep issues nonetheless. And the Owl Ship is fabulous.
OK: Silk Spectre II / Laurie Jupiter. I've read some very negative reviews about Malin Akerman ("worst actress in Hollywood", "Valley Girl style line readings"), but I don't agree. I thought she was fine in a role that's pretty difficult, because Laurie has to be both "kick-ass male fantasy" and "very broken person to be in that role in the first place". Akerman conveyed that duality quite well. The latex costume and preposterous heels did nothing for me, but that was to be expected. The ridiculousness of it was part of the point.
GOOD: Use of nudity. I've been reading some negative things about both Dr. Manhattan's nudity ("big blue torpedo") and about the Dan/Laurie sex scene, but I don't agree. The former was really necessary to convey Dr. Manhattan's detachment from human norms; had they wimped out and covered him up, I think it would have hurt the movie a lot. I myself have no special reaction to the naked male form but I thought the filmmakers did a good job of making it "just there" and not making a big deal out of it. And I thought the sex scene (which some have snickered at and labeled "one of the worst movie sex scenes" ever) was nicely done. It conveyed both sexiness (I of course focused on Akerman's form, but the filmmakers were pretty evenhanded about the nudity) and the crucial awkwardness (some reviewers didn't seem to realize that the awkwardness was intentional). The scene made me feel for both characters. Insert standard rant about how perhaps many Americans can't deal maturely with sex and/or nudity.
BAD: Music. OK, there is one thing I hated about the sex scene-- Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah"? Look, I like the song, it s a familiar standard, it fits the scene fine. That's exactly the problem. It's too obvious, too cliched, too well-known. It threatened to take me right out of the movie by its overfamiliarity and lack of subtlety. And there were 3 or 4 other songs in the movie with the same problem. The worst offender was Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin'" to the otherwise flawless alternate-history montage during the opening credits. "99 Luftballons" to "establish" the mid-1980s Cold War paranoia. Simon and Garfunkel was in there too. Movie songs (and movie music in general) should fit the tone and convey ideas without me being fully aware of them, not be overly familiar tunes with the subtlety of a brick.
GOOD: That opening montage (aside from the music). [Edit: It's online already! Although it'll probably get taken down.] That montage gets across (in an entertaining and visceral way) a lot of information quickly yet effectively. And the "alternate history version" of the famous "end of WWII, sailor-kisses-nurse" scene was hysterical yet powerful.
BAD: Lingering violence. Yes, the original is violent and gory. But there were scenes in "Watchmen" that just went on with the violence for too long. Rorschach's "the day Kovacs died" scene goes on and on and on. Really, I think one cleaver-to-the-head shot would've gotten the point across fine. Same thing with the Comedian-in-Vietnam scene, the Comedian-killing-street-rioters, etc. I wish more filmmakers would learn that "less is more". In this film, with its already long running time, anything that "lingers" is especially bad; long violent scenes took me out of the film momentarily. (Though, from the director of "300", I wasn't expecting any better.)
GOOD: The Comedian / Edward Blake. Jeffrey Dean Morgan did a perfect job, and the handling of the character (aside from the too-long scenes of violence) was awesome. I got a better sense of the character's complexity than I did from the graphic novel.
GOOD: Silk Spectre I / Sally Jupiter. Carla Gugino is fantastic.
GOOD: Other cast members. Matt Frewer (!) was sad and sympathetic as Moloch the Mystic / Edgar Jacobi, Stephen McHattie was fine as Nite Owl I / Hollis Mason (the genial old man with a fascist streak), and Laura Mennell is great as Janey Slater (it's always interesting when a minor character really sticks with me).
NOT-SO-GOOD: Some of the "celebrities". Robert Wisden wasn't as bad as Richard Nixon as some reviews indicated, but he wasn't actually "good". I didn't mind the "bad makeup" (for Nixon and others) because somehow that sort of fit with the off-kilter visual feel of the movie, but some of the appearances, like Walter Addison as Lee Iacocca, just seemed unnecessary and called attention to themselves too much. Now that I think about it, the "real world people" usage was kind of like the music in "Watchmen"-- I see the point, but it was overdone, not subtle.
GOOD: Mars. Awesome, alien, stupendous. I just loved those scenes.
OVERALL: I liked the "Watchmen" movie a lot, I just wish the negative aspects didn't stick with me so much.
What did you think?
