The Watchmen

I thought it was genius. The most accurate portrayal of a graphic novel to film by far, though Sin City is a close second.

I'm surprised the studio allowed Synder to be as faithful to the material as he was; they had to know that him doing so would turn some folks off.

Alan Moore would be proud; though I doubt it.
 
Batutta said:
Wow. If you want to see how joe-blow moviegoer feels about this read some of these user reviews. Have never seen such hatred towards a movie--

http://www.moviefone.com/movie/watchmen/26998/user-reviews/recent?&page=1
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I cannot believe how incredibly ignorant people are. I understand that there are going to be people who dislike this movie, that's bound to happen, but reading those reviews makes me sick. I weep for anyone who reads them and actual listens to what those people have to say.
 
Wow! As a Watchmen fan from year ago, I was excited to see how WELL they brought it to life. There were a lot of small things I liked that they made sure to include at a time (like the news stand and the guy that was reading that Pirate comic book), but I don't fully understand why they changed the ... "catalyst" (trying to keep this spoiler free for now) used. The other differences were there, but not as noticeable I didn't think.

I loved the fight scenes, mainly due to the time remapping, but as someone said earlier, they seemed a little too clean, with no one getting hit ... by anything. Weird.

Last, I could have done without the extended sex scene in Archi. Things like that don't need to go on. In fact, most of that could have been implied.

8.5/10

PS~~> Saw the Inglorious Basterds trailer. That looks interesting.
 
Ezekiel667 said:
I cannot believe how incredibly ignorant people are. I understand that there are going to be people who dislike this movie, that's bound to happen, but reading those reviews makes me sick. I weep for anyone who reads them and actual listens to what those people have to say.
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That's why when a movie looks good and is one I'm interested in seeing, I don't look at a single review, professional critic or joe shmoe.
 
Awesome opening 20 minutes, great look, and Haley and Crudup do their character's justice. Gratuitous fight sequences and sex scenes, poor acting by the female players, awful musical cues, and an inelegant final act, however, keep this one from being a winner for me.

A missed opportunity.
 
from reading the graphic novel, the movie was beautiful in the way it looked. But i think the music choices ruined every scene that they were playing over. Not that the artists were bad, i love most of them! But It's almost like they just used someone's work out playlist for the whole movie. (except the music in the opening sequence with the comedian, that worked well)


Was anybody else turned off by the soundtrack?
 
Dillon Novak said:
from reading the graphic novel, the movie was beautiful in the way it looked. But i think the music choices ruined every scene that they were playing over. Not that the artists were bad, i love most of them! But It's almost like they just used someone's work out playlist for the whole movie. (except the music in the opening sequence with the comedian, that worked well)


Was anybody else turned off by the soundtrack?
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Well it's all a matter of opinion. IMO, the songs they chose worked well, sometimes the message they were trying to deliver was a little in your face, i.e. 'All Along the Watchtower', but if you think about the meaning of the song, and the scene it was over, it worked. Well maybe not 'Hallelujah' haha, but everything else.
 
Oh, i defiantly agree with you that the content or title of the songs for the most part were chosen for each scene perfectly, i just think i would prefer the soundtrack to compliment the visual, not really distract me from it.

but i agree.
 
Just got back from watching it in IMAX with the wife.

We both thoroughly enjoyed it and would watch it again.

I didn't over analyze it from a film maker perspective.

We just enjoyed the whole experience.
 
The first ten minutes or so (through the end of the opening titles, basically) moved me almost to tears.

The rest of the film was very, very well executed but before long I felt like I was just sitting there waiting to see how faithfully the next sequence would be adapted (which for the most part was *very* faithfully).

I think part of the problem was that it's an ensemble story where only two members of the ensemble (Rorschach and Dr. Manhattan) are really compelling.

I can't decide whether the references to Apocalypse Now, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Dr. Strangelove were effective, or not. They didn't detract, for me; I'm just not sure that they necessarily added anything.

Jackie Earl Haley was really outstanding. Spending most of your time acting from behind a mask, and making the character live like that can't be easy. On the other hand - sorry - Matthew Goode was hideously mis-cast, something that he reportedly worried about himself...Crudup was very good. Not an easy character to play either, I bet.

...pity they re-jiggered the story to the degree that they did. Most of the jiggery was minor, but I still wonder what decided them on revising the whole Dr. Manhattan/Ozymandias plot they way they did...

Also, people dropping to their knees, clenching their fists, baring their teeth and screaming "NOOOOOOOOO!" toward the heavens has outlived its cinematic usefulness. Shame on you, Zack, you should have known better.

Overall a technically well-done adaptation of difficult source material, that only partially worked.

C+
 
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The movie made me appreciate the book more. That doesn't mean I thought it was a good movie.

Why is Zac Snyder billed as a "visionary director" when there was nothing visionary about this? The Watchmen is a visionary book, but not a visionary film. I understand the need to be 'faithful' to the source material, but I think that's more important in terms of the attitude and general atmosphere of the source material. Using the book as a storyboard, and pulling nearly every line of dialogue straight from it is not being visionary. And a graphic novel is not a movie. They are 2 completely different mediums. What works in one doesn't necessarily work in another. It was not reshaped to work on the big screen as good as it could've been.

On top of that, despite the dogged attempt to stay super faithful to the book, major elements were changed, creating a weird sort of cognitive dissonance and detachment from the movie version I just couldn't get over.

I do think the opening sequence was very very well done, and I think Rorshach was perfectly cast. But overall, I do not think the film was good. It just didn't work for me, and I think it stinks that people who have not read the book might have this film create their lasting impression of The Watchmen.
 
Sad Max said:
I wonder if someone who didn't read the book would be able to even entirely track what's going on.
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I know many who couldn't, but the real problem I think is that there is no emotional point of entry for the audience, no place where they can connect with what the characters are going through. We're kind of thrown in towards the end, and then filled in with scattered flashbacks along the way, which fill in plot details but not emotional ones. I think it's the same thing that happened to David Lynch's Dune. Too much narrative and incident but not enough actual drama to get people invested. It's also the result of telling a non-linear story, which obviously can be done well, but you run the risk of losing A connects to B connect to C and can end up with scatterered parts that don't really resonate off each other. I think the comic leaned on people's familiarity with the comics medium, which allowed readers to fill in and make connections themselves to give it more resonance, and let's face it, people who read comics tend to read a lot of them so it's not an unfair expectation. But films appeal to a wider spectrum, and there isn't much here for the casual moviegoer to latch onto other than some pretty visuals.
 
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I dunno. I connected with Rorschach.

Of course, I always have.

*edit* for me the only part of the film with which I connected emotionally was the through the end of the opening titles. After that...not much.
 
Sad Max said:
I dunno. I connected with Rorschach.

Of course, I always have.
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He is the most interesting character, but I actually found the portrayal here to be a little one note. We never got under his skin. Also, to be honest, I found it to be kind of a two-dimensional remix of Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, and I prefer the genuine article, as the same pathology is explored in much more depth and detail in that movie.
 
I connected with Rorshach also….maybe because I recognized him as the bad boy from “The Bad News Bears.” Lol

Seriously though the movie I thought was great…long….but great. There were moments that dragged (I found myself looking at my watch at least once) but it still managed to keep me in. I never read the story but I’m glad I came into it with an open mind. Rorshach was definitely the coolest individual to follow along with. The end pissed me off….story wide. I didn’t find the story difficult to follow at all… I also liked the Comedian….he…other than R. was one of the more interesting characters.
 
Sad Max said:
The first ten minutes or so (through the end of the opening titles, basically) moved me almost to tears.

The rest of the film was very, very well executed but before long I felt like I was just sitting there waiting to see how faithfully the next sequence would be adapted (which for the most part was *very* faithfully).
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This seems to be a pattern with Zack Snyder films: brilliant first ten minutes/opening credits, then downhill from there.
 
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