I’ve been somewhat limiting posts about Watchmen. I really enjoyed the book and am somewhat excited that the movie is coming out (by ’somewhat excited’ I mean that I will actually make an attempt to see it in a theater) but there’s so much about it at the moment that it would be easy to overdose on the marketing hype. But Ebert’s blog post about it is worth a read.
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10 Comments so far. Leave a comment below.while were on the subject i read an interesting article about the watchmen at
http://www.nypost.com/entertainment/movies/news/n17065.htm
which talks about the history of failure behind trying to get this movie made and goes into how terry gilliam tried to make the movie in the early 90s and it would have starred schwarzenneger as dr manhattan and co-starred richard gere and robin williams among others.
i think its safe to say that that would have been a disaster (no offense to gilliam of course)
I’ve been hearing a lot of buzz about this movie, but am concerned it won’t be accessible to the non-comic reading movie goer.
If you’ve never read Watchmen, or don’t understand their back story, will the nuances of the movie mean anything?
I’ll tell you after I see it at the weekend, Amanda… (Never even heard of the comics till the movie, so I’m a total ahem virgin. Curious as to what I’ll make of it…)
Just got back from seeing it…
I HAD read the graphic novel a few years ago, so that helped. But I’d guess that it might be somewhat difficult for someone who hasn’t.
Regardless, it’s awesome.
You know, I usually love Anthony Lane as a critic because he’s witty and brings some intelligence to his reviews, but his review of Watchmen in The New Yorker was just full on for hatred of comic books as if he were disdainful even of the form. What’s with the sneering, Lane?
Ebert, even if he does spend an inordinate amount of time in that review digressing about quantum mechanics (interestingly, true enough), is far more balanced, far more even handed in his reaction to the material.
Concurence with Kellie. Saw it last night at midnight and it was fantastic (except for Nixon’s nose).
I really didn’t think it was possible but after watching the movie last night i found myself thinking that it could have been better by trying to be a film and not just an animated version of the comic book. I think Snyder is to be commended for staying as true to the source material he has, they really did do a fantastic job of converting every scene and sentence from the page to the screen but in my opinion it could have done with a little translation along the way.Alan Moore has always said that his work just doesn’t translate to film simply because it was not meant to, he writes comic books and that’s how they’re meant to stay.
What works in a comic doesn’t necessarily work on film and i found myself cringing at more than one line and scene that fit well within the graphic novel but came across as trite or just plain embarrassing in the film such as when Nite Owl asks the Comedian about the American dream or the Nixon led cabal of military leaders planning their own destruction that was more than a little reminiscent of Doctor Strangelove.
Also the film would have been half an hour shorter if Snyder would just ditch bullet time and let the action sequences carry themselves. Personally i find it akin to having canned laughter in a comedy show,i don’t need to be told when something is meant to be funny or exciting via a shoddy and overused effect.
All that being said i enjoyed the movie and would recommend it,particularly the portrayal of Doctor Manhattan who is almost predictably great throughout. I just wish they had tried less to please the die hard fans of the comic and made a more accessible movie to a wider audience instead.
I loved it and borrowed my best friend’s copy of the graphic novel.
My wife didn’t like it. She said I did because I’ve gotten “too cynical” over the last few years
I found the grittiness, flawed heroes and busted morality awesome.
Good God people, why didn’t you warn me about the big blue penis?! I took my girlfriend, and now I’ll never measure up.
Amanda, you certainly don’t need to have read the comix to understand it:)
It’s pretty good, too. Not as good as Sin City, but worth seeing…