Watchmen: A Dot Point Review
Mar. 6th, 2009 10:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
andrasteNow that I've slept off the midnight screening, an actual reaction post.
One thing that's surprised me is how extensively this film is dividing the audience. It's not even polarising people into love and hate - I've seen a dozen shades of opinion, and plenty of people seem to fall between the extremes.
I've seen reactions from fans of the comic who think it wasn't faithful enough, and from others who think it was too faithful and became plodding and laboured as a result. I've seen reviews from mainstream critics who embraced it and rushed out to buy the book, and others who thought it a confusing mess. I've seen complaints that the tone was too light and complaints that it was too dark. I've seen people who are 'meh' about the whole exercise. So far, no consensus seems to be emerging at all.
All I can say is what I thought. The book is my favourite comic of all time, and I really enjoyed the movie. I thought it struck a good balance in adapting the material to a new medium while remaining faithful to its spirit.
The rest of this post does not contain major spoilers for people who have read the book but not seen the film, but it MASSIVELY spoils the comic.
Things I Did Not Like Or Was Not Sure About
- The Richard Nixon prosthetics are unconvincing and unnecessary. They could have cast anyone who looked vaguely like him and the audience would have happily gone along with it. This may be partly because we saw the film in IMAX, but I just found them distracting. Some of the age make-up didn't hold up well under that level of scrutiny, but I'm going to blame the ultra high resolution for that.
- Nobody smokes cigarettes in this film, which is just bizarre. It's not just Laurie, even those kids hassling Tiny!Rorschach don't have any cigarettes! (He still manages to do horrible things to them, but there's no eye burning.) Given that the film features plenty of swearing, a fairly graphic sex scene, a man's arms being cut off with an electric saw, and constant full-frontal male nudity, they surely can't have left out the smoking because they were worried about the rating? Even more confusingly, the cigars are still there.
- There are no Sweet Chariot sugar cubes, either. They're not significant to the trimmed-down plot, but I missed them.
- During said sex scene, they played Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah instead of Billie Holiday's You're My Thrill. Which ... there's nothing wrong with that, but You're My Thrill is on the soundtrack elsewhere and I was distracted and confused. I think this is probably just me.
- When Rorschach gets sent to prison, the newscast reports that he's thirty-five years old. Um, what? Wouldn't that mean that he's been crime-fighting since he was fifteen? This does not make a blind bit of sense! Jackie Earle Haley is forty-seven, two years older than the character he plays, so it can't be that. I can see why they aged the Comedian up (no way Jeffrey Dean Morgan is passing for a teenager during the rape scene) but that choice bewildered me. I choose to believe the media got its information wrong.
- I cannot see Ozymandias with the unbiased eye of someone who's never read the book, but I wondered if he was too obviously creepy and up to no good. (I was glad that the 'I've made myself feel every death' line was delivered in a way that makes it clear this is total BS. To me the central irony of Watchmen will always be that Veidt turns out to be a bigger sociopath than Blake or Rorschach, both of whom do feel the horror of those deaths)
- Speaking of characterisations I wasn't completely sure about, Movie!Laurie seems more sad than angry to me. It's a valid interpretation of the character, but I always liked her fire and have qualms about the film's major female character being softened that way.
- Near the start, Veidt is showing off his action figure range, including a Rorschach that looks far more poseable than the one on my desk. Where is my knee articulation, DC Direct? They clearly prototyped and built the figure for the film! I want that one!
Everything Else
- The opening credits, a five minute history of superheroes set to The Times They Are A'Changin, are extraordinary. The story is inevitably full of flashbacks, but this gets the basics out there in amazing style. I can't think of a film with a better opening sequence.
- The visual style is gorgeous. Sometimes it's a panel-by-panel reconstruction of the comic, sometimes it departs widely to put its own stamp on things. Zak Snyder can really work that camera.
- I said it in my last post, but in case you missed that: this is a very violent film. Knees bend the wrong way, Doctor Manhattan makes people explode all over other people, Rorschach ... is Rorschach. I found it far more graphic than the comic, but thought this appropriate to the material. Your mileage may vary.
- Jackie Earle Haley gives an outstanding performance that really anchors the film, capturing Rorschach's complicated nature in all its facets. I could complain that he's not 'fascinatingly ugly' as specified, but hey, this is Hollywood. According to IMDB, both Simon Pegg and Daniel Craig turned down the role at various points. Assuming these stories have even a grain of truth to them: WHAT WAS THE CASTING DIRECTOR SMOKING? Thank goodness we ended up with the perfect man for the job. Rorschach says 'hurm' at appropriate moments. This is very important.
- Most of Rorschach's crowing moments of ... Rorschachness ... are intact. I won't ruin the details for you, but let's just say: 'none of you understand. I'm not locked up in here with you. You're locked up in here with me.'
- Patrick Wilson makes an adorable Daniel. I want to give him hugs. I wasn't 100% sold on the cool new suit design before, but he's still such a dork when he's not in it that it works.
- Due to entirely sensible streamlining of the plot, Rorschach never goes back to his rented room to get his stuff and confront his landlady. (I won't spoil what happens instead.) This means that we don't get one of my favourite moments from the comic, but it also means that the burden of showing Rorschach's human side falls almost entirely on his relationship with Nite Owl. Their bond gets more attention in the film version, and there is Significant Hand-Holding.
- Jeffrey Dean Morgan's Comedian is a charismatic, amoral psychopath. Beautifully played - he's horrifying, but you can also see how Sally Jupiter ended up in bed with the man and why Rorschach fanboys him.
- Billy Crudup's Doctor Manhattan is terribly sad about everything. Sad and naked. It pretty much works, although he didn't seem as scary as Comic!Manhattan. (Which is ironic, because ... um, spoilers.)
- We don't see a lot of most of the Minute Men, but what we did see made me want to know more. (Silhouette was apparently not thrown out of the group for being an lesbian in this version. I would love to know the details of how that went.) Sally Jupiter was appropriately sassy and fabulous, though *g*.
- The actor playing Rorschach's psychiatrist bears a startling resemblance to the comic book character. I mean, pretty much everyone looks the part, but in this case it's downright uncanny.
- This being a Hollywood action film, the fight scenes tend to go on for rather longer than they do in the source material. I loved that every character has their own distinctive fighting style.
- The final thing that delighted me was watching the closing credits roll. The superheroes are credited as Nite Owl/Daniel Drieberg, the Comedian/Edward Blake, etc. All except Jackie Earle Haley, who is listed only as Rorschach. I'm so glad they got that little detail right.
The parts about my reaction to the ending I'm going to put under a separate cut, with spoiler space at the beginning and end so you don't accidentally read them after clicking on the first cut or the comments.
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First up: I thought that the change they made to Ozymandias' plan made a hell of a lot of sense. The comic is about a ridiculous supervillain scheme that he manages to actually pull off - we'll never know if the 'world peace' thing works out, but so far so good. His plan in the film sounds like it might actually work, and it averts the possibility of the non-fan audience walking out of the theatre saying 'a giant squid? WTF?' So, you know, I kind of missed the squid but I think this version of the story works too.
As for Rorschach's death ... oh, I did not think it could be any worse. And then it was worse. And I sat there with tears rolling down my face telling myself 'if you cry too much, you will miss the story.' The scene covers some things missing from the comic in an emotionally satisfying way.
The end of the film struck me as sweeter and sadder than the ending of the comic - when Laurie tells her mother that she knows about her true parentage, Sally givers her an explanation absent from the original story: 'I couldn't be angry at him, because he gave me you.'
The conclusion is just as ambiguous, and we don't need to know what happens at the ending. The Schroedinger's Journal is simultaneously printed and not printed, the world ends and it doesn't. That is as it should be.
M
O
R
E
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
P
A
C
E
One thing that's surprised me is how extensively this film is dividing the audience. It's not even polarising people into love and hate - I've seen a dozen shades of opinion, and plenty of people seem to fall between the extremes.
I've seen reactions from fans of the comic who think it wasn't faithful enough, and from others who think it was too faithful and became plodding and laboured as a result. I've seen reviews from mainstream critics who embraced it and rushed out to buy the book, and others who thought it a confusing mess. I've seen complaints that the tone was too light and complaints that it was too dark. I've seen people who are 'meh' about the whole exercise. So far, no consensus seems to be emerging at all.
All I can say is what I thought. The book is my favourite comic of all time, and I really enjoyed the movie. I thought it struck a good balance in adapting the material to a new medium while remaining faithful to its spirit.
The rest of this post does not contain major spoilers for people who have read the book but not seen the film, but it MASSIVELY spoils the comic.
Things I Did Not Like Or Was Not Sure About
- The Richard Nixon prosthetics are unconvincing and unnecessary. They could have cast anyone who looked vaguely like him and the audience would have happily gone along with it. This may be partly because we saw the film in IMAX, but I just found them distracting. Some of the age make-up didn't hold up well under that level of scrutiny, but I'm going to blame the ultra high resolution for that.
- Nobody smokes cigarettes in this film, which is just bizarre. It's not just Laurie, even those kids hassling Tiny!Rorschach don't have any cigarettes! (He still manages to do horrible things to them, but there's no eye burning.) Given that the film features plenty of swearing, a fairly graphic sex scene, a man's arms being cut off with an electric saw, and constant full-frontal male nudity, they surely can't have left out the smoking because they were worried about the rating? Even more confusingly, the cigars are still there.
- There are no Sweet Chariot sugar cubes, either. They're not significant to the trimmed-down plot, but I missed them.
- During said sex scene, they played Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah instead of Billie Holiday's You're My Thrill. Which ... there's nothing wrong with that, but You're My Thrill is on the soundtrack elsewhere and I was distracted and confused. I think this is probably just me.
- When Rorschach gets sent to prison, the newscast reports that he's thirty-five years old. Um, what? Wouldn't that mean that he's been crime-fighting since he was fifteen? This does not make a blind bit of sense! Jackie Earle Haley is forty-seven, two years older than the character he plays, so it can't be that. I can see why they aged the Comedian up (no way Jeffrey Dean Morgan is passing for a teenager during the rape scene) but that choice bewildered me. I choose to believe the media got its information wrong.
- I cannot see Ozymandias with the unbiased eye of someone who's never read the book, but I wondered if he was too obviously creepy and up to no good. (I was glad that the 'I've made myself feel every death' line was delivered in a way that makes it clear this is total BS. To me the central irony of Watchmen will always be that Veidt turns out to be a bigger sociopath than Blake or Rorschach, both of whom do feel the horror of those deaths)
- Speaking of characterisations I wasn't completely sure about, Movie!Laurie seems more sad than angry to me. It's a valid interpretation of the character, but I always liked her fire and have qualms about the film's major female character being softened that way.
- Near the start, Veidt is showing off his action figure range, including a Rorschach that looks far more poseable than the one on my desk. Where is my knee articulation, DC Direct? They clearly prototyped and built the figure for the film! I want that one!
Everything Else
- The opening credits, a five minute history of superheroes set to The Times They Are A'Changin, are extraordinary. The story is inevitably full of flashbacks, but this gets the basics out there in amazing style. I can't think of a film with a better opening sequence.
- The visual style is gorgeous. Sometimes it's a panel-by-panel reconstruction of the comic, sometimes it departs widely to put its own stamp on things. Zak Snyder can really work that camera.
- I said it in my last post, but in case you missed that: this is a very violent film. Knees bend the wrong way, Doctor Manhattan makes people explode all over other people, Rorschach ... is Rorschach. I found it far more graphic than the comic, but thought this appropriate to the material. Your mileage may vary.
- Jackie Earle Haley gives an outstanding performance that really anchors the film, capturing Rorschach's complicated nature in all its facets. I could complain that he's not 'fascinatingly ugly' as specified, but hey, this is Hollywood. According to IMDB, both Simon Pegg and Daniel Craig turned down the role at various points. Assuming these stories have even a grain of truth to them: WHAT WAS THE CASTING DIRECTOR SMOKING? Thank goodness we ended up with the perfect man for the job. Rorschach says 'hurm' at appropriate moments. This is very important.
- Most of Rorschach's crowing moments of ... Rorschachness ... are intact. I won't ruin the details for you, but let's just say: 'none of you understand. I'm not locked up in here with you. You're locked up in here with me.'
- Patrick Wilson makes an adorable Daniel. I want to give him hugs. I wasn't 100% sold on the cool new suit design before, but he's still such a dork when he's not in it that it works.
- Due to entirely sensible streamlining of the plot, Rorschach never goes back to his rented room to get his stuff and confront his landlady. (I won't spoil what happens instead.) This means that we don't get one of my favourite moments from the comic, but it also means that the burden of showing Rorschach's human side falls almost entirely on his relationship with Nite Owl. Their bond gets more attention in the film version, and there is Significant Hand-Holding.
- Jeffrey Dean Morgan's Comedian is a charismatic, amoral psychopath. Beautifully played - he's horrifying, but you can also see how Sally Jupiter ended up in bed with the man and why Rorschach fanboys him.
- Billy Crudup's Doctor Manhattan is terribly sad about everything. Sad and naked. It pretty much works, although he didn't seem as scary as Comic!Manhattan. (Which is ironic, because ... um, spoilers.)
- We don't see a lot of most of the Minute Men, but what we did see made me want to know more. (Silhouette was apparently not thrown out of the group for being an lesbian in this version. I would love to know the details of how that went.) Sally Jupiter was appropriately sassy and fabulous, though *g*.
- The actor playing Rorschach's psychiatrist bears a startling resemblance to the comic book character. I mean, pretty much everyone looks the part, but in this case it's downright uncanny.
- This being a Hollywood action film, the fight scenes tend to go on for rather longer than they do in the source material. I loved that every character has their own distinctive fighting style.
- The final thing that delighted me was watching the closing credits roll. The superheroes are credited as Nite Owl/Daniel Drieberg, the Comedian/Edward Blake, etc. All except Jackie Earle Haley, who is listed only as Rorschach. I'm so glad they got that little detail right.
The parts about my reaction to the ending I'm going to put under a separate cut, with spoiler space at the beginning and end so you don't accidentally read them after clicking on the first cut or the comments.
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
P
A
C
E
First up: I thought that the change they made to Ozymandias' plan made a hell of a lot of sense. The comic is about a ridiculous supervillain scheme that he manages to actually pull off - we'll never know if the 'world peace' thing works out, but so far so good. His plan in the film sounds like it might actually work, and it averts the possibility of the non-fan audience walking out of the theatre saying 'a giant squid? WTF?' So, you know, I kind of missed the squid but I think this version of the story works too.
As for Rorschach's death ... oh, I did not think it could be any worse. And then it was worse. And I sat there with tears rolling down my face telling myself 'if you cry too much, you will miss the story.' The scene covers some things missing from the comic in an emotionally satisfying way.
The end of the film struck me as sweeter and sadder than the ending of the comic - when Laurie tells her mother that she knows about her true parentage, Sally givers her an explanation absent from the original story: 'I couldn't be angry at him, because he gave me you.'
The conclusion is just as ambiguous, and we don't need to know what happens at the ending. The Schroedinger's Journal is simultaneously printed and not printed, the world ends and it doesn't. That is as it should be.
M
O
R
E
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
P
A
C
E