[REVIEW] Watchmen
Mar. 10th, 2009 11:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldSo, Watchmen.
I should begin my review by saying that I mostly agree with Lucius Sheppard's opinion (thanks for the link,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mouseworks!) that Watchmen bears all the problems of the typical superhero comic, with relatively simple and over-the-top elements of plot and character marking the film throughout. That's one reason why I think a lot of the criticism of director Zack Snyder is uncalled for. Many of the elements of Watchmen that have come in for criticism, like Rorschach's noirish voiceover, were taken directly from Alan Moore. The entire film, point of fact, adheres quite closely to the graphic novel, save one critical strand I'll mention under lj-cut below. Moore has very little to complain about.
Patrick Wilson and Dan Dreiburg stood out for me. I liked his acting, and I Robert Farley's argument that Dan Dreiburg/Nite Owl II was made the central figure of the film, the Everyguy that viewers can latch onto. Billy Crudup's Dr. Manhattan also stood out for me, what with Crudup's nailing down Dr. Manhattan's distanced yet resentful take on the affairs of humanity. The other characters and actors were good--Malin Akerman's Silk Spectre II appealed to me more than Jackie Earle Haley's Rorschach and Jeffrey Dean Morgan's Comedian, partly because the last two characters' admittedly necessary and well-portrayed brutality of spirit put me off but also because I thought that Akerman whatever her acting skills did a good job with her more modest character.
The controversy over the ending has been ongoing for at least a year, a blogospheric survey tells me. Adrian Veidt's plan in the graphic novel to scare humanity into unity by teleporting a genetically-engineered squid with a madness-ionducing telepathic death-scream into New York City has been replaced in the movie by a plan to detonate warheads engineered from Dr. Manhattan's powers in cities around the world.
What do I think of it? Moore's alien squid was a massive deus ex machina. One moment, the characters that Moore had nurtured for eleven issues were coming to terms with their humanity around that newsstand, the next their struggles were made completely irrelevant by something monstrous and completely unexpected. Although I didn't think so, the squid was seen as ridiculous by many. Despite its very significant differences, Movie-Veidt's plan shares the same deus ex machina quality only more plausibly, placing the blame on an alien entity that humanity already knew to exist and that humanity was already quite scared of, an entity that everyone hoped wouldn't go off the rails and do what he was blamed to do.
The changed ending was made necessary by the practical impossibility of including all of the original Watchmen's ancillary documentation, the background information about the characters and the magazine article excerpts and the hints about Veidt's plot. That's fine, since these elements weren't all that relevant to Watchmen's main narrative. The filmmakers' approach of making this film and later coming up with a faux-documentary about the backstory and a Tales of the Black Freighter cartoon is the best that can be done.
I enjoyed Watchmen and will see it again. One more element that I enjoyed at the time and will enjoy in the future is the very good and well-utilized soundtrack. It features Nena's "99 Luftballons", appropriately enough.
And the ending credits featured "First We Take Manhattan". Awesome.
I should begin my review by saying that I mostly agree with Lucius Sheppard's opinion (thanks for the link,
mouseworks!) that Watchmen bears all the problems of the typical superhero comic, with relatively simple and over-the-top elements of plot and character marking the film throughout. That's one reason why I think a lot of the criticism of director Zack Snyder is uncalled for. Many of the elements of Watchmen that have come in for criticism, like Rorschach's noirish voiceover, were taken directly from Alan Moore. The entire film, point of fact, adheres quite closely to the graphic novel, save one critical strand I'll mention under lj-cut below. Moore has very little to complain about.Patrick Wilson and Dan Dreiburg stood out for me. I liked his acting, and I Robert Farley's argument that Dan Dreiburg/Nite Owl II was made the central figure of the film, the Everyguy that viewers can latch onto. Billy Crudup's Dr. Manhattan also stood out for me, what with Crudup's nailing down Dr. Manhattan's distanced yet resentful take on the affairs of humanity. The other characters and actors were good--Malin Akerman's Silk Spectre II appealed to me more than Jackie Earle Haley's Rorschach and Jeffrey Dean Morgan's Comedian, partly because the last two characters' admittedly necessary and well-portrayed brutality of spirit put me off but also because I thought that Akerman whatever her acting skills did a good job with her more modest character.
The controversy over the ending has been ongoing for at least a year, a blogospheric survey tells me. Adrian Veidt's plan in the graphic novel to scare humanity into unity by teleporting a genetically-engineered squid with a madness-ionducing telepathic death-scream into New York City has been replaced in the movie by a plan to detonate warheads engineered from Dr. Manhattan's powers in cities around the world.
What do I think of it? Moore's alien squid was a massive deus ex machina. One moment, the characters that Moore had nurtured for eleven issues were coming to terms with their humanity around that newsstand, the next their struggles were made completely irrelevant by something monstrous and completely unexpected. Although I didn't think so, the squid was seen as ridiculous by many. Despite its very significant differences, Movie-Veidt's plan shares the same deus ex machina quality only more plausibly, placing the blame on an alien entity that humanity already knew to exist and that humanity was already quite scared of, an entity that everyone hoped wouldn't go off the rails and do what he was blamed to do.
The changed ending was made necessary by the practical impossibility of including all of the original Watchmen's ancillary documentation, the background information about the characters and the magazine article excerpts and the hints about Veidt's plot. That's fine, since these elements weren't all that relevant to Watchmen's main narrative. The filmmakers' approach of making this film and later coming up with a faux-documentary about the backstory and a Tales of the Black Freighter cartoon is the best that can be done.
I enjoyed Watchmen and will see it again. One more element that I enjoyed at the time and will enjoy in the future is the very good and well-utilized soundtrack. It features Nena's "99 Luftballons", appropriately enough.
And the ending credits featured "First We Take Manhattan". Awesome.
