Thursday, March 5, 2009

Watchmen

As promised, I'm giving a review of Watchmen without giving much away.

I give it a solid 6 out of 10. As a stand-alone movie, it was good. Not the best thing in the world, but good. As an adaptation of the graphic novel, it left a lot wanting. Not so much for things it left out (which was a lot) but for things slightly changed and the presentation, especially creating the characters so fucking one-dimensionally. Uncool. Totally uncool. This is not the actors' faults. The actors were fantastic, the casting was brilliant. The little easter eggs left for fans of the book, too, little details, they were nice to see, but really, who are you kidding? My biggest qualm in terms of absenses was not as may be suspected the squid, but rather something much more small and yet so perfect to the vision of what Watchmen is: the silhouette in the alleyway of the couple embracing, as if imprinted there by a nuclear blast. Completely missing. There was also a tendency to overwork the violence and gore--I don't have to go any farther than Rorschach's first kill for that. Overuse of slow-mo, but from the man who brought us 300, this was not unexpected. Far too much foreshadowing of Veidt's villiany, which was not at all present in the book.

I will give it this: the opening credits were the best opening credits ever I have seen, and the greatest part of the film. I knew then that I would be let down by the remainder.

That is all. Now to the shower!

2 comments:

mare said...

Oh, I so disagree with your comment on the foreshadowing - when you re-read it a couple times, it's SO there.

You said...

Good movie. But even just as a movie, the ending flopped.