Watchmen Review
Mar 5, 2009 by Vic HoltremanIs Watchmen as awful as reviewers say or as awesome as bloggers claim? The answer lies somewhere in between.
Short version: Watchmen is an ultra-violent, sexually explicit mystery film (with a few costumed heroes thrown in) that is visually stunning, but uneven.
Screen Rant reviews Watchmen
I’ve really been dreading writing this review because frankly, I’m still not sure how I feel about Zack Snyder’s big screen adaptation of the revered graphic novel (yes, I’m calling it a graphic novel), Watchmen.
There are some films that I really wish I could watch TWICE prior to writing a review: Big, highly-anticipated blockbusters tend to taint my initial viewing with expectations. Ideally there would be one viewing where I’d just let the film wash over me and then a second viewing where I could be more objective and analytical.
A little background for context: I read the graphic novel once, last year, following the San Diego Comic-Con. I’m not a die-hard devotee of the book, but I recognize that at the time it was written it was groundbreaking in its approach to the superhero genre. I don’t remember every nuance or panel of the story, but I remember enough for the film to make sense to me.
The problem is – I can’t “unremember” the book in order to give you the point of view of someone coming to the film with little knowledge of the story, and I’m not so into it that I can compare it detail by detail to the book – so take this review for what it’s worth. Some of you will end up agreeing with me and others will probably call me an idiot… such is the life of a guy who runs a movie website.
First off, for the uninitiated, you should know a couple of things:
- This is NOT really a superhero movie in the sense that we’ve come to know the genre. It’s not X-Men or Spider-Man – it’s not even The Dark Knight… it’s really more of a murder mystery with a bit of superhero action thrown in for flavor.
- It also seriously EARNS its R-rating, people. This is NOT a film you should bring your kids to because “it’s a superhero movie.” There is extremely graphic, horror movie-level gore, scenes of intense, realistic violence, full frontal male nudity throughout the film – and a very explicit sex scene.
Watchmen is also a very “dense” film, one that a viewer will no doubt pick up more details and nuances upon repeated viewings, so I won’t be covering a lot of detail here as far as story.
The film opens with a montage of scenes giving us the history of costumed vigilante crime fighters back in the 1940s. It’s pretty damned cool looking back and seeing men and women wearing homemade costumes and masks taking on muggers and such, sometimes even posing for the newspaper photographers in the middle of capturing the bad guys.
These are the glory days of the masked crime fighter, with society loving them and the heroes enjoying the heck out of what they do – even forming a loose alliance with one another. Eventually in the film we see some of these older “superheroes” who are now either dead or retired – trying to live normal lives.
The Comedian meets his end in Watchmen
From there we move to the iconic scene from the book – The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), now in his 60s, sitting at home in his apartment when a shadowy figure breaks in and beats him to a bloody pulp – culminating in his murder via being thrown out of a window high above street level.
It is now 1985 and masked vigilantes have been outlawed by the government for almost 15 years; Richard Nixon is in his 5th term as President, and the world is on the brink of a nuclear war between the United States and Russia.
Rorschach/Walter Kovacs (Jackie Earle Haley) is a vigilante who has told the government to go screw itself and still prowls the streets at night. As depicted in the film, I would say that he is probably portrayed as some Liberals imagine all Conservatives to be. He’s borderline crazy (if not actually over the edge), but he knows where he stands and what he believes in – to a fault. He doesn’t believe the killing of the Comedian was a burglary gone bad – he thinks that it was outright murder and that someone is tracking down ex-heroes one by one in an attempt to wipe them out.
This mystery is in fact the crux of the film – we follow Rorschach through his investigation and along the line we meet other ex-heroes Nite Owl II/Dan Dreiberg (Patrick Wilson) and Silk Spectre II/Laurie Jupiter (Malin Akerman). Dan lives a quiet, lonely life (he comes across as a bit of a geek) while Laurie has a relationship with the one true superhero in the story: Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup). Things are strained between Laurie and Dr. Manhattan, as he is slipping farther and farther away from humanity due to his god-like powers and intellect.
Rorschach tells Dan his theory about a “mask-killer” (they were once partners) and Dan goes off to warn Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias (Matthew Goode) that his life may be in danger as well. Adrian is a super-genius billionaire who created his mega-corporation after vigilantism was banned. He is supremely confident and is determined to change the world for the better and bring it back from the brink of nuclear destruction.
Malin Akerman as Silk Spectre II and Patrick Wilson as Nite Owl II
The film takes us through Dan and Laurie rediscovering that the only time they really feel alive is when they’re in full costume, out there fighting crime. As a matter of fact, Dan goes through a Clark Kent to Superman transformation once he dons his costume, changing from a clumsy, impotent coward, into (as Jesse Ventura so eloquently said in Predator) a sexual Tyrannosaurus.
Overall, what this story is about is showing how really messed up in the head people who put on bizarre costumes to go out and beat up bad guys would be if they actually existed in the real world. We’re talking about your next door neighbor putting on a batsuit complete with mask and cape, going downtown and beating up people so badly that they had to go to the hospital. Sure, it sounds good in a comic book or a movie, but would you really want to live next door to that guy? Would you really feel safe?
Watchmen follows the book very closely for the most part. Where it deviates mainly is via omission of certain aspects of the book and the ending. But what you see on the screen follows the imagery in the book to a “T.” Visually, I don’t think anyone could have done a better job with bringing the artwork from the book to life. I do think that some of what was omitted (and may be in the director’s cut for all I know) might have brought more humanity to the film. In particular what you’ll find missing if you’ve read the book is anything having to do with the old magazine stand guy and the young man reading “Tales of the Black Freighter” while keeping him company.
The format of the film is such that you don’t get to know some of the characters until you’re pretty deep into the film. We don’t get to see the pre-Dr. Manhattan Jon Osterman until we’re probably over an hour into the film. The movie jumps around quite a bit, and I don’t know how that will go over with people who aren’t familiar with the original story. It seems to me that perhaps some license should have been taken with the structure of the film considering the fact that the original story took place in 12 separate comic book issues spread over the course of an entire year. But if you know the story, this won’t bother you at all.
Naked Dr. Manhattan with the naughty bits blurred (as they aren’t in the film)
Visually, Zack Snyder did a fantastic job with Watchmen. The incredible attention to detail in everything from the background sets to the props and costumes is really something to see. Of course one aspect of the film I could have stood to see a bit less of was Dr. Manhattan’s penis. The logic of the story was that eventually he becomes so detached from human norms that he doesn’t see the point of wearing any clothing. However I’m pretty sure I don’t recall Mr. Happy being so prevalent in the book. Here we’ve got full body shots all over the place and frankly, it was a bit distracting (I’ll never look at Blue Man Group quite the same way again).
The CGI effects for Dr. Manhattan were very impressive, except when it came to him actually speaking – there was a bit of the “uncanny valley” effect at work there and it just didn’t look quite right.
Far and away the best thing about Watchmen was Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach. The man is mesmerizing and his performance rivals that of Heath Ledger as the Joker. I loved his interpretation of the how the character would sound, and when he gets to prison you’ll be jumping out of your seat at just how awesome he is.
Jackie Earle Haley about to go ballistic in Watchmen
Another bright spot was the despicable Comedian. Jeffrey Dean Morgan was great to watch… he was just SO twisted that you couldn’t turn away and he just draws you in.
So what didn’t work? I thought that both Malin Akerman and Carla Gugino were quite weak. Akerman’s performance came across as pretty shallow to me, and Gugino’s first real scene in the film as an old woman almost had me laughing out loud because it seemed so campy. I could take or leave Patrick Wilson’s performance – maybe it was just the character he was playing that left me cold.
I also really didn’t think that Matthew Goode was the best choice for Veidt/Ozymandias. He seemed too frail of build to me, and this became much more of an issue in the final scenes in the film where he displayed what seemed to be superhuman strength in a film where the only super-powered being is supposed to be Dr. Manhattan. This also came up in the early scene where the Comedian is fighting for his life – he punches through what looks like solid brick, and while it might look cool, it didn’t seem to make sense.
Matthew Goode as Adrian Veidt
Aside from the Comedian and Rorschach (and maybe even Dr. Manhattan), I never really felt drawn into the characters in the film. They felt like, well, characters – instead of real people. I suppose it was almost akin to an Opera, where you’re very aware of what you’re watching as an observer. It was so obviously trying to honor the source material that you could actually TELL that’s what it was doing.
So in the end, is Watchmen a good film? I think so. Was it a great or close to perfect film? I’d have to say no. It felt long to me, and we have the issues I pointed out above. It is however yet another comic book-based movie that breaks the mold, and lays the groundwork for more non-traditional comic book stories to be turned into films.
I think it’s definitely worth seeing, and I’ll be very curious to hear what you think of it. I really think Watchmen is destined to be a cult movie – not very mainstream, but with a smaller and very dedicated core of fans loving it as time goes on.
Our Rating:
4 out of 5
Around the web:
Loading ...
I personally plan on watching the film, and taking every bit of it for what it is worth. This film has had alot of thought put into and i am sure that everything in it is in it fro a reason. So will i go and watch a movie with full frontal nudity of any nature? yes if the movie has the potential to be a good movie. I am not going to let the sight of some fictional blue balls scare me away from quite possibly a very good. movie.
Maybe they should have shown him killing the dogs. Then maybe we will have a bunch of PETA idiots protesting naked outside the theaters. There are plenty of really hot models that are dumb enough to be part of that organization…
Completely fabricated numbers:
Comments on meat cleaver in man-skull: 3
Comments on caninecide: 6
Comments on rape: 4
Comments on hands getting sliced off: 1
Comments on blue manhood: 39
Comments on nuclear devastation: 0
greenknight333 don’t blame hollywood for the animal issue of yours. Blame idiotic groups like Peta. They believe it’s ok to burn down a business, or let humans Die as long as nothing mean is going on around an animal.
@greenknight333,
Thanks for the info, man! ‘Nother question about it, cuz I see this later on, are they completely naked while doing it or do they have some of the costume on, like in the book (the book, in which the scene was more of a “pre sex, post sex” thing, they never actually shoed them bangin’, IMO)?
And pity about the dogs (I love dogs, but c’mon! How did they get thru that scene with the rorshachs they were showin Rorshach?). I guess Rorshach chopped they guy up instead, and that they showed?
Thanks.
@Sylar,
LOL @ the comment subject counter!
Oh, almost forgot…..
….hurm.
@ KEL
When they are on the ship they are completely naked..
He uses the dogs but they don’t show him killing them..like I said..implied..
@ Daniel
PETA/Sea Shepperd/and other of thier ilk are all the same..they would rather hurt someone than allow harm to come to an animal..they must be the truly enlightened ones **sarcasm**
Speaking of hot PETA girls Ken
I remember my brother and I went to KFC about15 years ago and there were these two people standing outside in chicken suits so we just assumed they were part of a promotion or something for KFC..My brother and I went inside and picked up our orders and went back to our car when the two people in chicken suits approached us and gave us a PETA pamphlet which was condemning KFC and their treatment of chicken..the usual BLAH-BLAH-BLAH stuff they hand out..My brother winks at me and askes them to take off their chicken masks and one of them agrees in preparation to debate the issue at hand with my Bro..SO he winks at me and then she takes the mask off and WOW she is beautiful and hot(it was a summer day and very hot inside a chicken costume
)..he then proceeds to listen to her arguement and when she finished he then reaches into his bag and hauls out a leg and almost cleans it off in a single gulp and then tells her that it is good F&*^%^g chicken..I laughed my butt off and she put her costume back on and proceded to harass some other customers..Believe what you want to believe and debate the issues you wish to discuss but when groups like these assualt and bully people because they don’t see things the way they do..that is the absolute worst..
I felt the same way about the movie as i did about the comic book. Rorschach is so cool that when he wasn’t there i didnt really care that much. I would have given it a 7/10. I think it will drag too much for a mainstream audience. But like i said, Rorschach is the man.
Manhattan’s junk is not distracting. The only time i had a problem with manhattan is when he was directly in contact with people. Then it seemed fakey
I have heard of the Watchmen, but I never read the comic. I have to say that I really liked the movie and the concept behind it. It was a little hard to follow and it was more than halfway through before I started putting everything together. I really liked the way Rorschach was portrayed, kinda reminds me of me. lol Seriously, give the movie a chance if you have never read the book. With the exception of too much penis, it was a solid flick that makes you think.
i liked dan the best, idk i could relate to him, and he steps up when he needs to. i’d agree to 4/5 rating
I love that the “junk” issue is once again trumping the issues of violence and/or sexual assault in this movie.
Only in America.
BTW: I heard that Snyder had the blue-junk in there as a litmus test for the masses: if you stared at “lil’ Manhattan” for longer than 5 sec at any given point…
…I’m not sayin, I’m just sayin…
Just saw the film, my impression is good not great. It is a good story and I like seeing a movie that takes superheros in a different direction. A little long, the easily could have edited out a half hour. The only background story they give is for Dr. Manhatten who walks around naked most of the time. All in all it was worth going to see but the movie was super hyped and fell a little short.
@ppnkof
Hey, I didn’t see it, but the second I heard that The Comedian rapes someone, that’s what I immediately jumped on. And depending on how they portray that scene, that would be my number one concern as well.
I went to see this movie last night took my girlfriend because we both like comic book type movies and graphic novels, but ive got to say we was soooooooo disappointed and sooooooooooo BORED i got sick of myself huffing n puffing throughout the entire film!! Nothing like i expected the trailer got me excited it was action packed, if the graphic novel is anything like this movie i aint interested. The next overly long 2hrs 30min was a complete bore, worst time spent on a film. I dont know if it was the story or the paceing of it both i think, i tryed my best to stay focused and keep my mind on what was happening if anything good, but i slowly drifted off in my own world. Honestly i tryed but it just didnt work as a movie for me and im surprised its got the few positive reviews its got coz it was DREADFUL.
Are some of characters in the graphic novel supposed to look like geeks, the costumes looked really stupid. And why did they make President Nixons face look so weird with the prosthetics.
I think the only part of the story i enjoyed was Rorschach he was the most interesting character to me. And i cant say how bored i was with listening to Doctor Manhattan go on and on, that guy would be perfect at reading you a bedtime story. Silk Spectre and Night owl sex scene shud of been a deleted scene it just didnt fit right. I just dont have any words to describe how bad the villan was, think he would of fitted a good part in Napoleon Dynamite.
Im just so glad its over and i cant see myself sitting through that one ever again!!! Good luck to the rest of you who are goin to watch it!!!!
BEWARE.
On a technical level, I think they could have distilled some of the character development down and especially some of the more ponderous of Rorschach’s wanderings. Those tend to make more sense in comic form than here. Also, the fidelity to the narrative of the graphic novel acutally ends up hurting the pacing of the film for a good chunk of time immediately following Manhattan’s origin story.
My other criticism is more visceral. There is no artistic or creative reason I can think of for Snyder to amplify to ridiculous levels the sex and violence in two specific scenes. In the graphic novel, the sex scene between Dan and Silk Specter II is mostly quiet, hidden in shadow, and implied rather than shown explicitly. Snyder shows us so much of this and so gaudily and so grotesquely that it borders on (if not crosses over into entirely) porn. I was severely disappointed in this decision as I can’t think of any story reason this was shown the way it was.
The other scene was the prisoner getting his arms cut off with the electric saw. Of course, in the novel, the guy gets his throat slashed instead, but even then, it’s handled off panel, and we see only Rorschach getting splashed with the blood. Snyder decides we have to see the whole act of arms themselves getting cut off.
I don’t think we need to see things in the most brutal way possible in order to have the idea of brutality conveyed. There is absolutely no subtlety of craft at work here. If anything it’s lazy especially considering the novel did a good job of conveying that sense of brutality without being so damned explicit about it.
Otherwise, I enjoyed how the film played with some of the ideas put forward in the novel, and the tension escalated appropriately after Rorschach’s jail break.
idk about the majority of you… but i have to admit that i do not think this film could have been any better.
as a fan of the comic book i was blown away by the movie… sure it all made more sense to me than it did two of my other friends who came along to see it with me, but i still feel that this movie did everything right…
I’d have to agree with you vic. Good but not great,because the movie felt way too long and Rorschach died! I realize he died in the comic books too,but he was probably the best character from the whole movie and I really hated to see him go.
I saw it last night and must say I thought it was terrific. Never read the comics and never heard of Watchmen before last year. I also wasn’t impressed by the trailers. BUT-From beginning to end I was fasinated by the movie. It was absorbed into the world and liked the characters very much. For me, Patrick Wilson’s Nite Owl was the center of the film as I found him to be totally likeable. Honestly, I walked in with much reservation but the film really worked for me. In a footnote- A large majority of the audience I saw it with seemed to dislike it. I heard people complaining that they hated it. No doubt in my mind, this will have a strong cult following, but it will not be embraced by the mainstream crowd.
chuck
Spoilers:
DR. Manhattan
30 to 40 minutoes of front nudity.
and 10 minutes of sex showing men asses.
Like 30 minutes wort washing.
Jackie Earle Haley acting is the best.
He is worth washing.
This was a glossy, slickly-produced, souless, JOYLESS outing of a movie, a great disappointment, and most importantly, NO FUN! Being quite keen on the graphic novel, I had high hopes for a film adaptation, and will admit that the visual recreations of panels from the comics for the big screen were impressive…the actors are all dead ringers for their comic book counterparts (except Adrian), and the attention to detail in recreating the costumes (except Adrian’s) was impressive, but that being said, the movie’s many, many flaws, AS A MOVIE, gets it one star from me. The pacing was off, from the very start. The soundtrack was ANOMALOUS. Dylan? Hendrix? LEONARD FREAKIN’ COHEN?! Simply gratuitous, and clashing. And speaking of gratuitous, man, the amped-up horror gore factor and ultra-violence was unexpected, unnecessary, exploitive, TACKY and classless. And while great pains were taken to recreate the comic book characters for the big screen, the other actors used to portray “real” people (ESPECIALLY Nixon and Kissinger, but almost ALL the others) were so “off” as to be distracting. The Nixon prosthetics were just bizarre.
The subtle eroticizing of the violent near-rape of Sally by Blake was disturbing…while on the other hand, the “love scene” of Dan and Laurie had all the heat of a sno-cone, as well as being just another lag in the pacing…and as for Dr. Manhattan’s nudity, well, it’s just the Doc, and the nudity IS his costume. No biggy. Uh, poor word choice there. Sorry.
As one astute commentator above mentioned, if the movie is a reflection of the source material, that commentator won’t be checking out the source material, which is something I sussed as well: This lurking turkey of a film has the potential of TURNING OFF an entire new generation to the graphic novel, which would be a shame and a mistake, but the film does indeed run such a risk. Please DO check out the graphic novel…if the film disappointed you, the graphic novel will not!
And finally, to compare apples and oranges, the film makes a huge tactical mistake by changing the ending from that of the graphic novel. Adrian’s plan in the graphic novel was so demented, in a soul-chilling, Lovecraftian way, that it truly haunts and sticks with you for quite some time. Simply horrifying. I loved it. The movie? Oh, a frame-up job? Wow. Not what one would expect from the world’s smartest man.
So, one star. Wait for it to come out in a couple of years on the SciFi Network, naught parts blurred.
Well strap me to a tree and call me Brenda, all that effort and they still managed to mess it up. Very little of the graphic novel’s impact comes across because the movie’s just too sketchy. It lifts key scenes at times incredibly well, but without all the peripheral detail, the background, it’s difficult to care about any of the characters or the overall situation one way or the other. It becomes an excercise in soulless transposition.
And the tone’s all wrong. People in the audience were laughing at things that on the printed page were deadly serious. I never thought I’d hear myself saying this: the violence is overdone. The fights in the GN come in short bursts, over in a couple of panels. The Comedian is the only hands-on killer, and even he doesn’t resort to openly shooting people during the riot scene. Rorschach doesn’t put a cleaver through the child killer’s head, he handcuffs him, sets fire to his house and leaves him with a saw. Profoundly different. And Laurie casually sticking a knife or screwdriver or whatever it was through her attacker’s neck and out the other side in a fairly terminal way – what the hell was that??
Jackie Earle Haley was superb as Rorschach though. He had the face, the voice, the delivery of those staccato lines absolutely perfect I thought. Loved the mask as well. Patrick Wilson made a good Dreiberg: likable, nerdy, old-school. The Comedian was okay, but why the barely visble scar? The GN version too much like Heath Ledger’s Joker maybe? And if he never wore the gimp mask surely there’d be no mystery as to who Edward Blake was in 1985? Terrible prosthetics on him, the older Sally Jupiter and Richard Nixon too.
I can wear Blake’s age change (67 instead of 61. Blake in the GN was only 16 when he tried to rape Silk Spectre, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan couldn’t have pulled that off), but why make Rorschach 35 instead of 45? This is another point: the original is about so many issues including comics themselves. Certain characters represent Gold and Silver Age superheroes from very specific time periods, and meddling with their chronological ages ignores that. Veidt, for example, is supposed to be 46.
I liked the transluscent, glowing quality of Dr Manhattan, despite the slightly unconvincing face and the hard-edged pierrot mask arrangement round his eyes. After seeing Billy Crudup’s amiable yet vaguely sinister performance in The Good Shepherd I thought he would have actually made a far better Adrian Veidt than Matthew Goode, who was way too effete and skinny. Likewise, his Karnak Antarctic retreat looked pretty shabby both inside and out compared to the GN version.
For those unduly perturbed by the mere (decidedly asexual) presence of the Osterman schlong: get over it, guys. 50% of the human species possesses one, even if it ain’t blue. Let dog see rabbit, as the saying goes. I’m assuming there’d be no such squeamishness if Manhattan were female and we were seeing instead a little blue…you get the picture. I haven’t heard a single objection from a woman regarding His Royal Blueness, or indeed the concept of there being more than one of him on occasion. Now there’d be something you wouldn’t experience every day…
The exact moment when I knew it was all going to go horribly wrong was the shot of the giant Dr Manhattan in Vietnam, which looked breathtaking…but accompanied by Wagner’s Ride Of The Valkyries. I don’t care if Snyder thought he was making a clever triple reference to Apocalypse Now, the Gotterdammerung/Twilight Of The Gods thing, and the music being mentioned in Hollis Mason’s Under The Hood; it came across as melodramatic, lazy filmic shorthand.
Right then someone’s phone went off loudly several rows behind me. Then cut out, then started again and showed no sign of stopping. I was sitting there in slack-jawed horror at both the cheesefest in front of me and the fact that no one was saying a damn thing behind me. I felt compelled to get up, locate the hogshead responsible, his troll-like features illuminated by the instrument of his own downfall, and use my finest Christian-Bale-gets-ugly-on-tequila-slammers voice at him. It did not go off a third time. From this point on I could not for the life of me get back into this movie, and to be honest, phoneboy can only be held partially responsible for that.
********SPOILER WARNING: FOOL ABOUT TO DISCUSS*******
*****************RUBBISH ENDING***************************
Now this just got me bloody angry. It makes all the undeniable care and attention given to the sets, the costumes, the effects, getting the right actors, fighting for the R rating by keeping the attempted rape scene, keeping and indeed ramping up the other violence, keeping Manhattan’s meat & 2 veg on public display, using the comic panels as a storyboard blah blah blah a total waste of time. It now doesn’t matter if they release a 6-hour cut complete with all the missing character exposition and Tales Of The Black Freighter thrown in for good measure. The essence of what Moore intended with his ending is gone. It ain’t there. It’s that simple.
So why did Snyder see fit to alter it? The monster was too ridiculous? No more ridiculous than a naked blue man making a flying glass castle on Mars. Too many associations with 9/11, or at least some of the 9/11 conspiracy theories? That’s intellectual cowardice. Too many dead bodies? That’s just cowardice, period.
Blaming the multiple detonations on Dr Manhattan means that peace is being kept only by the fear of his possible return. You may say there’s not much difference between that and fear of an alien invasion, but it’s a wilful perversion of the original on a par with the V For Vendetta movie reducing Moore’s positing of an anarchist society down to “plucky little freedom fighter strikes blow for democracy.” In Moore’s Watchmen Veidt says: “No one will doubt this earth has met a force so dreadful it must be repelled, all former enmities aside.” That’s something intrinsically proactive and hopeful even if it is a house of cards built on a lie. The world of the movie Watchmen is left at the end merely quaking in its boots at the prospect of a Godlike figure keeping them under permanent threat. That’s a different ballgame altogether. Manhattan’s final line in the GN is to Veidt: “Nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends.” The movie gives that line to Laurie, talking to Dreiberg, rendering its ambiguity utterly meaningless. It’s the philosophical ramifications of Moore’s ending that Snyder just didn’t get.
I knew nothing of The Watchmen before this movie…saw it Friday and loved the quality and artistic work that’s put it together…Rorschach character was brilliant and the actor playing him was just ace!!!
I am a Marvel fan…so watched it thinking…I hope Marvel get the makers to get involved in their next superhero movie..although I don’t want Avengers to copy it…
I came out a wee bit bored by the end…but loved Dr Manhattan too…but the rest of the movie even though violent and dark…was it a spoof of a superhero movie…or super serious!?!
@ The Big Dentist
if you didn’t notice the shotgun wasn’t killing people, they’re beanbags (used by police/military for nonleathal stuff, riots, prisons, things like that. I could be wrong, it was the same in the comicbook. (i read it about 8 years ago, then again recently)
i liked the ending, while i get what you’re saying a friend saw it with me and i told him the squid ending and he (never read the book) thought it wouldn’t have made sence.
i allways saw a strange parallel between, 9/11 and the book, long before the movie. I personally didn’t think an alien threat was too far fetched, but seeing reviews and the way people somehow don’t understand subtlety, it seems snyder made the right choice.
@ dean
wow, if it’s not too rude may i ask your age?
i’m curious because i always believed anyone around when the book first came out al least understands it, or has read it, so you must be from a younger audience, like myself. Because you say you’re a fan of comics, but haven’t read it.
no you wouldn’t like the comic at all, it’s far more wordy and vague in meanings, covered with real world politics and gray areas a movie sometimes can’t cover, it’s definitely not Spiderman or batman. this wasn’t meant to be an action movie, i guess you thought it would be, sorry. Have you ever read an older comic book that’s what costumes look like in books, batman in the comics doesn’t actually have the high-tech body suits that movies show. Instead heroes wear underwear on the outside of their costumes bright colors that look silly and home made masks. The film makers where trying to stay true to the comic book and the idea of regular people making a suit and fighting crime, hence what you thought looked “geek.”
You’re allowed your opinion, of course, I’m sorry you didn’t like it, maybe if you read the book and in a couple of years watched the movie again you would appreciate it. But since you give me the feeling you don’t enjoy more serious subject matter (no disrespect), you might never like it. When I say serious subject matter, I mean some people read comic books for the POW’s some read them as a medium of art, like you would read a Twilight and you would read Shakespeare, or watch Wedding Crashers or a BBC documentary. Which can be a good thing, Watchmen I think proves it’s not all adventure and butt kicking, there’s sometimes thought and sometimes pages of nothing but talking is okay.
I saw the movie yesterday and I have to say, I wasn’t too impressed. I didn’t mind the violence or Dr. Manhattan’s junk but I thought the movie, at times, just dragged. But Rorshack….best character in the movie! I love the line, “You think I’m in prison with you?! You’re in prison with me!!”. The audience just went nuts when he said that. I fully understood why Manhattan was naked, and it seemed to fit the movie. I took my son and daughter (32 and 30, respectively) and while my daughter liked it, my son felt he should have gone to see Madea Goes to Jail. My son and I did talk about how aweson Manhattan’s powers were; he would give the Silver Surfer a run for his money.
It’s definately the best movie out right now but it’s not great, IMHO. Oh, and I am a Christian and the little weewee didn’t bother me. And I am also a member of PETA…People Eating Tasty Animals.
The line “you’re stuck here with me” is one of the best in the book and the movie. How then, could they stomp all over the end of the quote? I can’t remember if it’s words, sounds, or music, but something almost walked all over that line.
This film was INCREDIBLE !!!!
If you are not afraid to have to THINK at a film, or ponder philosophical questions, and are not expecting the usual Hollywood superhero CRAP and would like to see something far more cerebral and interesting, then SEE IT !!! SEE IT IMMEDIATELY !!!
Absolutely THE BEST film based on a graphic novel OR comic book, period.
This is the future of “comic book/graphic novel” films.
THIS FILM WAS UNAFRAID !!! So refreshing! Finally, a film in the genre that touched on the dark themes that have been in comic books and graphic novels for a long time now. Even more so than The Dark Knight.
I love how in the end, who was a “good guy” and who was a “bad guy” was not quite clear.
Also, one reason a lot of people probably didn’t like it were the political themes that were oh so very timely, haha!! Some people just cannot handle it. That’s a shame too, b/c that is exactly what is wrong with society.
I hope more films (and graphic novels) like this are in store for us in the future. Bravo Mr. Snyder !! Thanks for having the balls to make this film !
overall did not live up to the hype: uneven in tone and pacing, some really bad acting, disjointed (I guess all were mentioned in the review).
I heard so many complaints about changing the ending, but by the time you get there it doesn’t matter. More liberties should have been taken with the story to make it translate better to film – I think the ending could have been left alone and still worked.
I am a fan of comic since long ago…so long ago that i do not like to watch the superheroes movie at the present time not even continue to read the comics because i feel like all comic book industries has lost the real meaning of the stories in the past, anyway, i knew about this GN but i have never read it, so yes i was waiting for this movie, and yes i like it a lot, and why i like it so much?, it is because i remember the 80`s, i remember the tension of the nuclear war scenario, the cold war, and at the 90′s i read a lot about how close we were of total destruction for real.
I understand that the kids from today does not understand at full all the complex stories that it carries but you have to be aware of the 80′s and Nixon history, most of the time we watch the war on far away countries and think that is like a movie…something so distant that will never touch you unless you have someone known being part of it. Maybe i saw something very different of what you all saw, i like it, because a saw a movie about human beings but with costume, good, bad, sicks, but all mentally humans(Dr Manhattan included)and for better or worse the things that happens on the movie does not get so far away from reality, the decision taken, are maybe decision taken before, hard desicion taken as the throw of the atomics bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, why? or if it was necessary?, who has the right or the moral to do something like that, there are hard desicion to be taken, and almost everytime, someone do it. It does not mean that were correct, but were done, another thing i like it was the definition of human life from Dr Manhattan point of view and i must admit i have had that same thought from many years ago. Maybe the points i am describing does not have anything in common with the GN, but those point are what came to my mind about this movie. and yes i must admit the only thing that i feel disappointed was some music on some moments maybe because of the trailers i have watched that plays some music that i feel more adapted…yeah sure feel like 80`s but…..no…did not work.
And about the nudity, i think that for all the advanced and civilized that we are… we still do not fully accept our bodies just as they are.. or at least males bodies maybe because we match our sexual organs to just sex and not with procreation and expulsion of toxins, but hey thats biology i mean all of us should feel not disturbed by the image. we should have seen it how it works in classroom, we are what we are. also it could mean that the female organs have been exploited so much on tv or films that it confirm that we still have a very male chauvinist society, anyway there is a lot to watch in watchmen.