Who Watches the Watchmen? We did!
Mar. 7th, 2009 01:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bliumchikMet up with Diana, Yi Fan &co at the movies today, brought Cassie and her friend Jess. It was good to see my old high school friends again! Watchmen was ~okay? I found myself completely unable to figure out how I would have reacted to it had any of the plot twists been surprising - since I knew all the answers the subtle hints hit me with the force of a sledgehammer. Of course, that should happen now when I reread the book, but somehow it doesn't, because I'm always finding new Awesome Things What Alan Moore Done in it. I can admire it stylistically which makes up for losing that first-time shock experience. The movie... it was well-shot, but not necessarily well-constructed.
The good news is that Zack Snyder's passionate love affair with one or all of his slow-mo technicians appears to be going well! Things I liked: The cinematography. The understated emotion-bringing scenes, what there was of them. Rorschach. I went in prepared to have the living shit annoyed out of me by his voice, but it was surprisingly bearable, and his characterisation actually worked. Good actor that. Same with Doc Manhattan. Ozymandias, however, was exactly as lame as the previews had led me to expect, seriously. He had not the slightest ounce of charisma.
In other news, we were somewhat hypnotized by Manhattan’s swingin’ action in a couple of scenes - it’s quite hard to take somebody seriously when their dangly bits are swaying gently in the breeze. I'm just sayin'.
My main complaint about this movie is that APPARENTLY it was SO HARD to fit as much material as they did into it and SO HARD to choose what to cut AND YET the Comedian’s death scene, proportionally speaking, streeeetched in between the book and the movie, and the sex scenes, tastefully conveyed in a few panels in the original, streeeetched, and really? REALLY? They COULDN’T FIT THINGS INTO THIS MOVIE?
I hate it when directors don’t get the “less is more” principle. Hitchcock would’ve known what to do with this movie. For christ’s sake, the moment BEFORE the saw hit the man’s arm was TERRIFYING, and every extra second of gore-focus after that was more and more irritating. You DO NOT NEED to punch the comedian in the face thirty times and throw him around the room over and over again, WE GET IT ALREADY. (Besides which, this is Ozymandias, who likes to think of himself as a good guy - would he really spend time picking the guy up and throwing him down again when he could go for a cleanish kill as soon as he subdued him enough?)
Also I agree that Nite Owl is much hotter in the mask. He's got the jaw for it, the rest of the face is nothing special. Mmm, costume-related erectile dysfunction. How we loled. Acting could use some work though - what was up with the big no at the end? Like, he just stands there until Manhattan kills Rorschach and then five seconds later like flipping a switch he starts screaming.
Anyway, that's that. While waiting for people to show up I hung out in Comics Kingdom and bought a couple of 50c back issues of Formerly Known As The Justice League, which is hilaaaarious. Pity scans_daily died, huh? I should check out the new incarnation, wherever it's gone. Also on the way to the bus stop I ran into my cat's sparring partner - I'd recognise that ugly face anywhere. Looks like she got her own back, too, he had a big scratch on his nose.
The good news is that Zack Snyder's passionate love affair with one or all of his slow-mo technicians appears to be going well! Things I liked: The cinematography. The understated emotion-bringing scenes, what there was of them. Rorschach. I went in prepared to have the living shit annoyed out of me by his voice, but it was surprisingly bearable, and his characterisation actually worked. Good actor that. Same with Doc Manhattan. Ozymandias, however, was exactly as lame as the previews had led me to expect, seriously. He had not the slightest ounce of charisma.
In other news, we were somewhat hypnotized by Manhattan’s swingin’ action in a couple of scenes - it’s quite hard to take somebody seriously when their dangly bits are swaying gently in the breeze. I'm just sayin'.
My main complaint about this movie is that APPARENTLY it was SO HARD to fit as much material as they did into it and SO HARD to choose what to cut AND YET the Comedian’s death scene, proportionally speaking, streeeetched in between the book and the movie, and the sex scenes, tastefully conveyed in a few panels in the original, streeeetched, and really? REALLY? They COULDN’T FIT THINGS INTO THIS MOVIE?
I hate it when directors don’t get the “less is more” principle. Hitchcock would’ve known what to do with this movie. For christ’s sake, the moment BEFORE the saw hit the man’s arm was TERRIFYING, and every extra second of gore-focus after that was more and more irritating. You DO NOT NEED to punch the comedian in the face thirty times and throw him around the room over and over again, WE GET IT ALREADY. (Besides which, this is Ozymandias, who likes to think of himself as a good guy - would he really spend time picking the guy up and throwing him down again when he could go for a cleanish kill as soon as he subdued him enough?)
Also I agree that Nite Owl is much hotter in the mask. He's got the jaw for it, the rest of the face is nothing special. Mmm, costume-related erectile dysfunction. How we loled. Acting could use some work though - what was up with the big no at the end? Like, he just stands there until Manhattan kills Rorschach and then five seconds later like flipping a switch he starts screaming.
Anyway, that's that. While waiting for people to show up I hung out in Comics Kingdom and bought a couple of 50c back issues of Formerly Known As The Justice League, which is hilaaaarious. Pity scans_daily died, huh? I should check out the new incarnation, wherever it's gone. Also on the way to the bus stop I ran into my cat's sparring partner - I'd recognise that ugly face anywhere. Looks like she got her own back, too, he had a big scratch on his nose.
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no subject
Date: 2009-03-06 11:37 pm (UTC)I agree that it was very very well shot and designed but pacing was a bit funny and my god they loved the violence and sex scenes. I really don't remember that many in the comic.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-07 12:46 am (UTC)