Comments on: Watchmen Review

By: coffee

coffee — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 20:03:46 +0000

I had a nagging feeling throughout the movie that the they chose the wrong girl for the (younger) Silk Spectre; all the other character choices were perfect tho

By: Andrew

Andrew — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 03:35:03 +0000

Not to minimize the rest of the movie elements, but did anyone else LOVE the sound track to this??? I mean playing The Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel at a graveyard scene…WOW! I want to give a major hats off to the production team on this one.

Also, the pacing of the movie was fantastic. It was not a long 3 hours if you know what I mean.

I must say though, Dr. Manhattan was cool and all, but Rorschach was definitely my favorite character. He put Batman to shame… I know, right?!

The director did a fantastic job and I left this film, just like I did 300; with a subtle urge to go out and blow the heck out of something. What a way to get the adrenaline pumping!

By: Kim L

Kim L — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 01:25:37 +0000

My husband had never read the graphic novel before. I gave him a very brief overview today before we went (I doubt he understood it since the book is really hard to summarize) and he said he understood it. He actually really loved the movie, probably even more than I did.

I really liked the movie and I will definitely see it again. I thought it translated an incredibly dense book very well onscreen. I think it actually made me appreciate the graphic novel even more than I did when I first read it. It boiled down all the extraneous plots to the central themes of the book. I especially enjoyed the Dr. Manhattan sequence on Mars where he remembers his life, past, present and future, reflecting on the things that he can’t change in life, despite his incredible powers. And I found myself really enjoying the final conclusion way more than I did when I read the book.

My one and only complaint is that they made the violence way more extreme than the graphic novel. I do not enjoy violence for the sake of violence, and some of the scenes seemed to get to that point.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 15:27:02 +0000

I’ll offer another two cents on this since I didn’t go into this particular thing very much in my review. I disagree slightly with Drew on this, that if you haven’t read the book, you still can enjoy the movie. However, like any adaptation, those most familiar with the source material will get the most out of the adaptation. They’ll pick up on the more nuanced references, and understand how things fit together without having to think as quickly or as hard.

As I said in my review, and as Drew said, it’s not a casual film, and one needs to really be paying attention to every detail (especially because it moves so quickly…I’ll again express my hope that some areas of pacing slow down on extended DVD releases that allow extra footage to be added back in).

While I do highly recommend a knowledge of the source material (and heck, it’s the only graphic novel on Time’s list of top 100 English-language novels of the modern age [1923 to present] so you’d do well to just read it anyway), you can enjoy the film on its own merits; just be forewarned that it won’t jive with any expectations you may have, and that your head may hurt afterwards.

For those with little to no experience with graphic novels who are somewhat interested in reading Watchmen, you may find helpful my previous post on “Preparing for the Watchmen Movie.”

By: Drew

Drew — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 04:42:26 +0000

Justin, I would say that unless you have read the book, or taken the time to find out what the graphic novel is about, you may not “get it.” Candess and I just returned from Watchmen and I describe the film in one word; “Heavy.”

Once I found out that the film was being made, I reserved and checked out the graphic novel from the library and took the time to dive in. Being familiar with the story, I went in basically knowing what to expect but also anxious to see how they adapted the ending (which I found a tad odd in the book).

Watching the opening credits, I enjoyed seeing this alternate reality reveal itself, but started wondering how, or when, they were going to explain all of this. I realized that, unless you pay meticulous attention to the vast detail of the film, there was going to be a lot that would go over your head. And there is a LOT of detail, which is fantastic! There’s no doubt in my mind that Snyder was the man for the job. However, his “creative liberties” taken with the sex and violence, came across as juvenile and immature. And considering this movie was rated R, playing to the young male audience shouldn’t be in consideration, but that’s Hollywood for you. And sadly, I saw more than one youngster brought to tonight’s showing by less than wise parents.

I grossly apologized to my wife for having convinced her to sit through this butt-numbing epic. Not only did she not “get it”, but she called Watchmen one of the worst films she’s ever seen. I can understand why she would have that opinion of the film. I, however, loved it! Those few mentioned faults aside, I let myself be engrossed and swarmed by the characters and plot. All of the actors were fantastic, but I gotta say my favorite one to watch was Haley as Rorschach. It seems they took the most time fleshing out his madness and the film was unforgettable in those respects.

For the Watchmen purists and loyalists, this was probably their “Dark Knight”. Being a mild admirer of the book, I think they just barely missed that mark. It was a fantastic film, but I, too, would have a hard time recommending it to others who may be expecting the typical super-hero film.

By: Justin

Justin — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 01:52:55 +0000

So, the big question for me, who has never read any of the book is, “Will I get it?” Is it one of those movies where you’ll be lost if you’re not familiar with the original work?

Is it anything like this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDDHHrt6l4w