Watchmen. No spoilers.
Watchmen was a deeply disappointing movie for me. It's based on Ryan's favorite graphic novel, so I thought it would be fantastic. Admittedly, the characters are great, the plot is wonderful, and the dialogue is mostly very convincing. And there's a wonderful extended love scene.
Unfortunately, the film was almost three hours long, and about and hour of that (maybe more like two hours) was just awful. Not cinematically speaking--it was all very well done--but in terms of two things (minimal spoilers, no details):
#1 The violence. This is easily the most violent film I've ever seen. It wasn't just the number of people killed, or the fact that the super"heroes" feel the need to murder everyone in their paths, but rather the way the violence is presented. In the movie Taken, for instance, just as many people die in fight scenes, but they are usually shot with guns and just fall over dead without excessive gore. All the people who are massacred are bad guys, who are involved in a sex-trafficking ring, so they deserve to die and we don't mourn them. They die, we move on.
In Watchmen, however, bad guys and innocents alike are murdered, and in graphic ways. Bones are popped through flesh, blood spatters everywhere, and when a gang member has been disabled he has his neck snapped anyway, because gods forbid that anyone should be left alive at the end of this blood-fest. The fight scenes are amazingly choreographed, but I wasn't able to appreciate the choreography because I had to look away most of the time. The fight scenes that aren't excessively graphic are pretty great--Rorschach in prison, anyone?--but most of the others are so disgusting they made me actually feel like retching. Before you call me a baby, I have seen lots of movies on the level of Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Full Metal Jacket, and they didn't seem particularly gory to me. Now do you get a hint of what I'm talking about? Yeah. It was that bad.
More disturbing than the director's need to milk every bit of agony out of the violence, however, was the audience's reactions to these excessively violent scenes. During one of the many moments when I had to look away, as a man's arms are sawn off with a power saw for no particular reason, people were laughing. Loudly. It brought me to tears. Yes, the victim was a criminal. Yes, he was not particularly likeable, or attractive, or intelligent. But laughter--isn't that the kind of reaction George W had when convicted criminals on death's row begged for their lives? He mocked them, which is something sociopaths do. I can understand laughing during an action sequence, I've done it. Sometimes it's funny when a guy gets clocked in the face right after saying something stupid. But 30 seconds of cutting someone's arms off shouldn't be funny. When it's that graphic, it should disturb you, and if it doesn't disturb you, then you should go see a psychiatrist.
#2 The big blue penis. It's everywhere. I get it, Dr. Manhatten is a being of energy and doesn't believe in clothes. But if he can make himself look like anything, could he please make himself look like a guy wearing clothes? Just a speedo would be acceptable. I have no problem with nudity in general and I certainly think it's about time that a film has the kind of full-frontal male nudity that was reserved only for women in the last 100 years (let guys see how it feels!). But the big blue penis was distracting. During important scenes it was either there, or lurking just off-camera, and could appear at any moment. Eventually I stopped noticing it, after about 2 hours, but I don't think that's necessarily a good thing. Like the violence, nudity is something we're not used to seeing, so it should be used sparingly for maximum effect.
The director obviously wanted to impress on the audience how grim and gritty the world of Watchmen is. He did that in the first half hour, however, and didn't need to keep flogging the dead horse. Instead of leaving me with a feeling like I had touched darkness (watch The Dark Knight and you'll know what I mean) he made me feel like I had bathed in it, unwillingly, and he was the sicko who created the shit that I was forced to look at. There was no reason for the movie to be as graphically violent as it was except that the director wanted to torture what was, essentially, a captive audience. I understand that yes, the target audience was mostly young males, and they can handle violence better than other demographics, but even Ryan thought it was excessive (and let me reiterate, I am not a shrinking violet. I love horror movies and action movies, or at least the ones where the violence has a point).
Someone needs to teach this asshole director that brevity is powerful; sometimes the things you don't show are the scariest and most horrible; and people who don't live in a nudist colony are going to be distracted by full-frontal for more than a few minutes. Someone needs to sit down and edit a copy of this film, removing the really gory bits and placing a pair of tight-whities on Dr. Manhatten. Then it will be fine, soft-core porn and all. :)
Unfortunately, the film was almost three hours long, and about and hour of that (maybe more like two hours) was just awful. Not cinematically speaking--it was all very well done--but in terms of two things (minimal spoilers, no details):
#1 The violence. This is easily the most violent film I've ever seen. It wasn't just the number of people killed, or the fact that the super"heroes" feel the need to murder everyone in their paths, but rather the way the violence is presented. In the movie Taken, for instance, just as many people die in fight scenes, but they are usually shot with guns and just fall over dead without excessive gore. All the people who are massacred are bad guys, who are involved in a sex-trafficking ring, so they deserve to die and we don't mourn them. They die, we move on.
In Watchmen, however, bad guys and innocents alike are murdered, and in graphic ways. Bones are popped through flesh, blood spatters everywhere, and when a gang member has been disabled he has his neck snapped anyway, because gods forbid that anyone should be left alive at the end of this blood-fest. The fight scenes are amazingly choreographed, but I wasn't able to appreciate the choreography because I had to look away most of the time. The fight scenes that aren't excessively graphic are pretty great--Rorschach in prison, anyone?--but most of the others are so disgusting they made me actually feel like retching. Before you call me a baby, I have seen lots of movies on the level of Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Full Metal Jacket, and they didn't seem particularly gory to me. Now do you get a hint of what I'm talking about? Yeah. It was that bad.
More disturbing than the director's need to milk every bit of agony out of the violence, however, was the audience's reactions to these excessively violent scenes. During one of the many moments when I had to look away, as a man's arms are sawn off with a power saw for no particular reason, people were laughing. Loudly. It brought me to tears. Yes, the victim was a criminal. Yes, he was not particularly likeable, or attractive, or intelligent. But laughter--isn't that the kind of reaction George W had when convicted criminals on death's row begged for their lives? He mocked them, which is something sociopaths do. I can understand laughing during an action sequence, I've done it. Sometimes it's funny when a guy gets clocked in the face right after saying something stupid. But 30 seconds of cutting someone's arms off shouldn't be funny. When it's that graphic, it should disturb you, and if it doesn't disturb you, then you should go see a psychiatrist.
#2 The big blue penis. It's everywhere. I get it, Dr. Manhatten is a being of energy and doesn't believe in clothes. But if he can make himself look like anything, could he please make himself look like a guy wearing clothes? Just a speedo would be acceptable. I have no problem with nudity in general and I certainly think it's about time that a film has the kind of full-frontal male nudity that was reserved only for women in the last 100 years (let guys see how it feels!). But the big blue penis was distracting. During important scenes it was either there, or lurking just off-camera, and could appear at any moment. Eventually I stopped noticing it, after about 2 hours, but I don't think that's necessarily a good thing. Like the violence, nudity is something we're not used to seeing, so it should be used sparingly for maximum effect.
The director obviously wanted to impress on the audience how grim and gritty the world of Watchmen is. He did that in the first half hour, however, and didn't need to keep flogging the dead horse. Instead of leaving me with a feeling like I had touched darkness (watch The Dark Knight and you'll know what I mean) he made me feel like I had bathed in it, unwillingly, and he was the sicko who created the shit that I was forced to look at. There was no reason for the movie to be as graphically violent as it was except that the director wanted to torture what was, essentially, a captive audience. I understand that yes, the target audience was mostly young males, and they can handle violence better than other demographics, but even Ryan thought it was excessive (and let me reiterate, I am not a shrinking violet. I love horror movies and action movies, or at least the ones where the violence has a point).
Someone needs to teach this asshole director that brevity is powerful; sometimes the things you don't show are the scariest and most horrible; and people who don't live in a nudist colony are going to be distracted by full-frontal for more than a few minutes. Someone needs to sit down and edit a copy of this film, removing the really gory bits and placing a pair of tight-whities on Dr. Manhatten. Then it will be fine, soft-core porn and all. :)