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
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As far as why it's there and whether there is too much of it, I will first say that that is totally a matter of opinion and you are way-really-forsure entitled to your impressions that it was over-the-top. Half of my brain agrees with you. The other half is the part that spent the movie examining why particular things were filmed and portrayed the way that that they were in both the book and movie.
I feel like, in both media, the overall goal is the juxtaposition of this surreal idea of people dressed up in ridiculous costumes trying to fight crime against the reality of what it takes to do that type of things. It not that sometimes they hurt people. Its that if you're trained to do this kind of thing you will hurt people on a daily basis. It will become a part of your life, inevitably. I still feel that that's why Dan had his "performance anxiety". Kicking the shit out of people was so deeply a part of his identity that even a nice, relatively normal guy like him couldn't get it on without literally busting heads first. This, in the end, is why I think the degree of violence and the way it was filmed were justified. We need not only to see that this is something that happens now and then, but that every time these folks take out a gang, it's blood and bones and gore. The revulsion that you and I and many others feel when seeing that is also justified and totally the intent of the film, in that regard. I think it was a very strong way to make us understand exactly why people rioted and the government passed the Keene (Sp?) Act in the first place. Definitely if you go in expecting an action movie (even if you expect something darker than x-men or spiderman), this movie would shock and awe.
But, if you think about it, Spiderman was super-strong, could climb walls and swing through the air. He would have broken a few bones if his character were put in this light as well. We see "the people of city X" bemoan the vigilante nature of their local Hero fairly often in these stories. The, in the end, they save the day and the people of the city throw stuff at the bad guy from a bridge. What if there were no redemption? Dark, yes. Compelling, also yes.
Concerning the big blue penis, I thought it was clever to include that. On the one hand it does speak, as stated above, to his disconnect from humanity. However, on the other hand, I think that it should make an audience think again about our society's double-standard. No one's upset that the Silk-spectre II's breasts were exposed for a good 5 minutes straight (or so it seemed). Now, I don't plan on wandering across campus with my willie hanging out, but I do think that we should understand what we're doing when we put on clothes because we don't feel ok without them. There are reasons that we feel the need to put them on and reasons we feel like we don't want them at time. Dr. Manhattan is simply the reverse of that idea. Or perhaps the ultimate expression of it. If all things are equal, then there is no point in putting on the tuxedo. It is requested of him so he does it. It's like a costume or mask. However, his real everyday clothing is the body that he created for himself. In this regard, not filming "little Jon" (couldn't resist) is rather like saying that shoes can't be in the movie, or that they can but only for a few minutes. More than that and the loafers might up the rating too much.
k. that was way too long. Again, I totally respect what you had to say about the film and I do understand that perspective. Just some other ideas.
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