Watchmen: "They're shaping me into something gaudy..."
"How do you know when you're a superhero and not just a fetish person with a death wish?"
- Grant Morrison, Seven Soldiers #0
The intro set to Bob Dylan's The Times They Are-a-Changin' is worth the price of admission. They had me hooked at that point, just like they had me hooked in Hobbiton in Fellowship of the Ring, only faster. That intro was fantastic.
The rest was good too. The change of ending made it, to my mind, a stronger story. I like the movie ending better.
That said, there were some missteps. The violence in the scenes with Laurie and Dan being jumped while in plain-clothes in the alley was amazing and then, once they put on the costumes it went to lame wire-fu. I wish all of the violence in the film was choreographed like the fight in the alley, brutal and short. In the prison-break and in the last fight scene, things got too super-heroish for me.
The sex scene between Dan and Laurie was comical and a bummer. Though, to be honest, I was glad that she kept her boots on. Boots aside, still a bummer.
There are little quibbles but nothing that won't be better (and worse?) with the cut scenes added back in to the Geek Edition DVD. I wish they hadn't cut so much with Ozymandius out. I had no idea how he was and Bubastis was never explained at all; the cat just kind of showed up with no framing what-so-ever.
Hollis' death scene, the lack of the Black Freighter, etc. didn't bug me much but it will be neat to sit down for a long evening and watch it with some geeky brothers and sisters.
The casting felt right; the actors all hit their marks. Dr. Manhattan, Roscharch, Dan, Laurie, Silk Spectre, the Comedian all felt dead on correct to me.
Two further things occur to me:
1) I liked Roscharch's brutality to the kidnapper better in the comic.
2) Someone needs to write some kind of cultural theory essay about Iron Man, Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen all in the context of a post-9/11 world.
I liked it.
- Grant Morrison, Seven Soldiers #0
The intro set to Bob Dylan's The Times They Are-a-Changin' is worth the price of admission. They had me hooked at that point, just like they had me hooked in Hobbiton in Fellowship of the Ring, only faster. That intro was fantastic.
The rest was good too. The change of ending made it, to my mind, a stronger story. I like the movie ending better.
That said, there were some missteps. The violence in the scenes with Laurie and Dan being jumped while in plain-clothes in the alley was amazing and then, once they put on the costumes it went to lame wire-fu. I wish all of the violence in the film was choreographed like the fight in the alley, brutal and short. In the prison-break and in the last fight scene, things got too super-heroish for me.
The sex scene between Dan and Laurie was comical and a bummer. Though, to be honest, I was glad that she kept her boots on. Boots aside, still a bummer.
There are little quibbles but nothing that won't be better (and worse?) with the cut scenes added back in to the Geek Edition DVD. I wish they hadn't cut so much with Ozymandius out. I had no idea how he was and Bubastis was never explained at all; the cat just kind of showed up with no framing what-so-ever.
Hollis' death scene, the lack of the Black Freighter, etc. didn't bug me much but it will be neat to sit down for a long evening and watch it with some geeky brothers and sisters.
The casting felt right; the actors all hit their marks. Dr. Manhattan, Roscharch, Dan, Laurie, Silk Spectre, the Comedian all felt dead on correct to me.
Two further things occur to me:
1) I liked Roscharch's brutality to the kidnapper better in the comic.
2) Someone needs to write some kind of cultural theory essay about Iron Man, Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen all in the context of a post-9/11 world.
I liked it.