Oh my aching kidneys, or thoughts on Watchmen...
A few preliminary thoughts on Watchmen.
1) Don't order the large soda
2) If you haven't read the graphic novel yet (like me), you might want to wait until after seeing the movie to read it.
and
3) All you people bringing little kids to see this movie... What the hell are you thinking? Really? WHAT. THE HELL. ARE YOU. THINKING? Yes, it has superheroes, but NO, it is NOT for kids. I am not saying this due to the sex scene, or the the copious amounts of blue, glowy frontal male nudity. Nor the big philosophical discussions that that will probably go right over their heads. This is a great, epic film, but it is *dark*, and *violent* people. If you want your kids to see an attempted rape, a really ugly prison riot, and the effects of sharp implements on the human body, fine. I guess you are one of the weird "I want my kids to have lots of nightmares" parents...
Anyway...
Watchmen has long been on my list of books to read at some time, but I decided to see the movie first, so I wouldn't be comparing the two in my head. That, and not sound like all of the other fussy, impossible to please hipsters currently sniffing at this movie.
If you were sitting in a movie theater in 1989 wondering why the Batman movie was nothing like the Adam West version, Watchmen is the reason. This was the first comic book series that took the idea of the superhero, and examined the presumptions that we make about the superhero archetype.
What, exactly, would really motivate someone to wear a funny costume and take the law into their own hands? Sure, there would be folks motivated by altruism, but it would be naive to assume that would the sole motivation; some are going to be motivated by the power trip that it provides, others for the sheer thrill of the chase, and yet others for their own agendas that have little to do with the welfare of those they rescue. If nothing else, what made Watchmen such a landmark in comics was Moore's willingness to completely take apart the presumption that a world with superheroes would be a safer place than our own mundane one. Even one of the Watchmen bluntly states that after the invention of the nuclear bomb, folks like himself (and perhaps the very idea of the human capacity for heroism) have been made redundant. And that guy really loves his job...
The movie is nearly three hours long, but didn't seem to drag much; there is so much to take in that it keep you occupied. That, and I like watching movies that take on the challenge of building a whole world that is different from ours, and drawing the viewer within it. There are lots of flashbacks, but instead of derailing the pacing, they open up the Watchmen world further. Visually, it is stunning; the production design NEEDS to be seen on the big screen, just close your eyes when the circular saw shows up. Given that the heroes of Watchmen aren't as well known as the characters from DC and Marvel, and the sheer density of story Alan Moore packed into the original comic, the fact that it was both coherent and came in under three hours is impressive. The sheer amount of detail crammed into the opening montage, which spans the ~40 year history of superheroes in the Watchmen universe in the space of a few minutes was an amazing feat of filmmaking.
The culturegeek in me also loved the references thrown in all over the place. Nixon and Kissinger contemplate launching a first strike in Dr. Strangelove's War Room, and the use of Philip Glass's music in the scenes showing the creation of Dr. Manhattan evoke just the right amount of awe and dread his story required. However, I have agree with the folks about the use of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah", it is starting to become as cliched as Lennon's "Imagine" at this point, and did not help the scene at all. Which was a shame, considering it came right after one of the truly heroic scenes in the movie, and during a sex scene between the only two sane people among the Watchmen. While on the subject of sanity, Rorschach? Is played by the guy who was the smart mouthed, air-hockey playing kid in the original Bad News Bears... Wow...
For a great side-by-side comparison of the book vs. the film, check out this artcle over at The Onion AV Club, which made me glad that I saw the movie first. I still enjoyed the movie version, but Tasha Robinson brings up a number of points that would have snagged me had I read the book first, but it is hard not to see these differences as flaws so much as decisions that had to be made in the process of converting a story from one medium into another, and out of a sense of mercy for the audiences' kidneys. Still, if you want to see a movie that tackles such issues as end of the world dread, the nature of heroism, and is willing to show the dangers of inflicting one's vision of utopia or justice on the world, while at the same time showing just what makes such actions so damn tempting in the first place, Watchmen is worth checking out.
1) Don't order the large soda
2) If you haven't read the graphic novel yet (like me), you might want to wait until after seeing the movie to read it.
and
3) All you people bringing little kids to see this movie... What the hell are you thinking? Really? WHAT. THE HELL. ARE YOU. THINKING? Yes, it has superheroes, but NO, it is NOT for kids. I am not saying this due to the sex scene, or the the copious amounts of blue, glowy frontal male nudity. Nor the big philosophical discussions that that will probably go right over their heads. This is a great, epic film, but it is *dark*, and *violent* people. If you want your kids to see an attempted rape, a really ugly prison riot, and the effects of sharp implements on the human body, fine. I guess you are one of the weird "I want my kids to have lots of nightmares" parents...
Anyway...
Watchmen has long been on my list of books to read at some time, but I decided to see the movie first, so I wouldn't be comparing the two in my head. That, and not sound like all of the other fussy, impossible to please hipsters currently sniffing at this movie.
If you were sitting in a movie theater in 1989 wondering why the Batman movie was nothing like the Adam West version, Watchmen is the reason. This was the first comic book series that took the idea of the superhero, and examined the presumptions that we make about the superhero archetype.
What, exactly, would really motivate someone to wear a funny costume and take the law into their own hands? Sure, there would be folks motivated by altruism, but it would be naive to assume that would the sole motivation; some are going to be motivated by the power trip that it provides, others for the sheer thrill of the chase, and yet others for their own agendas that have little to do with the welfare of those they rescue. If nothing else, what made Watchmen such a landmark in comics was Moore's willingness to completely take apart the presumption that a world with superheroes would be a safer place than our own mundane one. Even one of the Watchmen bluntly states that after the invention of the nuclear bomb, folks like himself (and perhaps the very idea of the human capacity for heroism) have been made redundant. And that guy really loves his job...
The movie is nearly three hours long, but didn't seem to drag much; there is so much to take in that it keep you occupied. That, and I like watching movies that take on the challenge of building a whole world that is different from ours, and drawing the viewer within it. There are lots of flashbacks, but instead of derailing the pacing, they open up the Watchmen world further. Visually, it is stunning; the production design NEEDS to be seen on the big screen, just close your eyes when the circular saw shows up. Given that the heroes of Watchmen aren't as well known as the characters from DC and Marvel, and the sheer density of story Alan Moore packed into the original comic, the fact that it was both coherent and came in under three hours is impressive. The sheer amount of detail crammed into the opening montage, which spans the ~40 year history of superheroes in the Watchmen universe in the space of a few minutes was an amazing feat of filmmaking.
The culturegeek in me also loved the references thrown in all over the place. Nixon and Kissinger contemplate launching a first strike in Dr. Strangelove's War Room, and the use of Philip Glass's music in the scenes showing the creation of Dr. Manhattan evoke just the right amount of awe and dread his story required. However, I have agree with the folks about the use of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah", it is starting to become as cliched as Lennon's "Imagine" at this point, and did not help the scene at all. Which was a shame, considering it came right after one of the truly heroic scenes in the movie, and during a sex scene between the only two sane people among the Watchmen. While on the subject of sanity, Rorschach? Is played by the guy who was the smart mouthed, air-hockey playing kid in the original Bad News Bears... Wow...
For a great side-by-side comparison of the book vs. the film, check out this artcle over at The Onion AV Club, which made me glad that I saw the movie first. I still enjoyed the movie version, but Tasha Robinson brings up a number of points that would have snagged me had I read the book first, but it is hard not to see these differences as flaws so much as decisions that had to be made in the process of converting a story from one medium into another, and out of a sense of mercy for the audiences' kidneys. Still, if you want to see a movie that tackles such issues as end of the world dread, the nature of heroism, and is willing to show the dangers of inflicting one's vision of utopia or justice on the world, while at the same time showing just what makes such actions so damn tempting in the first place, Watchmen is worth checking out.