Film review: Watchmen (2009)

[my_daroga]

I was not in that group of comic book readers blown away by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen in 1986. In fact, by the time I was reading comics and watching movies critically, the bitter, reflective mode of the book had already permeated the superhero ethos, and its revolutionary aspects had been re-integrated into the texts it rebelled

Comments

[desertcreature]

I hated it. Seriously, I just didn't like it at all.

[my_daroga]

I didn't like it at all either (in the sense that I derived no pleasure from watching it), but I know some people did, and I wanted to write about what, specifically, bothered me the most.

For a second, I thought your icon was directed at me!

[desertcreature]

No! Not at all. It was directed at the movie.

You know I <3 you. :)

[halloween49]

Thanks for the warning ...you saved me $8 and a heartbreak
Hugs
G

[my_daroga]

You shouldn't take my word for it necessarily--but if what I said hits you in a certain way, I think you would be disappointed, yes.

[washu_bellana]

I agree phantom_siren, i wanted a big tentacled beasty from beyond the stars and the fact Hollis seemed to serve only as a relic of the glory days was a bit disappointing. I did enjoy the film, and yes I have read the graphic novel and it is one of my favourites. I personally enjoyed the opening sequence with the look at the Minutemen's existence in an alternate America. I think the reason this was done was to adequately convey to an audience just what kind of world they were living in and this allowed the characters to be established fairly quickly (after all, the graphic novel has 'extras' between chapters that set up the context and backstories of the characters, which couldnt easily have been reproduced in the movie). The only parts I didnt like were the ending and the Silk Spectre II as she seemed too much of a Cameron-Diaz-lookalike with half the emotional promise of the graphic novel character. And the costume! It was waaaaaay nicer in the comic and less......erm, tasteless. At least her mum's outfit had a touch of 40's glamour

[washu_bellana]

"I liked the soundtrack, considering the fact that most of the audience I watched it with were 18 to 25 they needed the audio hints like "NOW ITS THE BIT FROM APOCALYSPE NOW!!! YOU KNOW WHEN AMERICA DID THAT STUFF IN THAT COUNTRY TOP GEAR WENT TO AT CHRISTMAS!" bashed around their heads. I studied history to degree level so I knew most of what they were talking about, but only because I studied 1970s US history (our schools rarely teach history less than 25 years ago at high school level so most people of an age to watch the movie wouldn't necessarily know what the hell was going on). Plus our 70s and 80s were very different. I kinda saw it as Forrest Gump sort of musical cues, especially important since the story jumped from past to other past to present so much. Dave considers the use of music to be a clever nod at all the media we actually know from that time to say "hey this is the alt-universe version of that

[filmnoir6]

I'm glad I held out for DVD for this film--maybe.

[slashydutchie]

I went to see this one with my dad, which was rather nice since we don't hang out enough... mostly because we have different tastes yet very similar personalities, which can often lead to conflict, but it's still a shame.

I managed to enjoy the movie for entertainment's sake, though I had to search for a delicate balance between taking what I knew from the comics (the entire first half didn't make any sense whatsoever to my father, who didn't know them) and at the same time disregarding the comics and just taking the film as something completely separate.

To me it almost felt like a kind of study on techniques rather than a story. I've done a Media and Entertainment Management study before going into teaching and there were some odd paralels between the things I'd seen there and this film. I guess that's just the "see what we can do" thing from another perspective.