watchmen
So as pretty much anyone who's ever passed me on the street knows (and it would be funny except I'm not joking...), I went to see Watchmen on IMAX this weekend. Not on opening night because I was not hardcore enough and the midnight showing in both nearby IMAX theaters had sold out weeks in advance... (Seriously, what losers, right? :D)
Anyway, my thoughts on the movie...hmmm. It was really good. Awesome, actually. Maybe even possibly amazing. But for some reason, my gut reaction throughout the movie and leaving the theater wasn't: "SQUEEEEEEEEE!!!" Don't get me wrong, I was grinning like a lunatic at the end, and they did an amazing job, and I get really excited thinking back on it, and I'm gonna go see it again (I even already have someone that's going to go see it with me...bwahaha) but I dunno...it didn't quite hit the awesome-freak-out button.
Agh. It's hard to describe, and I feel like I'm selling the movie short. I really, really liked it, and the more I remember about it, the more I like it, but I did feel a little disconnected while I was watching it. Maybe it's just a product of the characters--to paraphrase Rorschach, none of them "reach the age of 35 without serious personality disorders," which kind of makes it hard to relate to them, but maybe it's just one of those movies you have to watch several times. I guess I'll just have to go watch it again, and report back. (It'll be a sacrifice, so I hope you all appreciate what I go through for you...:D)
First things first: The intro. Was awesome. For the most part, I found the music choices throughout the movie just a little odd, but the montage of the major events in vigilante history set to Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A'Changing" rocked. I might have cried from the awesome, I don't know. :)
Now that I've mentioned the music...some of it seemed...inappropriate sounds strong, but, yeah, inappropriate. "Unforgettable" over the Comedian's death scene and "99 Luftballoons" over Dan and Laurie's date? It was just weird, man. (But that might just be me; one of my friends who saw it with me really liked the music choices.)
One of the common criticisms (I read a couple reviews right before I saw the movie. I know, I know, it only ever makes me angry. You'd think I'd learn.) was that it followed the graphic novel too closely, so it was weirdly structured (like a 12-issue comic rather than a 3-act movie) and long and had none of its own identity. And okay, it had some weird transitions and it did feel a little long, but oh my crap, some of the images from the comic ROCKED IN MOVIE FORM!!! Dr Manhattan's central nervous system. That huge glass watch-thing on Mars. Dude, the smiley face on Mars. The entirety of the breaking-Rorschach-out-of-prison scene was pure, undiluted awesome. The fights were way cooler than the graphic novel (okay, duh) and Rorschach's interactions with the prisoners were so awesome there actually aren't words.
Anyway, it being that the movie was two and a half hours long rather than six, clearly some things got left out, but for the most part I was cool with the parts they cut. Like the whole Black Freighter comic book. Did anybody else think that was really weird? I missed the interplay between the New Yorkers around the news stand that got cut out with it, but if it means I don't have to see some crazed shipwrecked man floating around crazily on a raft made from the bloated carcasses of his shipmates, I'm okay with it...
Funny thing though, the director, as if feeling that the absence of the Black Freighter storyline left a dearth of gruesomeness in the movie that needed to be filled darn it, proceeded to up the gory-ness of every single fight scene about, oh, ten-fold. Seriously, it got a little ridiculous. There's a scene where they use an electric saw to cut off both of some guy's arms. I went home afterward to look for it in the actual book. Yeah, not there.
There was also a bit more sex than what I could remember from the graphic novel. I mean, I totally get that it's to illustrate how Dan and Laurie feel more themselves as Nite Owl and Silk Spectre, but seriously, that one scene was like, "Hey look! Pr0n!"
And speaking of Dan and Laurie, notice how I haven't said anything about the characters yet... :) Let's start with Nite Owl and Silk Spectre. On paper, they seem like the easiest characters to relate to, but I couldn't really relate to them. Granted, I've never liked Silk Spectre. I think she's whiny and ineffectual, but Patrick Wilson's one of my Broadway boyfriends, yo, it makes me sad that I didn't really care about his character. :(
Dr. Manhattan, I thought they handled really well. Especially that thing he does where he talks about everything in his past and future like it's happening at the same time. It was quite possibly one of my favorite parts of the book, and they did a really good job of it in the movie.
The Comedian. It's weird--he is probably the most despicable human being in the group of vigilantes, but somehow I ended up just feeling bad for him. Repulsed, but also bad. I'm pretty sure that's how you're supposed to feel about him, but I'm still impressed that they managed it given how, you know, despicable of a human being he is. Kudos to the actor on that.
And then we come to Rorschach. Holy crap, he was eleven thousand shades of awesome!!! He just...and the journal entries! And the gravelly voice! And the expressions! And his weird ungrammatical phrases! It was perfect Rorschach! He's so driven and idealistic and insane! Oh, man. Seriously, I am rendered speechless at the awesome-ness that is how Rorschach's character was done. Agh, I get chills just remembering some of his amazingly awesome lines. ("This city is afraid of me. I have seen its true face. The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown." "None of you understand. I'm not locked up in here with you. You're locked up in here with me!" "Never disposed of sewage with toilet before. Obvious, really.") Awesome. Awesome, awesome, awesome. That's all I can say because he was awesome.
Um. So in retrospect, maybe I did squee over the movie. A bit. :)