Quis custodiat, et cetera.
I saw Watchmen on Saturday with bionic_kate, which was probably a good thing, since judging by the latest box-office numbers, it may be gone by next week. I did a number of unusual things with this movie that I've never done before, the first of which was that I didn't avoid reading any articles or reviews in advance. After all, I'd read the book (and read it again two weeks ago), and since it was such a faithful adaptation, it was hardly likely that I'd run into spoilers. So I knew pretty much which parts had been changed, and I thought that was all I needed to know.
What I really didn't anticipate was just how much more graphic the violence was in the movie. Watchmen the book isn't shy about showing violence, but it was a product of 1985, so it's not exactly intense. I was really surprised that Zach Snyder added so much arterial spray, like it was a video game or something. In fact, I thought it changed the characters for the worse. The book makes quite clear that Rorschach has only killed twice before the events of the book (the kidnapper of the little girl, and a child molester right after the Keene Act was passed), but the movie gives the impression that he kills people right and left. Not to mention Silk Specter stabbing that guy in the neck in the alley. The entire tone of that scene in the alley was wrong, in fact -- in the book, Dan and Laurie are frightened at first, and reluctant to fight, but their instincts take over. Even then, it's a close thing, since they're both out of practice, and they're lucky to get out unhurt. In the movie version of the same scene, they're almost looking for the fight, and they have a very "bring it on" attitude. It creates the same problem as the fight scenes in 300 -- the characters who are supposed to come across as the underdogs are actually so uber that it removes any risk from the fight. In this particular case, it also undermines the idea that most of the hero characters don't actually have any powers, when they can toss people 30 feet across the room.
There's a similar lack of subtlety to the music selections. It may have been because of the captions (I'll get back to that later), but the majority of the music seemed thuddingly obvious. I mean, come on, "Ride of the Valkyries" for a scene in Vietnam? Hasn't there been a moratorium on that? I realize it could be interpreted as ironic, but with the way the other songs were used, I doubt it. Yes, I realize that "All Along the Watchtower" is actually in the book, but that's not a reason to club me over the head with it, shouting "Do you get it? Do you? Huh?" To be fair, there was one bit of music I thought was clever...while Adrian is making his little speech to Lee Iacocca, a muzak version of "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" plays softly in the background. That was clever. The rest of it...wasn't.
The other bit that really bothered me was the voice-overs. This bothered me in 300 as well, for the exact same reason. A running internal narrative in a comic book is an expected trope in comic books, and in 1985, it was a new thing. In the movie, though, we get not one, but two of these (Rorschach's journal throughout, and Dr. Manhattan's musings about halfway through), and they come across as stilted, and unnecessary. As I said in my discussion of 300, comic books are static images, so you sometimes have to describe the action. A movie doesn't have that need at all.
And then there was the slo-mo. We know it's Zach Snyder's signature thing, and everybody said it wasn't nearly as bad in this movie as it was in 300. By a pure mathematical measure, that's true...but there are many fewer action sequences in Watchmen than in 300. Every time somebody starts punching, the action slows down, and it gets really dull. It's not like the fights were particularly amazing, Wachowski-brothers-style. After all, most of the characters are supposed to be regular people, without superpowers, so the fight scenes should be pretty ordinary.
Was there anything I liked about the movie? Sure. Visually, it was pretty spot-on, and there was plenty of eye-candy for people who know the book really, really well, but I imagine that went right by most of the audience. Rorschach was almost 100% right...I've already said that a couple of scenes were rewritten to make him more violent, which I didn't quite like, but other than that, everything was spot-on. His appearance was perfect, the mask was the way I've always imagined it, and Jackie Earle Haley was fantastic in the role, both in and out of costume. His air of detachment in the prison scenes was just perfect. Jeffrey Dean Morgan was also excellent as the Comedian, I thought. I've always wanted to punch that character in the face, and I felt that way watching the movie too, so he must have done a good job. (I had absolutely no idea that Matt Frewer was playing Moloch. I can't believe I missed that. I must have been distracted by the ears.)
Bottom line: I was disappointed. Was it a better adaptation of Watchmen than I had any right to expect out of Hollywood? Probably. Do I think it could have been made better by reining in the excesses (which would have probably saved money)? Yeah, I do. I felt obligated to see it by my nerdish nature, but I feel no compulsion to see it again, or own the DVD, or anything like that. I'm not really sure what Zach Snyder's up to next, but it will be interesting to see what he can do on his own, as opposed to slavishly re-creating a comic book.
The other unusual thing I did with this movie was that I saw it with captions, and I should make some mention of what I thought about the captioned-movie experience. I don't know if Jackie Earle Haley's line delivery was difficult to understand, like Christian Bale's was in Dark Knight. Obviously, I didn't have any trouble with it -- maybe future Batman movies should come with Bat-captions, just for Christian Bale's lines. The caption text was in yellow, which I found amusing. I'd actually wondered if they were going to do that. bionic_kate wasn't sure if captions are always in yellow, although we suspect they're probably white, and switched to yellow deliberately for this movie. Unfortunately, I thought that made the captions difficult to read when they appeared over, say, a close-up of someone wearing a white shirt. bionic_kate didn't think so, though, and I'll bow to her greater experience. The one odd effect I noticed, though, was with the music. That is, the captions would say something like "("All Along the Watchtower" plays.)" Which is, of course, useful information for people who can't hear it, but it does make the music a bit more up-front, I think. When you're listening to a normal movie soundtrack -- or at least, this is how it works for me -- the song plays for a few seconds, works its way into the background of your brain, and then the thought pops up, "Hey, I know this song! Ohhh, and it's appropriate to the scene. Yes, very clever." With the captions, though, you're told from the first note what you're hearing, so it removes that bit of mental processing. So I may have been overly harsh in my criticism of the music, but I really don't think so.
What I really didn't anticipate was just how much more graphic the violence was in the movie. Watchmen the book isn't shy about showing violence, but it was a product of 1985, so it's not exactly intense. I was really surprised that Zach Snyder added so much arterial spray, like it was a video game or something. In fact, I thought it changed the characters for the worse. The book makes quite clear that Rorschach has only killed twice before the events of the book (the kidnapper of the little girl, and a child molester right after the Keene Act was passed), but the movie gives the impression that he kills people right and left. Not to mention Silk Specter stabbing that guy in the neck in the alley. The entire tone of that scene in the alley was wrong, in fact -- in the book, Dan and Laurie are frightened at first, and reluctant to fight, but their instincts take over. Even then, it's a close thing, since they're both out of practice, and they're lucky to get out unhurt. In the movie version of the same scene, they're almost looking for the fight, and they have a very "bring it on" attitude. It creates the same problem as the fight scenes in 300 -- the characters who are supposed to come across as the underdogs are actually so uber that it removes any risk from the fight. In this particular case, it also undermines the idea that most of the hero characters don't actually have any powers, when they can toss people 30 feet across the room.
There's a similar lack of subtlety to the music selections. It may have been because of the captions (I'll get back to that later), but the majority of the music seemed thuddingly obvious. I mean, come on, "Ride of the Valkyries" for a scene in Vietnam? Hasn't there been a moratorium on that? I realize it could be interpreted as ironic, but with the way the other songs were used, I doubt it. Yes, I realize that "All Along the Watchtower" is actually in the book, but that's not a reason to club me over the head with it, shouting "Do you get it? Do you? Huh?" To be fair, there was one bit of music I thought was clever...while Adrian is making his little speech to Lee Iacocca, a muzak version of "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" plays softly in the background. That was clever. The rest of it...wasn't.
The other bit that really bothered me was the voice-overs. This bothered me in 300 as well, for the exact same reason. A running internal narrative in a comic book is an expected trope in comic books, and in 1985, it was a new thing. In the movie, though, we get not one, but two of these (Rorschach's journal throughout, and Dr. Manhattan's musings about halfway through), and they come across as stilted, and unnecessary. As I said in my discussion of 300, comic books are static images, so you sometimes have to describe the action. A movie doesn't have that need at all.
And then there was the slo-mo. We know it's Zach Snyder's signature thing, and everybody said it wasn't nearly as bad in this movie as it was in 300. By a pure mathematical measure, that's true...but there are many fewer action sequences in Watchmen than in 300. Every time somebody starts punching, the action slows down, and it gets really dull. It's not like the fights were particularly amazing, Wachowski-brothers-style. After all, most of the characters are supposed to be regular people, without superpowers, so the fight scenes should be pretty ordinary.
Was there anything I liked about the movie? Sure. Visually, it was pretty spot-on, and there was plenty of eye-candy for people who know the book really, really well, but I imagine that went right by most of the audience. Rorschach was almost 100% right...I've already said that a couple of scenes were rewritten to make him more violent, which I didn't quite like, but other than that, everything was spot-on. His appearance was perfect, the mask was the way I've always imagined it, and Jackie Earle Haley was fantastic in the role, both in and out of costume. His air of detachment in the prison scenes was just perfect. Jeffrey Dean Morgan was also excellent as the Comedian, I thought. I've always wanted to punch that character in the face, and I felt that way watching the movie too, so he must have done a good job. (I had absolutely no idea that Matt Frewer was playing Moloch. I can't believe I missed that. I must have been distracted by the ears.)
Bottom line: I was disappointed. Was it a better adaptation of Watchmen than I had any right to expect out of Hollywood? Probably. Do I think it could have been made better by reining in the excesses (which would have probably saved money)? Yeah, I do. I felt obligated to see it by my nerdish nature, but I feel no compulsion to see it again, or own the DVD, or anything like that. I'm not really sure what Zach Snyder's up to next, but it will be interesting to see what he can do on his own, as opposed to slavishly re-creating a comic book.
The other unusual thing I did with this movie was that I saw it with captions, and I should make some mention of what I thought about the captioned-movie experience. I don't know if Jackie Earle Haley's line delivery was difficult to understand, like Christian Bale's was in Dark Knight. Obviously, I didn't have any trouble with it -- maybe future Batman movies should come with Bat-captions, just for Christian Bale's lines. The caption text was in yellow, which I found amusing. I'd actually wondered if they were going to do that. bionic_kate wasn't sure if captions are always in yellow, although we suspect they're probably white, and switched to yellow deliberately for this movie. Unfortunately, I thought that made the captions difficult to read when they appeared over, say, a close-up of someone wearing a white shirt. bionic_kate didn't think so, though, and I'll bow to her greater experience. The one odd effect I noticed, though, was with the music. That is, the captions would say something like "("All Along the Watchtower" plays.)" Which is, of course, useful information for people who can't hear it, but it does make the music a bit more up-front, I think. When you're listening to a normal movie soundtrack -- or at least, this is how it works for me -- the song plays for a few seconds, works its way into the background of your brain, and then the thought pops up, "Hey, I know this song! Ohhh, and it's appropriate to the scene. Yes, very clever." With the captions, though, you're told from the first note what you're hearing, so it removes that bit of mental processing. So I may have been overly harsh in my criticism of the music, but I really don't think so.