Headed up to the Sundance Kabuki theatre (which is, incidentally, the most enjoyable, fun and civilized place to see a movie in San Francisco) to catch an matinee of Watchmen before the entire Internet spoiled it for me. And overall, I really have to give it a thumbs up. With a story of that scope, things simply need to get cut and I think they did a good job deciding what needed to stay and what had to go. And while some have expressed their disapproval of decisions like substituting the faux Dr. Manhattan attack for the Giant Squid, in the end, it still retained the “point” of the story. And while it enraged the purists to rename the group The Watchmen, I will assert without hesitation that it’s better than a sophomoric name like Crimebusters.
Moreover, at the risk of committing blasphemy against a bit of geek canon, I can’t say that the source material was without chaff in the first place. The Silk Spectre I and II backstory got way too much page time as far as I was concerned, and the point that Dr. Manhattan experiences time in a quantum fashion was nailed home a bit too much as well. I’ll probably commit the biggest heresy by saying that I thought that the whole Black Freighter story was pretty redundant as well. I didn’t require an analogy to the story I was already reading while I was reading it. So I was glad that all of those got pared down. And while I thought the Black Freighter bit was overdone, I think that the way they are releasing it as a separate direct-to-video release is a smart and intriguing move.
Random observations…
Stuff that was categorically good:
- The opening credits. Not only were they visually interesting, but that was a really smart way to touch on the backstories of the first generation of masked adventurers. They obviously could not spend too much screen time on that and I thought that handing it that way was smart and very interesting from a narrative point of view.
- Casting and performances for Rorschach and The Comedian. Jeffrey Dean Morgan really brought the character of The Comedian alive for me, and I enjoyed the cinematic performance much more than the portrayal in the source material. In the novel he was just a pig, but in the movie he was pure psychotic misanthropy. And holy crap, Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach was dead on (masked and otherwise).
- New looks for Nite Owl II and Ozymandias. I think that the “darker” looks of both of their costumes worked really well, especially in the case of Nite Owl. Additionally, I really liked the “more Bowie and less Prince Valiant” look that actor Matthew Goode brought to Ozymandias too. Made him a touch more sinister.
- It was amazingly well-paced. Two and three-quarters of an hour is a pretty long movie. But unlike other recent longish movies (like The Dark Knight), I never had a sense of “sitting through a long movie”. Takes a good touch to pull that off.
- Violence. Watchmen is a dark and violent story and that was going to be reflected in the movie. While some of the violent scenes were pretty cringe-worthy (and I’m not really a shrinking violet on that mark), I don’t think that it ever strayed into the realm of “gratuitous”.
- Fight scenes. The murder of The Comedian, Nite Owl/Silk Spectre vs. The Street Punks and the Ozymandias/Nite Owl/Rorschach three-way were all really well choreographed. Rorschach continuing to put his hat back on while getting his ass handed to him during that last fight scene tickled me. I love that crazy guy.
Criticisms and questions:
- Nixon overdose. Don’t you just briefly glimpse him on a single page of the novel? I really can’t quite figure out why that change was made. I think that the more subtle handling of the political climate in the source material was much better. And while I think that Nixon was a total rat bastard, his nose was never that goofy looking.
- Bungling Rorschach’s backstory. In a general sense, I don’t think they spent enough time on the brutality of Rorschach’s early life. It’s a big key to why he is the way he is. Additionally the change to the “Birth Of Rorschach” flashback was stupid. Pouring kerosine all over the place, offering the child murderer a “difficult choice” and then watching the place burn was more interesting and metaphorically rich than just cleavering the guy in the head a couple of times.
- Nite Owl I and II plot hole. I recall the vigilante murder of Nite Owl I being a pretty salient part of the Nite Owl II story. Excluding that left a pretty big loose end in the narrative. Since they chose to omit that part, they may as well have left all out the content with Nite Owl I since it sort of goes nowhere without the bitter end.
- Surprised they omitted the party scene where Silk Spectre II confronts The Comedian about the attempted rape of her mother. Wouldn’t have required much screen time and I thought that part really ratcheted up the tension between those characters. I would have included that and was surprised that it got cut. Same deal with skipping over the pressure Laurie was under to follow in her mother’s footsteps. Sort of a salient point.
- Something was missing in the final scenes at Karnak II. I can’t totally put my finger on it, and the events follow the source material for the most part. But it was just missing a certain je ne sais quoi. It was not a deal breaker but it still felt lacking. Perhaps because it didn’t want to go all the way with the “this is not exactly a happy ending” vibe.
So that’s an additional two cents in the ever-filling “Internet Watchmen change jar”. Looking forward to a second watch sometime in the next week or so with someone who has not read the source yet. Screw the purists. This was a really good movie. Looking forward to the inevitable extended dance remix DVD.
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I just saw Watchmen, too, mainly for the same reason (I had a bunch of tabs open with stuff I couldn’t read yet and really wanted to!). I really dug it — and I liked the Manhattan-ending-change; the squid was OK, but basically the US+USSR going to war against God was basically cooler anyway…8) I definitely enjoyed it. Some of the violence DID get a bit much, and I got _really sick_ of the slow-down-speed-up fight scene gimmick. (It’d be OK once in a while, but like, 500-times-per-second-of-fight-scene was a bit much.) I actually thought the Book-Versus-Film article in the AV Club was dead-on. (Nite Owl & Silk Spectre II seemed to get too-into the fighting and kicking people’s asses thing.)
Rorschach was just about perfect, and Nite Owl did a really good job acting, too. Silk Spectre II can’t act at all, unfortunately; and I thought Ozy was a little TOO sinister; I think kind of the important point is that he MEANS well, even if he’s bein’ basically evil. In the comic, he seemed to realize the exchange he was making a bit more (and it was hit a bit harder with all of the street scenes) — in the movie, it was more of an anonymous 15 million (or whatever the figure was), and there was a throwaway line that he’d seen all of the dead folks’ faces, but it didn’t really seem to matter much to him, and you figured he was just SAYING that because it sounded good.
But he DID totally look like Bowie, which was kinda awesome.
You’re right, some of the violence did get to be a bit much. I wasn’t expecting to see the inside of that guy’s arm in the street fight scene for example. But as noted before it IS a “dark and violent story”. My point was that it was not over played, and not played for gratuitous entertainment. It was heavy-handed, but still measured, so it got your attention when it happened. And I don’t really have a problem with that – I would prefer that than seeing heaping helpings of watered down violence as entertainment fodder.
A while ago, I heard an interview with David Cronenberg. No big secret that his films can be pretty heavy-handed in that regard as well. But when asked about it, he came back with a very humanistic response. Paraphrasing: violence done unto human beings is a terrible and horrible thing and should be depicted as such rather than being trivialized. I liked that. So that’s why I was OK with rougher content in Watchmen since it was to the point and not over-played (I thought).
No real argument about the freeze-framing the action being sort of gimmicky. Blame The Matrix I suppose.