Watchmen: Worth Watching.
OR
Watchmen: Blue dick with greater detail than the books.
OR (Seriously, this time.)
Watchmen: Technically never proved that “The unfilmable comic has been filmed,” seeing as so much was cut out or re-stitched into something else.
—
I decided to write this review again because Watchmen, without anything better to say, is one of the most notorious films I think have ever been made, and probably ever will be made, unless Alan Moore creates another masterpiece… which he’s good at. I doubt such events would happen, however, because his best works have already been film-ified like the plague.
As it is notorious, it would require more than a simple view and a second view to fully rate it for what it is. That’s right, I went to see others that took the same path as Zack Snyder did when directing Watchmen.
Take his other comic-based movie, Frank Miller’s 300, for example. It doesn’t take much to say that 300 so far is the most loyal, most accurate adaptation of a comic movie I’ve ever seen. That’s after reading the book itself after watching the movie. Save for some changes, some additions of the side-story involving the Queen of Sparta, and an injection of epicness to certain parts (THIS IS SPARTAAAAA!) the movie itself is quite accurate.
Well, except the Spartans in the book didn’t even have pants. That’s right. Frank Miller drew genitals on every single spartan in some frames. Hilarious.
Zack Snyder did an excellent job with 300. There are some who dislike the more-than-occasional “slow-mo at hits” but I find it to be a calling card for Snyder these days.
I admit, the slow-mo thing could have been a bit much in 300, but after seeing the same thing employed in Watchmen, except even better, I can only say that Zack Snyder is making this a calling card, and is trying his best to perfect that skill in placement.
It’s turning out rather excellent, and it definitely showed in the fight scenes in Watchmen.
Anyway, Watchmen is based on the graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, which was produced by the two because they had nothing better to do, and Alan Moore is a frickin’ genius.
I said it before, I say it again. I have deep respect for Alan Moore, even though I’ve only seen videos of him being interviewed by assorted groups in England and around there. I make those Rorschach videos mainly to make Rorschach really seem like what he is.
A more realistic Batman- A bloody psychopath.
Then I threw in my twist and made something utterly horrifying.
In fact, sort of what Zack Snyder did, except the end result was anything but utterly horrifying.
The movie itself turned out fantastically. The camerawork, the performance, the fighting scenes there were, and the portrayal of characters were generally accurate.
What there was, anyway.
Watchmen had so much cut out of it, and so much more threaded into existing scenes, such as Ozymandias’ speech to his servants in his Private Estate. They stitched that into the scene before the assassination attempt.
If you never read the book, you’re sad.
I’m not kidding when I say “you’re better off reading the book.” There is only one exception so far to the rule that “Movie adaptations are always inferior.”
That rule is Exhibit B: Fight Club (300 was Exhibit A.)
I read the book after watching the movie, and to be honest, I didn’t get the same amount of feel from the book compared to the movie, while it’s usually the exact opposite.
I read the first Harry Potter book, and then watched the movie, and then read the book again. First read-through was basically me being a retard and rushing through, like I usually do.
The thing about books is that you won’t get everything the first time. Read it once, wait a week or so, then read it again with feeling. I guarantee that you will see things you never saw before.
I admit, the same thing happened with Watchmen. I remembered every minute of the movie. I then read the book again within yet another 8 hours straight.
The movie is surprisingly accurate. Not as accurate compared to 300, however. So much was cut out in the Theatre cut. I heard that the Director’s Cut will have more in it. I personally wanted more compared to the 2.75 hours I was in the theatre.
You can tell a movie is good when you could sit for nearly three hours in a theatre and your ass doesn’t even hurt.
The thing is, the movie is good, but I can’t really talk about the plot anymore than the slight stuff I said above. The story, in my opinion, is so golden that you’re better off reading it yourself.
The book is worth buying at your local Chapters, or whatever book store you usually visit.
I would go to Chapters one day and buy a load of books, but I’m currently saving for a laptop, which I set to a higher priority.
Of course, I will go into spoilers later. That part is meant for those who read the book and watched the movie. I will have it obviously marked below.
I’ll get this part out of the way, the sountrack is well-placed, and I get the meaning behind them. Zack Snyder wanted to try to reference the book personally as much as possible. Even the soundtrack itself reaked of references to the “End Quotes”
At the end of chapters, there’s a small black frame with white text, depicting a quote by a big figure. The soundtrack itself contains two Bob Dylan songs, although one of them is the Jimi Hendrix version.
At the end of two chapters in particular, there are two Bob Dylan quotes. I actually liked that reference. I’m probably the only “tame” fanboy who realised this part. I, of course, could be wrong. Watchmen is for mature audiences, not Rorschach ravers who foam at the mouth almost as much as idiot twelve/thirteen-year-old girls at Edward Cullen.
Anyway, the soundtrack itself. I could tell that they were carefully chosen for the movie itself. Although would it kill them to find at lease slightly more fitting sounds for the music? The part where Jimi Hendrix comes in was cool and all, but it didn’t fit in perfectly. You know what I mean?
Jimi Hendrix is cool, though.
But I digress. I was talking about Exhibit B: Fight Club.
Well-done. Incredibly well-done. I seriously enjoyed the story. And to be honest, the accuracy of Watchmen to the book can be easily said to be on-par compared to the similarities and differences of the Fight Club book and movie.
Some, if not lots, of big things cut out, epic-injection to other, important scenes, and a changed ending.
Fight Club had a changed ending. Watchmen also has a changed ending.
And here is where the spoilers come in.
… You read the book?
You better before reading on. Watch the movie afterwards. Don’t worry. I read the book within 8 hours flat, and that’s with studying every picture and the written sections in-between.
Got it yet? Good. Here they come.
I have three major complaints about the movie. Two of them are just me, but the third one makes sense. I’ll start with personal taste.
Jackie Earle Haley. I never saw Bad News Bears, but I know he was a kid at the time when he was in that film, and I want to watch it now after seeing his performance.
Don’t get the wrong idea, though. Jackie Earle Haley did the most epic, most awesome, most badass portrayal of
Rorschach that I’ve ever seen. His warped voicework was far better than… Good lord, I can’t believe I forgot- Oh wait. Got it. Christian Bale as Batman. JEH’s Rorschach voice is far better than Bale’s Batman voice. I’m not even talking about the slight lisp either.
JEH’s performance as Rorschach even beats Heath Ledger’s Joker. I swear.
But the thing is, the portrayal of Rorschach itself, while bad-ass I admit, I did not see Rorschach as how he was portrayed.
I did not see Rorschach as a fidgity midget with anger problems and an “in-your-face” “whaddya lookin’ at” attitude. In the graphic novel, he was not a cranky man with constant glowering. He looked calm, serious, cool, and collected.
He’s fast, and strong, but I did not take him as a loud, twitchy man. That’s exactly what they did for Rorschach, however.
My second complaint is what I’ve seen for the Malcolm Long scene, where Rorschach is in prison, being interviewed by the coolest black man I’ve ever seen on paper or in real life.
Malcolm Long, as a character, literally made me think “Racism is FUBAR, FUBAR, FUBAR, flunking FUBAR!” In fact, I find Malcolm Long to be the most kickass character in the book, not Rorschach.
They butchered him in the movie. I saw what they did to him and it made me feel a little nauseous… The only reason I was excited for the movie was the Malcolm Long scene. I got punched in the gut twice on that.
First off, Malcolm Long was butchered, like I said before.
Secondly, the scene itself was short and rushed. I’ve heard that the scene was cut down for theatres, but what I saw I found utterly dreadful.
It would’ve been the third time ever that I’ve cried for a movie. The first time was when I was watching Star Wars: Episode 1, during Qui-Gon Jinn’s funeral. The reason I cried was because Liam Neeson is fucking badass, and he plays a Mentor-like, inspirational character like nobody’s business, and he did an incredible job in Schindler’s List.
The second time was when I saw the movie adaptation “Of Mice And Men.” You’ll only get why if you’ve read the book and the movie.
I cried in front of a bunch of English Second Language students too. I shouldn’t feel ashamed, seeing as they were sobbing as well. It was funny now that I look back on it.
Anyway, I was utterly disappointed at how much they butchered Malcolm Long to the point where he’s now simply a stock character… and he was… and his involvement in Rorschach re-obtaining his costume was almost completely useless.
Malcolm Long was an innocent altruist with the belief that everything has a chance to be saved, and he believed that helping Rorschach and finding out what made him tick would be a good thing for him and the world to know.
Interviewing Rorschach, he started to be informed on how horrifying the world can actually get, and he was pulled out of the dream world and became a brooding man who fears for the future, rather than think of the now like a naive creature of innocence.
I loved that entire “transformation” of Malcolm Long. I know “love” is a shitty word, but I needed to find a word that people use as a petty extreme, because simple “like” won’t really cut it.
I’d bloody die for that scene as it was in the book. Of course, it won’t happen, which sucks…
At least I have the book.
But now, the third thing. The third thing that overall prevented it from becoming #2 on my list over Ip Man. It can’t beat Wall-E of course. You can’t face off against perfection like Wall-E.
But the thing that ruined the movie above all, was what was none other than a serious plothole. I mean serious. Those who go to watch the movie without reading the book will not see it. Even casual fans won’t see it, and I bet the Hardcore fans will be too concentrated on Rorschach’s badassness, sex, and drugs. I did see it, however. In fact, Spoony from The Spoony Experiment (Whom I watch a lot since that Warrior Issue 1 review) even saw it, and I never took him as a Watchmen fan, even after the review.
He generally said the same thing I said in terms of “read the book first.” I don’t fully remember. I’ve been watching other videos and it crammed on top of exact memory of Spoony’s Watchmen review.
But I’m just rambling. Here is the plothole in question, and here are sensitive spoilers that you shouldn’t check unless you’ve fully read the book and fully watched the movie:
How… the hell… did Comedian find out about Ozymandias’ plan?
In the book, the plan was to literally create a giant squid-like alien monster, and teleport it into New York, creating a psychic-based explosion that would effectively terminate not just the alien, but half of New York, and scarring millions upon millions more. The Comedian found out when he was returning from a mission in Africa, and he saw a suspicious island. He infiltrated the island and saw the Giant Alien Squid. He learned everything from there, and then went sobbing like a mad drunk to Moloch.
In the movie, the plan was for Dr. Manhattan to build some generator meant to work as an almost perfect energy source, self-sufficient and that kind of tripe. Ozymandias uses the generator itself to power energy-based explosions that destroy major cities belonging to both the United States and Russia. The energy signatures would be traced as an attack by Dr. Manhattan, who’s been known to lose interest in humanity.
I agree, while the plan will cause more panic and more initiative for the Cold War Combatants to join arms and live in harmony, and would make more sense, what doesn’t make sense is how Comedian would find out about it. Comedian is intelligent. He’s a clever man and all, and he’s a fearless man who accepts everything good, bad, and ugly, and he’s a sadistic bastard, but I do not see him as capable of infiltrating Dr. Manhattan’s house or lab to study the highly-complicated generator. If he was, that would be major butchering.
Comedian is the most important character for the plot, byfar, even if he dies right at the first chapter. His memories and past like through flashbacks make him an incredibly important character. He’s candid as hell, and I enjoyed the character for that. Even if he was a sadistic rapist.
You can tell a good author when he or she (in this case, he) can write a sadistic rapist character and make said character lovable, despite the FUBAR nature.
Alan Moore, of course, is a genius for that. You honestly cannot get any deep than how deep Alan Moore got in the philosophy and themes behind the story of Watchmen.
There’s a reason why Watchmen is called repeatedly the “greatest comic book of all time.”
Watchmen’s 12 chapters told far more meaningful story than almost every fifty billion-issue comic series I’ve seen. Well… except maybe Batman. I personally don’t like Batman, however. The villains make absolutely no sense when things boil down. They’re all simply the biggest extremists you can get, and they’re thus horribly unrealistic.
Pure Communism never truly existed, and neither did Pure Capitalism. Even the Triple-K would have had at least one member who had slight socialist ideas.
Of course, if you show a KKK member Malcolm Long, I can bet money that they’ll think “Holy shit, that dude’s actually kinda cool… and Rorschach is right.”
Well, I would bet money, but I’m saving for a laptop, and a number of books. If I lose this bet, expect my payment in 2080 or sometime around there, when I literally have nothing else to do.
Anyway, Watchmen: Worth Watching.
Get it?
-HolyJunkie.
PS. Got reminded that Manhattan doesn’t tell Ozy that “Nothing ever ends.” which is bullshit.
HOWEVER. Despite the badness that the movie had, it was actually one of the most kick-ass films I’ve ever seen. GO FUCKING WATCH IT!
