Superhero Filmmakers: Where's Our Watchmen?

Finally seeing this on the IMAX this weekend, now that the hubbub has died down. Not expecting a whole lot, so hopefully I'll be entertained.

Enjoyed this thoroughly despite my frustrations about Snyder's boner for broken bones.

On balance, I think the film is great, and that criticisms of it are primarily nit-picks.

golly, I'm with the Vicar! he and I can be partners on this, like Nite Owl and Rorschach in the 1970s.

I agree, but I think you're both twee fucks. Does that make me The Comedian?

I have an improbably large penis, so I can strip down and be Dr. Manhattan.

would putting on blueface for hallowe'en be racist tho?

Tales of the Black Freighter cartoon is online and totally ruling. Better than the movie and I liked the movie.

anyone else notice that veidt had a folder labeled 'boys' on his desktop?

btw this was way better than i thought it would be

Yes I did

yes it was fabulous

I enjoyed it too actually. There was plenty you could nitpick about, but there was also lots to like, although if I hadn't read it I suspect I would have enjoyed it much less. And it was actually very funny, although the part I laughed hardest at was when Rorschach doused the dude with boiling chip fat. Hilariously high-pitched squealing. And I wasn't the only one laughing!

Saw it again last night in IMAX and I was actually surprised at how little my feelings towards it changed (and since I beat that to death over on the blog I won't rehash here). Two things stood out, though -- Matthew Goode as Ozymandias gave a sharper performance than I first realized, while I was taken aback at how some sequences proved to be flat out boring on a second watch (some perhaps unavoidably so).

Certainly there's plenty to nitpick but I think dismissing all criticism of the film as that is incredibly blinkered. This is a flawed film and my belief that Snyder is ultimately the worst thing about it was reconfirmed.

Meantime, it was a late showing on a Tuesday night and all, granted, but seeing literally only ten people in an IMAX theater just two and a half weeks after it came out kinda said it all. You got the sense that the complex just couldn't wait to get Monsters and Aliens in on Friday.

name an unflawed film

joe dirt

Excellent hair detailing on that one.

I don't know, I still think the worst thing about it is the sheer amount of material it needs to get through in its attempt to have the same impact as the graphic novel. I was expecting weird, flat pacing because the source material has weird, flat pacing, so that aspect of it doesn't bother me. I also really, really, really liked the slo-mo fight scenes because it really highlighted to me the fact that the one thing all of these people had in common was that they felt completely out of place unless they were hurting people.

(I also like slo-mo in general)

I thought the opening fight sequence in The Comedian's penthouse was easily the best action sequence in the film. I saw this at a matinee this past Saturday on the IMAX and it was sold out. Grated it was Saturday, but it still seems to be pulling in decent attendance here in Chicago.

it seems kinda weird to say that the director is the worst thing about a movie. i mean, he should at least get credit for some of the things that were done well (i thought the pacing was surprisingly good, loved the credits sequence, the '80s touches, i even liked some of the oddball music choices with the exception of the hendrix tune).

most films, that I see, are actually quite bad, or disappointing - or 'flawed'?

Wendy & Lucy for instance, and every other quiet indie film in which no one ever says anything of any interest at all

and all the other terrible films

compared to all those, Watchmen seemed like one of the greatest films I've ever seen. the only 'flaw' for me (I said this way upthread) was how, cos they changed the ending, they suddenly lost Moore's dialogue for a stretch in the last 20 minutes, and the replacement dialogue somehow seemed inferior.

apart from that it was relatively 'flawless'
which is very unusual

the fact that millions of other people don't like it or watch it doesn't sound like a criticism to me

they watch loads of films I would hate

it seems kinda weird to say that the director is the worst thing about a movie.

It's in one of my blog ramblings but Snyder brought two things in specific to the movie version that I don't like in general -- the slo-mo fetish (unlike Dan, I'm not a fan of that) and a gore level that, while arguably an extension of what was in the comic, is in a realm that I have never enjoyed in film in the first place. Whatever strengths he displays are ultimately twinned up with those elements which I feel are weaknesses or simply not for me -- I can't handwave those.

The slo-mo thing for the action sequences is the first time I can recall that technique being used for that kind of shot in a comic book film; is it not perhaps a direct visual analogue / reference to that fact that ALL violence in actual comic book panels is in "slo-mo"; i.e. static illustrations, and you can spend as long looking at it as you like?

It is indeed meant to be an analogue, Snyder's actually been very clear on that, to his credit. Doesn't mean I have to like it/can't easily get tired of it!

Furry muff.

the gore was pretty o_O, if i was going to rationalize it i would say that he was trying to make it less "comic booky" ie trying to convey that yes, these vigilantes are actually hurting people.

i think the violence and the slow-mo collide in a way that really is quite unpleasant. On the one-hand you have extremely gorey and harsh violent actions being committed and on the other the bullet-time and swirlging camera angles. This stylisation makes it lose any sort of impact or realism it might have and just turns it in to gore/violence purely as entertainment, divorcing it from being truly visceral and making it purely spectacle. In the theatre I saw it in there were lots of sharp intakes of breath/laughter after many of the broken bones.

The gore reminded me of the first few issues of the Harley Quinn book, where there were sequences drawn from her demented perspective that were super cartoony in which she was hitting people with mallets and shooting them, and the aftermath was very lovingly drawn out in excruciating detail in the same demented cartoony style (kind of like what was going in in "The Mask" book).

(I also think that what it was trying to do was go for the "this isn't real but it's still awful" angle; that's definitely they way I felt during the alley fight and when Rorschach doused that dude with boiling oil.)

I don't really remember any gore, unless you mean Rorschach killing evil people (which I like)

the most horrific scene IMO was dude who got his arms sawed off, which happened in the book, too

breaking arms for kicks in the alley was pretty much the pinnacle of the slo mo fun violence for me

xpost. Pinefox you don't remember the scene with the assassination attempt on Veidt when it closes up on the calf of an innocent bystander being tore through by a bullet?

the gore was pretty o_O, if i was going to rationalize it i would say that he was trying to make it less "comic booky" ie trying to convey that yes, these vigilantes are actually hurting people.

That's what I said way upthread!

Dude doesn't get his arms sawn off in the book, not in the same way at all.

oh that's right, they just drilled through him, didn't they

much less gruesome

Actually they just cut his throat, and 'off-camera,' though Rorschach does get blood on his shirt.

Yeah, you don't see it at all.

watchmen gore is pretty mild compared to any horror flick made within the last ten years (inc. synder's DAWN OF THE DEAD remake)

not quite sure why violent action in movies has to be 'realistic' - and "gore/violence purely as entertainment" (as opposed to "impurely as moral lecture on the evils of ass-kicking"??) is common to 95% of all Hollywood movies.

watchmen gore is pretty mild compared to any horror flick made within the last ten years

Oh joy.

They did something to the body to get to the lock, that was the whole point of killing him in the first place. grr where's my copy of the book

don't have a copy to hand, but yeah they had to saw his hands off- no point in cutting his throat, was there?

I sense a Comic-Con panel in the making.

not quite sure why violent action in movies has to be 'realistic' - and "gore/violence purely as entertainment" (as opposed to "impurely as moral lecture on the evils of ass-kicking"??) is common to 95% of all Hollywood movies.

well yes, of course. But there is no need for bullet-time close-ups. That's certainly not the norm in action movies.

well it wasn't when i used to watch them, Steven Seagall would break a nose or break a shin but it did it in full speed and didn't linger over the details for titillation.

what is there a 'need' for in action movies?

now you can't slo mo kick a head in the street

I'm thinking of the slo-mo inside-the-body shots in Three Kings.

or CSI every week