ViewGuide

Created Mar 07, 2009 07:24AM PST • Edited Mar 07, 2009 07:24AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Perfect 5.0

   Watchmen is widely regarded as the “unfilmable comic.” In fact, the man who wrote the comic has made a very big point of saying so on numerous occasions. Alan Moore’s general belly-aching about his work being adapted aside – I was in agreement. Watchmen is just too big, too deep, too perfect as a comic to successfully be adapted to a different medium. I am happy to eat crow and say that I was wrong. Very wrong.

   I like watching adaptations of all kinds. I think its always interesting to see a story told in a different way. Hell, when you get down to it, that’s all we do. We tell the same stories over and again, just in a different way with different details. As protective as I was with Watchmen, though, I didn’t think it could be done. What Snyder pulls off is nothing short of brilliant. Now I’m not going to say that the movie is absolutely perfect (even though my overall score says differently), but it was better than I ever thought it could be and as far as movies go you don’t get much better.

   Just like the comic, Watchmen takes the idea of a superhero/vigilante and turns it on its head. How mentally stable is someone who dresses up in tights and spends their time beating the crap out of people? When someone has the power of a superman, how do they stay connected to the rest of us? How can we look at these people as heroes? Who stops them doing whatever they want? Who watches the Watchmen? The story starts off as a murder mystery and goes into a very deep, thought provoking story of the human condition and really our need for heroes.

   This review will have some spoilers, so read no further if you don’t want to know. If you are interested in another point of view on this movie and everything involved, keep reading. I’m gonna lay down some knowledge on ya.

4. Acting

   Great 4.0

   The characters in this movie were almost across the board perfect. There are a couple (Ozymandias and the original Silk Spectre) who were a bit underused and underdeveloped, but those are really minor concerns. What was there was so incredibly well done that you’ll barely notice.

5. Male Stars Perfect 5.0

   Jeffrey Dean Morgan as The Comedian was the biggest shock to me. The Comedian is not a nice guy. He does bad things – very bad things. Just in the movie you see him gun down a pregnant woman and attempt to rape another hero. Not a nice fella. Somehow, though, we understand him. Hell, we even sympathize with him. He sees that people are generally savage animals who treat each other like crap and instead of letting it break him, he decides to become a parody of that animal. But when he discovers the final plot – he’s just as human as the rest of us. Sobbing like a little baby to one of his arch-enemies in the middle of the night. He is still a bad dude, but you don’t hate him for it.

   Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach absolutely eats up the screen when he’s on. As his name eludes, he is very black and white in his perception of the world. There is right and there is wrong – nothing else. He is very absolute in his beliefs and unwavering “even in the face of armageddon.” What Haley does for this guy, though, is make him much more intense than the comic does. In my head, Rorschach’s voice never sounded that way and he wasn’t as close to being psychotic. But it makes sense. Someone that devoted to being a vigilante has to be absolute in what he believes. That passion and intensity is how they would have to be to do what they do in the face of crime.

   Patrick Wilson plays the perfect Nite Owl/Dan Dreiberg. This is the guy who needs to be a superhero. He needs the costume to be confident, to feel like he’s making a difference in this world, to live to his fullest. At the beginning of the movie, he’s kind of a schlub. Since the Keane Act forced superheroes into retirement, he kinda took it on the chin, backed down and stopped being spectacular. Hell, this guy needs to be a superhero just to “perform” with the ladies. When the time comes that he can finally step back into costume, he becomes a new man. Wilson is able to pull of both sides with no problem.

   Billy Crudup as Doc Manhattan was so much fun to watch. It was a little odd to see a naked blue CG character, but when it comes to the acting, Crudup owned it. He is somehow a character becoming more and more detached from humanity that you actually care about. He really doesn’t have any passion or much of a personality until the end of the movie, but you can see that it used to be there. You can see that he’s trying to hold on to this world, but when Laurie leaves him, he just doesn’t see the point anymore. Of all the Watchmen, Doc Manhattan is the man the world is most afraid of because hes the only one with powers and what happens when someone with that much power just stops caring? Especially when we as a country have relied on him so much?

6. Female Stars Great 4.0

   I didn’t think I was going to like Malin Ackerman as Silk Spectre. After seeing her in Harold and Kumar, then the Heartbreak Kid – my hopes were not high. I was pleasantly surprised. I still feel she is the weakest member of the cast (at least the main 6 Watchmen), but the others put up such strong performances that its not an entirely bad thing. I wouldn’t say she is stellar, but she didn’t detract either. Laurie got into superheroism as per her mother’s request and had fun, but wasn’t ever as passionate about it as the others. She does find that she needs the costume just like all the rest, but for her its more about finding her place rather than finding who she is. Had more time been spent developing the Silk Spectre, I’m confident that Ackerman could have done her justice. For what the part was, though, she was just pretty good.

7. Female Costars Very Good 3.5

   I like Carla Cugino. I don’t know why I do, I just do. Its not like she’s a spectacular actress in my head. I liked Son In Law just as much as the next guy, and she was cool in Sin City, but I’m pretty indifferent to her acting. And I’m kinda indifferent to her role as the original Silk Spectre. She serves her purpose and plays the role, but its the writing that gets her point across – not the acting. She’s not bad, but could have done much more. In the flashback sequence she is great because she feels more young. Most of the time, though, you see her bogged down by the old makeup and it kills a little bit of her charisma on screen.

8. Male Costars Great 4.0

   Matthew Goode was very underused as Ozymandias/Adrien Veidt. Goode turned in a great performance, but a lot of what was cut from the comic to movie translation was Ozy and the development of his character and master plan. He really only gets the end to explain everything he has been doing and the large part he’s been playing in everything. It is cool how the story integrates all that has happened into his ultimate plan, but I wish we could have seen more of Goode and his character. By the time the ending comes around, you’re more concerned about watching Doc Manhattan and Rorschach than you are with Ozy. The other actors were just too good and the character suffers a bit for it.

10. Film

    Perfect 5.0

    Masterful. Everything you could want of a movie is in here. You’ve got action, drama, sci-fi and a little bit of comedy and all are shot perfectly. This movie creates exactly what every movie should – a completely believable world that you can fully immerse yourself into. 3 hours goes by very quickly with this one. In fact, after the movie ends, you’ll even want more.

11. Direction Perfect 5.0

    Zack Snyder knows how to make a pretty movie. In everything he does, you can see his style, but every movie feels a little different. In 300, Snyder was creating a world of a story being told. Everything was idealized and exaggerated and perfect. Watchmen is more a real world feel. It is exaggerated for sure, but more to compliment the characters rather than the story. The movie takes place in an alternate 1985, but it feels familiar. There are differences, but it feels like we could have been there. The visuals are fantastic, the action is mesmerizing and the performances are better than the script made them in most areas.

12. Play Perfect 5.0

    Lots of the dialogue comes directly from Alan Moore’s script in the comic and you just don’t get any better than that.

    “The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown. The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout “save us!” . . . and I’ll look down and whisper, “no.” – Rorschach

    Thank god we had actors that could deliver those lines convincingly.

13. Music Great 4.0

    Tyler Bates knows how to score a movie. More specifically, he knows how to score a Zack Snyder movie. He really sets the tone well and builds on the drama of the scene. My only complaints come with the soundtrack. There are times when songs are put into scenes and they don’t make much sense. They are either not dark enough for me or I’m too familiar with them and bring my own feelings with them. For the most part it works, but there were a few instances where I was a bit jarred and pulled out of the scene and you never want that to happen.

14. Visuals Perfect 5.0

    So damn pretty. I watched this flick in IMAX and it was just so, so pretty. The only thing that wasn’t perfect? The old age makeup on the Comedian, the original Silk Spectre and Richard Nixon. Not the best work and seeing it on a digital screen made it look pretty bad.

    Seeing Doc Manhattan create that giant glass tower on Mars, though, completely makes up for it. His blue body of energy with ripples of light happening just under the surface at all times is amazing to see. Rorschach’s mask is also brilliantly done.

15. Content

16. Edge

    Horrid 3.9

    Wow this was a graphic movie. I never realized how violent and sexual the comic was, mainly because Dave Gibbons artwork always made it feel kinda light. Even seeing a gush of blood pour onto Rorschach in the comic didn’t feel too violent. To see it on the screen, however, is a different beast entirely. Its going to catch some people off guard for sure. It all has its place and the feelings that it pulls from you are intentional, but for those that are too affected by it, avoid the movie.

17. Sex Explicit 4.6

    Doc Manhattan is a blue man. Doc Manhattan is also a naked blue man. In the movie they treat it just as they should – he isn’t concerned with clothes as he gets farther and farther from humanity and other people aren’t really bothered by it because they don’t think of him as human anymore. It fits the story and the character. There is very much, though, a blue man’s penis on the screen fairly often.

    There is also a love scene between Nite Owl and Silk Spectre. Just like the love scene in 300, it shows a bit. You don’t see genitalia, but the movements and the expressions are very real. It is meant to be in sharp contrast to the first time they try to be together and Nite Owl can’t get it up. Now they are in costume and its a very different story. This is how superheroes have sex.

18. Violence Savage 4.5

    There is some graphic violence to be sure. You see bones busting out of skin. You see cooking grease burning away at skin. You see arms being cut off by a circular saw. You see bodies splattered on the ceiling. Its pretty intense. The most intense scene is when Rorschach is investigating the kidnapping of a little girl. This is the moment in his life that Walter Kovacs died and only Rorschach is left. You see two dogs fighting over a bone. In the comic, you know that its the bone of the little girl. In the movie, they put a little girls shoe on the end of the bone and it makes it very real. You need to see that, though, you need to have those feelings to really know what happens to Rorschach. The feelings that he goes through that finally make him snap.

19. Rudeness Salty 2.5

    Not a lot of language that I can remember. Its there, but the sex and the violence is what you’ll really remember.

21. Reality

    Supernatural 4.0

    As real as the characters feel, their world is not so much. Doc Manhattan is a being of pure energy who can teleport himself (and others) to Mars. The fights are bit exaggerated and Nite Owl’s aircraft is a work of fiction to be sure. The story and the characters are real, the details are not so much.

22. Circumstantial Supernatural 4.0

23. Biological Supernatural 4.0

24. Physical Supernatural 4.0