I have a confession to make: long ago when I heard that they are making a movie about The Watchmen, one of the first questions that popped in my head was "Will Dr. Manhattan be naked?". The answer is: Yes he is.
In some ways that fact tells quite a lot about the movie. It would have been very easy for Zack Snyder to not show Dr. Manhattans man-meat onscreen. But he did. Why? Because they showed it in the graphic novel, and because it underlines his detachment from the humanity. Why should almost omnipotent creature care about humanity's customs and taboos? In other words: Snyder was not prepared to do the easy thing, he made no compromises. Not even in the face of the Armageddon. And considering that he decided to make a movie of a story that most people consider "unfilmable", that shouldn't come as a surprise.
I'm not going to go through the plot, since it's re-told in numerous places already. What I am going to do is to tell how well they succeeded in making this movie. I know that whether you have read the original graphic novel will influence the way you see this movie. When reading my comments you should remember that I have read the original story several times.
So, did they succeed? Yes they did. In fact, I would go as far and say that this is one of the best movies in recent years! The movie is as faithful to the book as you could wish for. Yes, they had to make some changes and they had to omit some sub-plots. But what is there is the things that are essential to the story.
If we compare this to "Lord of The Rings", another movie that was based on the book, we can see that the changes are a lot smaller. Unlike in LOTR, the storyline is basically intact, when we compare the book and the movie. The changes are in the details. Don't get me wrong, LOTR is an awesome movie. But at points it deviates quite far from the original story. this does not happen in The Watchmen.
It's apparent that Snyder handled the story with great love and care. It seems that he did not treat the original story as a vessel to earn money. Rather, he saw it as a story that deserves to be told in the big screen, and he went out of his way to do just that. And he succeeded beyond my wildest dreams.
Some of the negative reviews of the movie complain that this is not a good movie, because Snyder decided to treat the graphic novel with such veneration, that the movie resembles the book too much (viewpoints, camerawork, etc.). And here I am, scratching my head thinking "is that a bad thing"? Sure, some might say that simply "copying" the original is easy. But it's not. Besides, if the original works, why should it be changed? For the sake of changing it?
This movie is full of music. Good music. Jimi Hendrix, Leonard Cohen, Simon & Garfunkel, Bob Dylan.... It feels like that at some point they decided that "why don't we only use good music in this movie, as opposed to crappy music?". The music they went with is perfect for this movie.
So, what about the acting? It's solid all around, but there's one performance that rises above others: Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach. Watching him bring that sociopathic character to the screen reminded me of the powerful performance Heath Ledger did as The Joker in "The Dark Knight".
To continue with The Dark Knight... That was a great movie. But at times it felt overlong. The Watchmen is 10 minutes longer, but it didn't feel stretched at all. The story was so deep that it simply needed a lot of time to be told. In my opinion The Watchmen is better than The Dark Knight.
Being the geek that I am, it might come as a surprise that I do not have a huge flat-screen TV of blu-ray-player. I have told myself that I might get those when they release The Lord of The Rings on blu-ray, since that movie deserves a huge screen and lots of pixels. I will now add The Watchmen to that short list. Reason being that this movie is beautiful. It shows decay and bleakness, but it's still beautiful. No matter that are we talking about colours, camerawork, special effects... It's just superb.
And as an icing on the cake: is it just me or are the opening credits of The Watchmen some of the best in any movie, ever?
Seriously, this is a superb movie. It delivers on every level. I can't think of anything they could have done better.
Showing posts with label awesomeness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label awesomeness. Show all posts
The ultimate guy-movie
Many moons ago I commented that "300" is "100% guy-movie". Well, it might or might not be. But last weekend I realized that there IS an undisputed, ultimate guy-movie in the world:
That's right, "Predator"! A classic Schwarzenegger-movie from 1987!
Seriously, this movie has it all. Funny one-liners, great action (too much to link to), memorable scenes, it's oozing with macho-bullshit and it has a bad-guy who is cool and memorable .
It's cast consists of two U.S. Governors (Arnold "The Governator" Schwarzenegger and Jesse "The Governing Body" Ventura), three other muscle-men (Carl Weathers, Bill Duke and Sonny Landham, which means that the total muscle-mass in this movie exceeds the weight of average family-sedan), two funny-men (Richard Chavez and Shane Black), great soundtrack including the original score by Alan Silvestri as well as the use of "Long Tall Sally" by Little Richard.
Oh, there is one woman in the cast. Half the time she's being dragged through the jungle with her hands tied, the other half she's being scared.
Everything in this movie has been refined to perfection. Sure, some might complain about the acting, or the details in the script, or some other artsy things like that. But who cares? We are talking about awesomeness here, and awesomeness transcends trivialities like that.
By definition, any man who considers himself to be a manly man, must place this movie in his personal top 10 list. And anyone who considers himself to be a normal man, needs to place this movie in top 20.
No, I have never met a woman who likes this movie.
That's right, "Predator"! A classic Schwarzenegger-movie from 1987!Seriously, this movie has it all. Funny one-liners, great action (too much to link to), memorable scenes, it's oozing with macho-bullshit and it has a bad-guy who is cool and memorable .
It's cast consists of two U.S. Governors (Arnold "The Governator" Schwarzenegger and Jesse "The Governing Body" Ventura), three other muscle-men (Carl Weathers, Bill Duke and Sonny Landham, which means that the total muscle-mass in this movie exceeds the weight of average family-sedan), two funny-men (Richard Chavez and Shane Black), great soundtrack including the original score by Alan Silvestri as well as the use of "Long Tall Sally" by Little Richard.
Oh, there is one woman in the cast. Half the time she's being dragged through the jungle with her hands tied, the other half she's being scared.
Everything in this movie has been refined to perfection. Sure, some might complain about the acting, or the details in the script, or some other artsy things like that. But who cares? We are talking about awesomeness here, and awesomeness transcends trivialities like that.
By definition, any man who considers himself to be a manly man, must place this movie in his personal top 10 list. And anyone who considers himself to be a normal man, needs to place this movie in top 20.
No, I have never met a woman who likes this movie.
Holy crap!
I'm few weeks late, but I literally found out about the existence of this trailer just few minutes ago! Of course I have know that they are making a movie about "Watchmen", but I had no idea they had a trailer up & running.
Yes, it kicks ass. If the movie is even half as good as the graphic novel, we are in for a treat.
Yes, it kicks ass. If the movie is even half as good as the graphic novel, we are in for a treat.