here's my take I liked for the most part and it does shit all over the dark knight apart for a few minor annoyances
to me the tone of the movie was just wrong in an adaptation point of view. Watchmen is relatively more grounded in realism compared most to other superhero films. It takes itself much more seriously. This movie, I felt they turned it into something more conventional and action oriented. this shit is suppose to be about the characters(read the book you lame), their views on the world, how they act/react to their responsibilities etc. A fine example of this problem is the fight scenes in the later parts of the movie where we get some over Matrix-esque fight sequences with shit like Ozy throwing Rorschach across the room like a football. I had to tell my friends after we watched this that the characters are suppose to be normal humans with no super powers.
The pacing was a bit off aswell, but I'm pretty sure pacing and lack of character development can be mostly fixed in the director's cut(which is supposed to be 3 hours I heard). But the other thing I mentioned,turning this shit into the matrix, you have stuff like Silk Spectre and Nite Owl posing during the prison fight part, and the over the top bad a** money shots when they started up Archie. That's not what Watchmen is about. Also, one of the (many) things that set the comic above the rest was the fact that after reading it, you felt like "damn, this is like if superheroes existed in the real world, this is what it'll be like. the characters are human." The movie didn't feel like it existed in the real world with the heroes posing during fights and kicking people 20 ft in the air. They should've had some Bourne-esque fight scenes if they wanted to make it more action oriented(in the comics the fights were more like brawls). All in all this is still going into my top 5 superhero movies of all time but maybe this would've fared better as an HBO miniseries that way we wouldnt have to sacrifice content.
Other things I wanted to mention: I'm glad they didn't OD on slow-motion, I was really afraid of that coming in
It did have some good moments though. I agree with Rorschach and Comedian being absolutely perfect. The opening beat down of the Comedian, set to the song "Unforgettable" had my jaw on the f***ing floor. Completely blown away. Maybe it got my expectations too high for the rest of the movie cause it never got back to being as good as that scene was. I loved the soundtrack (thanks Alan Moore!). The opening credits is possibly one of the best and most ambitious opening credit sequences I have ever seen. I loved that part so much. It's parts like these where the movie is being a movie, it works. Unfortunately, the rest of the movie was trying so hard to be like the comic, that it didn't. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
« Last Edit: March 12, 2009, 10:25:46 AM by PPM DEACON »
That not good enough for ya?
