Hello there! It's spring training time again, the 2nd best time of the year. The Beard is hard at work down in Tucson, leaving me to post the first entry of the season. As usual, The Beard will be talking baseball, and I will be talking about everything else.
Today we have a return of a favorite feature for my millions of regular readers: Worse Than The Rockies movie reviews! Today's film is the much-anticipated and long-delayed movie adaptation of Watchmen.
Watchmen is pretty much the Bible of graphic novels (if the Bible had pictures, it could claim the title of "Bible of graphic novels," along with just "regular Bible"... but alas, no pictures, so the designation goes to Watchmen). Created by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, Watchmen was a 12-issue comic released in the mid-80s (and later reprinted as one paperback) that is often considered the best graphic novel ever created. In fact, it was one of the very first books marketed using that term, simply because "comic book" doesn't come close to doing it justice. In a comic book, noble people dress up in costumes and do superhuman, impossible things for the good of humanity... Watchmen turns each and every comic book staple upside-down, creating a complex, cohesive, and realistic story; in many ways, it is the anti-comic book. Geeks around the world hold it in the highest esteem, but appreciation for Watchmen goes beyond those who have battalions of little painted metal figures lined up on their dressers. It won the Hugo Award for best science fiction work, and was named by Time Magazine as one of the 100 best novels of the English language (in both cases, the only "comic" so honored). Entertainment Weekly described it as "the greatest superhero story ever told." So yeah, it's pretty good, and expectations for the film version were high.
Watchmen (along with another mid-80s superhero landmark, The Dark Knight Returns) had a profound effect on both comics and film. Nearly every comic-to-film adaptation, starting with the original Michael Keaton "Batman," has its roots in Watchmen's dark, realistic take on super heroes. However, Watchmen is such a complex story, relying so heavily on Gibbons' artwork, that many -- including Alan Moore himself -- considered it unfilmable. But finally, after many failed attempts to get a movie project off the ground, Visionary Director Zack Snyder has put the story on film. Sort of.
In both the book and film version of Watchmen, super-hero activity has been made illegal, forcing ex-heroes into either retirement, government service, or vigilantism (The Incredibles borrowed heavily from this aspect of Watchmen). The murder of one long-time hero draws the others back together in order to learn who killed him. Naturally, they uncover a plot to conquer the world. Sort of. The film follows the book pretty faithfully for about the first hour, and then the changes start.
Many of the changes from book to film are concessions to the fact that a super-long book with some really intricate plot bits just can't be squeezed into a watchable film, and that's fine. Fans of a book should not go into a film expecting to see a perfect reproduction of the book they have in their head, it's simply not possible... although to Visionary Director Zach Snyder's credit, he does capture the look and feel of the book; Watchmen looks terrific (although it seems to me that if Snyder merely copies what he saw in the book, Moore and Gibbons are the "visionaries" here, aren't they?). Some of these changes in Watchmen work, and some fail, but plot changes -- both major and minor -- are not what doom this film.
Specifically, the ending of the film (the plot to sort-of destroy the world, that is) has been drastically altered from the book, allowing Visionary Director Zack Snyder to remove much of the stuff that supported that ending (the street corner scenes, the Tales of the Black Freighter, the missing authors/artists/psychics, etc.) and streamline the story for the film. Frankly, the book's ending is so fantastic (in the true sense of the word) that it would likely have created more laughs than anything else, so I wasn't surprised to see it changed for the film. The film's ending is a clever idea that, if handled correctly, might have actually made for a great film ending, but didn't work... not because Visionary Director Zach Snyder changed the ending, but because he did not understand the characters, how and why those characters wound up where they were, and how they would react to it.
Honestly, I have to wonder if Visionary Director Zack Snyder read up to the first fight scene of the book, started thinking about how totally awesome it would look if he filmed the entire scene in slow motion and included a lot of bones snapping like toothpicks, and went straight to work on it without ever bothering to gain a true understanding the story.
Hey Zack: the whole point behind Watchmen is that these characters are NOT super-heroes, they are just people -- all of them psychologically damaged to varying degrees -- who dress up in costumes for many reasons, few of them noble. They can't jump over rooftops or throw another person 15 feet through the air, and if they try to punch through a concrete wall, they will break every bone in their hand. The only character with true powers has almost completely broken with humanity, and has lost interest in us and our entire planet. But after watching yet another slow-motion fight where these supposedly out-of-shape, has-been vigilantes destroy two dozen guys without breaking a sweat, or drop through a tiny hole in a burning rooftop just to go knock on a door, I realized that all that Visionary Director Zack Snyder did was to turn these very realistic, flawed, and human characters right back into badass, indestructible movie superheroes... if that's not missing the point, I don't know what is.
I have no problem with a film that strays from the book, as long as the spirit of the story is not significantly changed. The Lord of the Rings films strayed from the source books in many nerd-angering ways ("There were no elven archers at Helm's Deep! Aaarrrgh!!!"), but those films captured the spirit of the books tremendously, and they were a huge success. But Visionary Director Zack Snyder seemed to be so caught up with capturing individual images from the book (in slow motion, of course... apparently his "vision" is to be the first director to make an entire movie in super-slow-motion), that he neglected to actually understand what made the book stand out. He turned it into... well, a comic book. Oh, the irony!
First gripe: Some of the casting and acting was quite good: Jackie Earle Haley was extremely good as Rorschach, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan did a good job capturing Comedian's twisted yet sympathetic character. Others were not so good: Malin Akerman looks perfect as Silk Spectre, but couldn't act wet if she fell out of a boat. But easily the worst bit of casting/acting was Matthew Goode as Adrian Veidt, although in fairness to Goode, a big part of the problem was how the character was written. In the book, he's personable, warm, charming, athletic enough to throw a guy through a window, and his motivations are truly noble, if not completely backwards. In the film, he's a pencil-necked, weaselly businessman ("Keep in mind that with my personal wealth I can buy and sell each and every one of you") who is clearly The Villain from his first scene, which is a huge factor in the failure of the ending. The new ending might have worked, if its mastermind wasn't such a shallow, greedy guy that nobody would ever have bought it. The new ending with the right Veidt might have worked great, but I guess we'll never know.
Second gripe: stupid violence. Yeah, the book was violent, so the film was going to be also. No, I don't disapprove of violence in movies. But the violence in this film was misplaced. It did not further the story or the characters, it was only there to make the audience go "shit yea!!!!" Rorschach killing the guy chained to the stove was an unnecessary (and out-of-character) departure from the book. Big Figure having a guy's arms cut off with a power tool rather than simply killing him was an unnecessary change designed only to shock. Dreiberg and Laurie in the alley, breaking more limbs than a malfunctioning escalator... why? Just to satisfy Visionary Director Zack Snyder's insatiable urge to show blood spattering in slow motion? I think it was his attempt to make sure we knew the film was "dark." If only Visionary Director Zack Snyder had understood what motivated these characters, and had created a believable world for them to inhabit, it would have been plenty dark without having to turn it into a slasher flick.
Final gripe: in the book, Dr. Manhattan is the only blue character. In the film, there are two blue characters. Ahem. While Moore and Gibbons handled Dr Manhattan's nudity in a way which kept it from being distracting, Visionary Director Zack Snyder seemed to go out of his way to make it as distracting as possible. Big flopping wieners have their place in film, of course, but this is not that place. I mean, for cryin' out loud, they had him walk down a flight stairs, for no other reason than to show Big Doc waggle back and forth
like Oprah operating a jackhammer. The Big Blue Dong, coupled with the sex scene between Nite Owl and Silk Spectre (featuring the worst of many horrible soundtrack choices throughout the movie) make me wonder if Snyder's Vision is really to make the world's first porn shot entirely in super-slow motion. But if he did that, he'd have a tough time finding a spot for all the needless, slow-motion violence he can't live without, so my guess is that his porn aspirations will have to remain a dream.
It turns out that Moore was right: Watchmen is unfilmable. But a better film could certainly have been made of it than this. Zack Snyder, you're no visionary. You just copy off somebody else's paper without learning the subject matter. You're worse than the Rockies, dude. Deal with it. 2.5/4 Dingers.
Today we have a return of a favorite feature for my millions of regular readers: Worse Than The Rockies movie reviews! Today's film is the much-anticipated and long-delayed movie adaptation of Watchmen.
Watchmen is pretty much the Bible of graphic novels (if the Bible had pictures, it could claim the title of "Bible of graphic novels," along with just "regular Bible"... but alas, no pictures, so the designation goes to Watchmen). Created by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, Watchmen was a 12-issue comic released in the mid-80s (and later reprinted as one paperback) that is often considered the best graphic novel ever created. In fact, it was one of the very first books marketed using that term, simply because "comic book" doesn't come close to doing it justice. In a comic book, noble people dress up in costumes and do superhuman, impossible things for the good of humanity... Watchmen turns each and every comic book staple upside-down, creating a complex, cohesive, and realistic story; in many ways, it is the anti-comic book. Geeks around the world hold it in the highest esteem, but appreciation for Watchmen goes beyond those who have battalions of little painted metal figures lined up on their dressers. It won the Hugo Award for best science fiction work, and was named by Time Magazine as one of the 100 best novels of the English language (in both cases, the only "comic" so honored). Entertainment Weekly described it as "the greatest superhero story ever told." So yeah, it's pretty good, and expectations for the film version were high.Watchmen (along with another mid-80s superhero landmark, The Dark Knight Returns) had a profound effect on both comics and film. Nearly every comic-to-film adaptation, starting with the original Michael Keaton "Batman," has its roots in Watchmen's dark, realistic take on super heroes. However, Watchmen is such a complex story, relying so heavily on Gibbons' artwork, that many -- including Alan Moore himself -- considered it unfilmable. But finally, after many failed attempts to get a movie project off the ground, Visionary Director Zack Snyder has put the story on film. Sort of.
In both the book and film version of Watchmen, super-hero activity has been made illegal, forcing ex-heroes into either retirement, government service, or vigilantism (The Incredibles borrowed heavily from this aspect of Watchmen). The murder of one long-time hero draws the others back together in order to learn who killed him. Naturally, they uncover a plot to conquer the world. Sort of. The film follows the book pretty faithfully for about the first hour, and then the changes start.
Many of the changes from book to film are concessions to the fact that a super-long book with some really intricate plot bits just can't be squeezed into a watchable film, and that's fine. Fans of a book should not go into a film expecting to see a perfect reproduction of the book they have in their head, it's simply not possible... although to Visionary Director Zach Snyder's credit, he does capture the look and feel of the book; Watchmen looks terrific (although it seems to me that if Snyder merely copies what he saw in the book, Moore and Gibbons are the "visionaries" here, aren't they?). Some of these changes in Watchmen work, and some fail, but plot changes -- both major and minor -- are not what doom this film.Specifically, the ending of the film (the plot to sort-of destroy the world, that is) has been drastically altered from the book, allowing Visionary Director Zack Snyder to remove much of the stuff that supported that ending (the street corner scenes, the Tales of the Black Freighter, the missing authors/artists/psychics, etc.) and streamline the story for the film. Frankly, the book's ending is so fantastic (in the true sense of the word) that it would likely have created more laughs than anything else, so I wasn't surprised to see it changed for the film. The film's ending is a clever idea that, if handled correctly, might have actually made for a great film ending, but didn't work... not because Visionary Director Zach Snyder changed the ending, but because he did not understand the characters, how and why those characters wound up where they were, and how they would react to it.
Honestly, I have to wonder if Visionary Director Zack Snyder read up to the first fight scene of the book, started thinking about how totally awesome it would look if he filmed the entire scene in slow motion and included a lot of bones snapping like toothpicks, and went straight to work on it without ever bothering to gain a true understanding the story.
Hey Zack: the whole point behind Watchmen is that these characters are NOT super-heroes, they are just people -- all of them psychologically damaged to varying degrees -- who dress up in costumes for many reasons, few of them noble. They can't jump over rooftops or throw another person 15 feet through the air, and if they try to punch through a concrete wall, they will break every bone in their hand. The only character with true powers has almost completely broken with humanity, and has lost interest in us and our entire planet. But after watching yet another slow-motion fight where these supposedly out-of-shape, has-been vigilantes destroy two dozen guys without breaking a sweat, or drop through a tiny hole in a burning rooftop just to go knock on a door, I realized that all that Visionary Director Zack Snyder did was to turn these very realistic, flawed, and human characters right back into badass, indestructible movie superheroes... if that's not missing the point, I don't know what is.
I have no problem with a film that strays from the book, as long as the spirit of the story is not significantly changed. The Lord of the Rings films strayed from the source books in many nerd-angering ways ("There were no elven archers at Helm's Deep! Aaarrrgh!!!"), but those films captured the spirit of the books tremendously, and they were a huge success. But Visionary Director Zack Snyder seemed to be so caught up with capturing individual images from the book (in slow motion, of course... apparently his "vision" is to be the first director to make an entire movie in super-slow-motion), that he neglected to actually understand what made the book stand out. He turned it into... well, a comic book. Oh, the irony!
First gripe: Some of the casting and acting was quite good: Jackie Earle Haley was extremely good as Rorschach, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan did a good job capturing Comedian's twisted yet sympathetic character. Others were not so good: Malin Akerman looks perfect as Silk Spectre, but couldn't act wet if she fell out of a boat. But easily the worst bit of casting/acting was Matthew Goode as Adrian Veidt, although in fairness to Goode, a big part of the problem was how the character was written. In the book, he's personable, warm, charming, athletic enough to throw a guy through a window, and his motivations are truly noble, if not completely backwards. In the film, he's a pencil-necked, weaselly businessman ("Keep in mind that with my personal wealth I can buy and sell each and every one of you") who is clearly The Villain from his first scene, which is a huge factor in the failure of the ending. The new ending might have worked, if its mastermind wasn't such a shallow, greedy guy that nobody would ever have bought it. The new ending with the right Veidt might have worked great, but I guess we'll never know.Second gripe: stupid violence. Yeah, the book was violent, so the film was going to be also. No, I don't disapprove of violence in movies. But the violence in this film was misplaced. It did not further the story or the characters, it was only there to make the audience go "shit yea!!!!" Rorschach killing the guy chained to the stove was an unnecessary (and out-of-character) departure from the book. Big Figure having a guy's arms cut off with a power tool rather than simply killing him was an unnecessary change designed only to shock. Dreiberg and Laurie in the alley, breaking more limbs than a malfunctioning escalator... why? Just to satisfy Visionary Director Zack Snyder's insatiable urge to show blood spattering in slow motion? I think it was his attempt to make sure we knew the film was "dark." If only Visionary Director Zack Snyder had understood what motivated these characters, and had created a believable world for them to inhabit, it would have been plenty dark without having to turn it into a slasher flick.
Final gripe: in the book, Dr. Manhattan is the only blue character. In the film, there are two blue characters. Ahem. While Moore and Gibbons handled Dr Manhattan's nudity in a way which kept it from being distracting, Visionary Director Zack Snyder seemed to go out of his way to make it as distracting as possible. Big flopping wieners have their place in film, of course, but this is not that place. I mean, for cryin' out loud, they had him walk down a flight stairs, for no other reason than to show Big Doc waggle back and forth
like Oprah operating a jackhammer. The Big Blue Dong, coupled with the sex scene between Nite Owl and Silk Spectre (featuring the worst of many horrible soundtrack choices throughout the movie) make me wonder if Snyder's Vision is really to make the world's first porn shot entirely in super-slow motion. But if he did that, he'd have a tough time finding a spot for all the needless, slow-motion violence he can't live without, so my guess is that his porn aspirations will have to remain a dream.It turns out that Moore was right: Watchmen is unfilmable. But a better film could certainly have been made of it than this. Zack Snyder, you're no visionary. You just copy off somebody else's paper without learning the subject matter. You're worse than the Rockies, dude. Deal with it. 2.5/4 Dingers.
