Well, I can't imagine anybody getting a more faithful film version of Watchmen made than Zack Snyder has managed here. It looks like Alan Moore & Dave Gibbon's classic 80's comic book, and apart from a deviation near the end (the squid repacement, better in my opinion) it follows the original surprisingly closely.
Snyder's had to walk the tightrope here; make it accessable to those unfamiliar with the graphic novel and please the leigon of loyal fanatics. He's also had to balance the realities of making an appealing, commercial fantasy movie, with an artsy, thought-provoking ponder-a-thon. And in both these balancing acts he succeeds. The young audience I saw it with weren't restless (although they did murmer after...'that was way long, and I didn't get it'...their fault for being dumb, I suppose).
It is an artsy movie though. If you're expecting The Dark Knight, you won't find a huge action setpiece every 10 minutes to distract you... or a souring Hans Zimmer score to lift you. Score is minimised and period songs occasionally take their place in inventive montage sequences. Snyder has immaculately framed and staged every shot in the film, to the point I'll need to see it again to see what info I've missed. Each frame tells a story; every film-making technique used to communicate the plot and themes.
The cast are great, with Jackie Earl Haley being the standout as Rorschach. Akerman and Goode have come in for critisim as Silk Spectre II and Ozymandias respectively, but to be fair, their rolls just aren't as flashy as their collegues and requires more subtlety and normality.
Emotionally, it's not as engaging as I anticipated, but that's not a critism. That would be like having a go at Kubrick for making 2001: A Space Odessey clinical and intellectual. Or Ridley Scott, when making the challenging Blade Runner (a film Watchmen often reminds me of). This movie contains many subtexts; the nature of humanity. How costumes heroes might really exist, and what happens when their oh-so-human flaws get in the way. The question of self-identity is tackled and the masks we wear to the world. It has to be said this is a very pessimistic work with only a glimmer of light. I was hoping, right to the final frame, that they would keep the book's ending..which fortunetely they did.
But if you like you films to stimulate the mind and the eyeball, you'll like this.
1 comment:
Watchmen was pretty great and very close to the book in both story and look. Lots of themes and ideas flying around - far too many for most of the dummies of the world to comprehend. They can stick to Michael KABLOOM! BANG! SHABROOOSH! KABLAM! Bay movies. "Oooh pretty 'splosions!"
Post a Comment