(no subject)

[miko2]

We saw Watchmen on Saturday night. First: it was most excellent. As I suspected, it's not a Dark Knight or even a Iron Man, but still, it works very well. Especially for fans of the book, it succeeds admirably in bringing the characters and the story to life.

Specific criticisms:

Acting: I've seen some reviews that savage some of the acting. It's true that some of the actors seem to have bene cast more for looks than skill, but none of them are bad actors. At worst, I could hope for a stronger presense from Ozymandias, especially. Having a bad guy without a strong presense is never helpful for a film of this sort.

Script: Many reviewers think that the movie adheres too closely to the graphic novel. I only had some minor problems with this. There were scenes that felt very flat, where it was obvious I was just watching actors recite dialogue rather than becoming their characters. Yet there were other scenes that really worked well -- Rorschach's prison threat of "I'm not locked up in here with you, you're locked up in here with me!" really comes off as the great line that it was in the comic book. Ultimately, things came together and worked for me, the scenes that bugged me most were earlier in the film.

Plot Alteration: Without saying exactly what change they made to the villain's plot, I just want to say that it's minor in that it accomplishes the same thing in a different way, and that I agree with some of the others in my group who thought it actually made more sense than the comic version. At least one person in our group thought differently, however.

Sex and Violence: There's no getting around the fact that this film is incredibly violent in places, that the sex scenes (one in particular) were more graphic than you usually see in a Hollywood film, and that Dr. Manhatten, for all that he is blue, does appear fully naked in several frontal shots. Although actually there wasn't nearly as much "blue penis" as we'd been led to believe.

Cuts: The film cuts out the whole pirate comic sub-plot, and a lot of the backstory of the Minutemen and related scenes. The death of the original Night Owl is completely missing from the film. I really didn't have any problems with the cuts; everything they cut wasn't vital to the main storyline, and the film is already almost 3 hours long. There's a montage of scenes at the begining of the film that touches on a lot of backstory without explaining any of it, but I don't think it's vital to understand that stuff to enjoy the film. Fans of the book will follow all of that quite easily, of course.

The Soul of the Film: This is a very subjective thing, but some reviews I've read have faulted the film for not "coming to life", for adhering to the comic plot so closely that the film doesn't develop it's own soul. Some point out that there's no central figure and argue that even in the comic book it's the process and depth of the storyline that propels things along moreso than the actual plot. I guess I can see where this could be a problem for some people. For the record, we had nine people in our group including two who had never read the book and one who had only read parts of it, and everyone enjoyed the film. I'd have to agree that the comic is a more in-depth and intense experience than the film, but the film still worked remarkably well as far as I was concerned. This might be one of those things that would have been improved by an Ozymandias with a stronger presense.

All of these things add up to minor complaints. Some less-than-powerful acting, some scenes (mostly early ones) that feel scripted or lifeless, some serious violence (but then, the comic was violent), and a question of whether the film holds together quite as well as the graphic novel, whether it has enough of a central heart or driving force or whatever. It's not a perfect film, but it is quite enjoyable. For a fan of the book, there's very little to quibble about, other than perhaps the film doesn't have quite the same impact as the book itself does. But I suspect that the film will inspire a lot of people to go read the book too, so it's all good.

Other than that, between Saturday night gas, movie, dinner afterward, and Sunday shopping and dinner with friends I spent far too much money this weekend. Guess it's tunafish sandwiches all week for lunch. ^_^