I'm seeing WATCHMEN again today, likely, but as far as my opinion goes of the film...
I loved it. I have a few nitpicky issues, but as a whole, I think Snyder's brought the comic to life. I've inundated myself with reviews, good and bad, so that by the time I actually sat down to the thing I was pretty numb to all of it. And I'm finding some of the larger complaints to be, well, a little ridiculous.
Malin Akerman was fine. Better than fine - she was good. It was never a struggle for me to believe in her character at all. The way some people were describing it, she couldn't even deliver a line of dialogue well. But I really liked her character a lot, and I understood what motivated her. Her relationship with her mother was well done. No complaints at all about Akerman.
The Nixon makeup weirded me out some, but it wasn't any kind of dealbreaker. Carla Gugino's makeup was fine. My wife, who hasn't read the comic, had no difficulty following the plot, even the endgame. She's a film fan like myself, and I barely had to explain anything plotwise to her.
Would a better-known actor, a "star" for lack of a better word, been preferable to Matthew Goode as Ozymandias? Well, yeah. But Goode held his own. The action scenes were amped up and heightened, but I thought that was Snyder basically riffing on action scenes in superhero movies in general. I had no issues with that.
Patrick Wilson, in his way, had the hardest job of all the actors. He doesn't get great big moments like almost everyone else gets, and he plays him as an impotent, restrained and terrified loser. It's not flashy, but it's not meant to be, and Wilson sells it perfectly. You believe in the character, believe in his reality, and that's due to Wilson's work and performance.
But there's something that needs to be stated: Jackie Earle Haley and Billy Crudup deserve massive recognition for their work here. In the comic, when Rorschach meets his end, to me there was nothing of the emotion to the scene that Haley brings here. It was devastating to watch. His Rorschach is one for the ages - I'd put it up there with Ledger's Joker - and people may give Snyder shit, but he got some tremendous performances out of his actors, which brings me to Billy Crudup.
His Dr. Manhattan is one of the most compelling, fascinating, enigmatic characters ever to be in a film. It's stunning how CGI can catch the absolute subtlety of a facial expression, how in the entire film Manhattan is denying that he feels anything but the screen, and his face, don't lie - Manhattan is such a deeply emotional person, so divorced from human contact but at the same time remembers everything about it as vividly as I remember what I did only 5 minutes ago. I don't know how much Crudup was on set - from what I understand he was on set all the time - but whoever rendered him did an amazing job. Like Gollum before him, this merging of acting and technology won't be recognized because it's too difficult to grasp what that performance means in the larger scheme of things. But if it were up to me, I'd happily hand an Oscar to both Haley and Crudup for their work here.
What do I think of the ending? I think for the most part, it works. Something the comic has over the film is that the ending was set up fairly early and hints of it were strewn throughout all the books, so that when the final event occurs, the impact is extremely powerful. In the film, I could feel, especially after the prison scene, everything started to speed up and some of the tragic nature of Veidt's plan was lost. When the heroes (save Rorschach) in the book decide that they have to keep Veidt's secret, there's something horrifying about it, but here, things are simply moving too fast to take real stock in the emotional reality of 15 million dead people. Those lingering shots on the bodies in the comic strike home the evil, horrible nature of Veidt's plan, but in the film it trades that for some cool special effects and very little emotional weight. Possibly some of those minor characters that die in the comic will be given some more time in the extended version and we can feel the loss then. But for the theatrical cut, oddly enough, the film really needed to slow down at that point, for the audience to feel it. But the nature of the act, blaming it on Manhattan as opposed to a giant alien squid, plotwise that works just fine. Veidt's explanation was concise and I don't understand how anyone could complain about any difficulty following what happened. It made perfect sense to me, and more importantly, my wife, who didn't know the source.
I think Snyder's made an amazing film here. I think he adapted the "unadaptable". Some reviews complain that he's too loyal, some complain that he's not loyal enough. Personally, I thought he got it just right, injecting his own take and his own style on the material and yet letting the work stand for itself. I wish Moore would see this, but since he won't, maybe Dave Gibbons will understand that. WATCHMEN is a terrific film, one that demands to be seen twice, and it's been a while since a movie's come out where one could make that claim. That said, I'm glad Snyder's doing his own project now, as I'd like to see what his personal vision is, as opposed to others. But he's one of the best visual directors working today, in my opinion, and barring a truly exceptional year for film WATCHMEN will likely be what I consider one of the best of 2009.
I loved it. I have a few nitpicky issues, but as a whole, I think Snyder's brought the comic to life. I've inundated myself with reviews, good and bad, so that by the time I actually sat down to the thing I was pretty numb to all of it. And I'm finding some of the larger complaints to be, well, a little ridiculous.
Malin Akerman was fine. Better than fine - she was good. It was never a struggle for me to believe in her character at all. The way some people were describing it, she couldn't even deliver a line of dialogue well. But I really liked her character a lot, and I understood what motivated her. Her relationship with her mother was well done. No complaints at all about Akerman.
The Nixon makeup weirded me out some, but it wasn't any kind of dealbreaker. Carla Gugino's makeup was fine. My wife, who hasn't read the comic, had no difficulty following the plot, even the endgame. She's a film fan like myself, and I barely had to explain anything plotwise to her.
Would a better-known actor, a "star" for lack of a better word, been preferable to Matthew Goode as Ozymandias? Well, yeah. But Goode held his own. The action scenes were amped up and heightened, but I thought that was Snyder basically riffing on action scenes in superhero movies in general. I had no issues with that.
Patrick Wilson, in his way, had the hardest job of all the actors. He doesn't get great big moments like almost everyone else gets, and he plays him as an impotent, restrained and terrified loser. It's not flashy, but it's not meant to be, and Wilson sells it perfectly. You believe in the character, believe in his reality, and that's due to Wilson's work and performance.
But there's something that needs to be stated: Jackie Earle Haley and Billy Crudup deserve massive recognition for their work here. In the comic, when Rorschach meets his end, to me there was nothing of the emotion to the scene that Haley brings here. It was devastating to watch. His Rorschach is one for the ages - I'd put it up there with Ledger's Joker - and people may give Snyder shit, but he got some tremendous performances out of his actors, which brings me to Billy Crudup.
His Dr. Manhattan is one of the most compelling, fascinating, enigmatic characters ever to be in a film. It's stunning how CGI can catch the absolute subtlety of a facial expression, how in the entire film Manhattan is denying that he feels anything but the screen, and his face, don't lie - Manhattan is such a deeply emotional person, so divorced from human contact but at the same time remembers everything about it as vividly as I remember what I did only 5 minutes ago. I don't know how much Crudup was on set - from what I understand he was on set all the time - but whoever rendered him did an amazing job. Like Gollum before him, this merging of acting and technology won't be recognized because it's too difficult to grasp what that performance means in the larger scheme of things. But if it were up to me, I'd happily hand an Oscar to both Haley and Crudup for their work here.
What do I think of the ending? I think for the most part, it works. Something the comic has over the film is that the ending was set up fairly early and hints of it were strewn throughout all the books, so that when the final event occurs, the impact is extremely powerful. In the film, I could feel, especially after the prison scene, everything started to speed up and some of the tragic nature of Veidt's plan was lost. When the heroes (save Rorschach) in the book decide that they have to keep Veidt's secret, there's something horrifying about it, but here, things are simply moving too fast to take real stock in the emotional reality of 15 million dead people. Those lingering shots on the bodies in the comic strike home the evil, horrible nature of Veidt's plan, but in the film it trades that for some cool special effects and very little emotional weight. Possibly some of those minor characters that die in the comic will be given some more time in the extended version and we can feel the loss then. But for the theatrical cut, oddly enough, the film really needed to slow down at that point, for the audience to feel it. But the nature of the act, blaming it on Manhattan as opposed to a giant alien squid, plotwise that works just fine. Veidt's explanation was concise and I don't understand how anyone could complain about any difficulty following what happened. It made perfect sense to me, and more importantly, my wife, who didn't know the source.
I think Snyder's made an amazing film here. I think he adapted the "unadaptable". Some reviews complain that he's too loyal, some complain that he's not loyal enough. Personally, I thought he got it just right, injecting his own take and his own style on the material and yet letting the work stand for itself. I wish Moore would see this, but since he won't, maybe Dave Gibbons will understand that. WATCHMEN is a terrific film, one that demands to be seen twice, and it's been a while since a movie's come out where one could make that claim. That said, I'm glad Snyder's doing his own project now, as I'd like to see what his personal vision is, as opposed to others. But he's one of the best visual directors working today, in my opinion, and barring a truly exceptional year for film WATCHMEN will likely be what I consider one of the best of 2009.
