Watchmen:A Mixed Bag
Hmmmm…..I’ve dileberated for a while now on what to say about Watchmen. We went and saw it last week and to be honest all I really wanted to say about it when we left the theater was UGH. With a capital U. Now, after a few days of careful thought, I still say ugh, but with a lower-case U.
It was graphic. I guess that’s where the “graphic novel” part comes in. But I was expecting Spiderman-like violence. Not the torso-slashing, bone-breaking, face-slamming-in-a-vat-of-grease type fare the flick offered up. And again, in keeping with my dislike for Quentin Tarantino-like gore, I thought it was a movie trying to be violent just to violent.
Style-wise, it was ok. Actually, I really liked the filming and ambiance. The whole film was set up like a comic book story board and that was cool. Way cool. But in between the artistic coloring and awesome costumes was, I thought, a pretty boring plot. Which is hard to do with that much stuff to punch into a story line. The movie was almost three hours long, way too long for a super-hero flick.
I read a good review that said the movie approached its adaptation with too much reverence for the original material. It kind of assumed everyone already worshiped the almighty Watchmen series and thus failed to appeal to a larger audience of lay-viewers like myself. But I guess any really true-to-the-plot adaptation assumes it’s audience is familiar with the original.
So would I recomend this flim? Not really. But go see it anyway. Then we can talk about it.
April 11th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
Dude, Rob! I went and saw this with Myrt and I bloody hated it. HATED IT! Remember “Men on Film” from the old In Living Color series? HATED IT! *snap* You’re right, not everything was a complete loss, but it was so boring, so slow, and they tried cram too much into one film (for heaven’s sake they had 3 Motherfu**ing hours to do it in!)!
And, to add insult to injury, the couple in front of Myrton and me thought it would be appropriate to bring their 3 or 4 year old kid. Every time there was a sex scene, or a meat cleaver splitting the head of a pedophile who fed a little girl’s body to his dogs, or big blue schlong…the mom in me just came bubbling up and it took everything inside me not to grab that child and run out of there. Or at the very least, not turn on my cell phone and call Child Protective Services.
It was maybe the most uncomfortable movie going experience of my life. And I had diarrhea during a movie once, so that’s saying something.