Who watches the Watchmen?
I did! I finally made it to the movies! For the amount of reviews I read, blogs I follow and general interest in all things movies, I don’t end up at the cineplex very often. (Of course, I prefer when things make it to the Parkway–beer, nachos, and cheap!)
But I did manage to make it out to see Watchmen tonight. It was a movie that grew through the exhaust of geek hot air… fueled of course by the legal battle over its distribution. Personally, I would be that Alan Moore had placed a voodoo curse on the movie. I totally dug the graphic novel though, but got less and less excited with the hype (is it good? is it bad? is there a giant blue wang?).
I found the movie quite awesome though. It managed to be both punchy and dark, and, while this may sound like heresy, I enjoyed watching it more than I enjoyed watching The Dark Knight (which was too damn dark for me to see what was going on). Some shots were frame-for-frame like the graphic novel. As I had not read the graphic novel in a while, man of the images had stuck in my mind and the movie was able to build upon them.
Some images, of course, were better suited for page than screen. The meat cleaver, the metal cutter, the sheer amount of guts I saw (through my fingers). I’m sure there’s an interesting study done about how people process print violence and screen violence differently. I process it from behind my bag of popcorn (seriously, it will give me nightmares). But that’s what draws people to the theater.
The other thing I couldn’t stomach was the music. Seriously, they got the rights to all these great, classic songs (“All Along the Watchtower,” “Sounds of Silence” “The Times They are A-Changin'” but it made the movie seem dated–and that the music coordinator only lived between 1963 and 1969. I think more modern music could have been used to greater effect.
The love scene in the helicopter, scored to Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” was a riot. The rest of the movie was catered to young boys, but this–glory days in recovered hot rod! Smoking young girl! Redemption after not being able to get it up! Leonard Cohen! Yup, that had middle-aged divorce all over it.
In short, it’s certainly not the worst comic book movie out there. I think it did the book justice, and I’m pretty happy it was made before this fad slows down.