Watchmen / Хранители: I didn't know comics are supposed to be boring

[alexandral]

Mr.Alexander and I watched "Watchmen". The film can be described in the best way using his words: "It all started really well, didn't it?". It did start really well but it ended as a most boring adaptation of a graphic novel I have ever seen. Hours and hours of the screentime were spent in monotone dialogues and monologues of infinite importance that were read at you by actors who seemed to be obviously thinking about their dinner arrangements whilst reading.

Story
The story itself is taken from an 80s graphic novel and taken FAITHFULLY, so this means that it is much more misogynistic, homophobic and disability-insensitive than the stories you are used to seeing on your screen. Consider the story of a woman who falls in love with her rapist, then deliberately conceives a "beautiful child" with him and who of course, forgives the rapist because he gave her a child!! (and all this in a boring way). Oh, and the only person of colour that I have noticed in the film was a prisoner meeting his death through a deep burn by the use of deep frying pan in the hand of Rorschach.

Special effects and cinematography
Some of the special effects were really good, but I have to note that when you see a person being annihilated in a fire or a force to particles for the first time it might come as an interesting special effect. But when you see this very same effect done several times though the movie you might start to wonder what kind of medication is the special effects man taking. Moreso, quite few of the special effects used in the film could be dated back to "Matrix".

There is an interesting cinematographic angle that Zack Snyder likes to use in his films. I don't really object to this:

300, Gerard Butler



Watchmen, Billy Crudup (? I am not sure that the blue guy's rare was Billy Crudup's ? )



Watchmen, Patrick Wilson




Music
As far as musical score goes , if L.Cohens Halliluah haven't been already murdered for me by Alexandra Burke, it would have been by the use of it in "Watchmen". And how did they dare to lay their hands on Mozart!!!!!! You were so right, lage_nom_ai and baleanoptera.

Controversy
There is much controversy going on about the film, if you are interested , please refer to FandomWank here and here and here, the movie seems to be just the thing for FandomWank. Apparently Watchmen's screenwriter David Hayter wrote this perl (I can not believe that someone in his right mind can write something like this):

"It may upset you. And it probably will upset you. And all along, we really meant it to. ...All this time, you’ve been waiting for a director who was going to hit you in the face with this story. To just crack you in the jaw, and then bend you over the pool table with this story. With its utterly raw view of the darkest sides of human nature, expressed through its masks of action and beauty and twisted good intentions... Like the Comedian on the Grassy Knoll. ...You'll be thinking about this film, down the road. It'll nag at you. How it was rough and beautiful. How it went where it wanted to go, and you just hung on. How it was thoughtful and hateful and bleak and hilarious. And for Jackie Earle Haley.
Trust me. You'll come back, eventually. Just like Sally.

Oh , David Hayter - may be they could have come for more if it wasn't so boring?

Comments

[lage-nom-ai.livejournal.com]

I TOLD YOU SO.

And I have to say, even Billy Crudup's blue penis was boring after a while!!

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Watchmen is something that, IMO is very tied to when it came out. Aside from his Joker book, though, it's my least favorite book of what I've read of his work. That Comedian comes out being portrayed more sympathetically than anyone else is something I'll never get over.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

I know I ought to trust your excellent judgment and that of others on my flist, but I suspect that I will end up seeing it and being annoyed. And then you can tell me 'I told you so.'

That quote from the screenwriter makes me both laugh and fear anything he's ever done.

[dianora77.livejournal.com]

Hours and hours of the screentime were spent in monotone dialogues and monologues of infinite importance that were read at you by actors who seemed to be obviously thinking about their dinner arrangements whilst reading.

LMAO! If you weren't married, I think I'd propose to you. :D

[baleanoptera.livejournal.com]

Hee! You know I couldn't agree more. There should also be a ban or some form of time-out regarding the use of "Hallelujah". That poor, poor song gets pasted on everything.

I agree that the Watchmen actually started well, and IMHO the title-sequence was the best part of the whole film. (largely because it wasn't in slow-mo with never-ending monologues!) Though the use of Mr. Dylan and "The times they are a changin'" was a bit too "nudge-nudge-alternate-reality" for me.

I also adore your visual analysis of the Zack Snyder ass-shot. *g*

[trailer-spot.livejournal.com]

I also watched the movie last week at the theatre. I still don't entirely know what to make of it but I have to say that I didn't find it boring. I wasn't familiar with the graphic novel (GN) and so there was a lot I had to digest. I only now have read the first two chapters of the book that I borrowed from a friend (he has the six-part series, and I only have the first part, so currently I can't read more).

I think I had different expectations than you. I knew that Snyder would adapt the GN as faithfully as possible (he wouldn't be allowed to do anything else). So I expected that there will be shots that look like comic panels (which I really liked) and also comic book dialogue. And since the GN consist of characters that are all pretty much unlikable I don't think you can critisise the movie for that. I mean I have the opinion that if a movie is based on a book, the movie has still to be good on its own right (the reason why I didn't want to read the GN beforehand) but in this case you can't change. We can debate if there should've been better dialogues (or if it had to be based in the 80s) but I didn't expect better.
I'm not sure after reading your entry, have you read the GN before you saw the movie?

Now the fact that a very expensive movie got made which consists of at least ambiguous and mostly even bad characters, that, I have to admit, I find pretty interesting. A superhero-movie consisting of anti-superheroes. And a much more complicated one than let's say "Iron Man". And I am wondering how many of those who saw the movie and are enthusiastic about it (and aren't familiar with the book) noticed what it's about. Though I suspect most didn't like it anyway.

Given the bad characters I can very much understand if someone doesn't like the movie. I had a similar problem with "Sin City". While watching the movie I realised that I don't like what I'm seeing. Very interesting visually but it seemed too much bad boys (and girls) for the sake of badness. And of course, the other movie from Snyder "300" was much worse. So I don't know what to make of people who "love" these three movies. I fear there are more people like that idiot screenwriter who wrote that letter.

A problem I had was with Ozymandias. While a lot of the characters had a backstory, I thought they didn't do enough to establish why he's the 'smartest man in the world'. Though I guess you can see the fact that he's very rich as prove he's smart. And given how important he is to the story I felt they should've done more. He also had the worst costume (as super-hero and as a person). But again, it's based in the 80s, so unfortunately we had to deal with a few "ugly" things. ;)

re music: There I entirely share your critisism. I still don't know what the director intended with the use of 'Hallelujah'. Maybe it was meant ironic, but it didn't make sense to me. As a German, Nena's '99 Red Balloons' made me laugh because for me it was also inappropriate but I know why he used it (in the US the song became very popular and automatically gets associated with the TV movie "The Day After" about life after nuclear war).

Again, I didn't love the movie, but I find it very interesting and I'm already looking forward to seeing it again (on TV or DVD). It also made me very curious about the GN.