Wednesday 11 March 2009

The inevitable Watchmen review

You've already waded through a hundred reviews of Watchmen haven't you? The majority of them are far more informed and well written than anything I could bang out, and to be honest I'm too tired to put anything coherent together anyway, so here, (as they pop from the ether into my addled brain), are some bullet points...
  • The fellah who plays Rorschach is top class. He even does a dynamite Hurrm! In fact, when he first hurrmed, I spat my popcorn with delight. Good Hurmming Sir!
  • I'd well bone the Golden Age Silk Spectre, but then I'm a predictable man with a thing for women in suspenders, so you know that's hardly surprising. She's hotter than her daughter though (who, to be fair, is also highly boneable). Basically I'd like to bone them both, preferably while dressed as a superhero. 
  • Dan Dreiburg was a lot better than I thought he was going to be. Yeah he was fatter in the comic book, but the fellah in the film still looks dumpy when he's not in his costume.
  • That said, he wasn't as good as the bloke who played The Comedian, because honestly, he was just FANTASTIC, especially when he was getting beaten up.
  • The Richard Nixon mask was terrible.
  • Why the fuck didn't Nite Owl and Rorshach have their little hover-bikes in Antarctica? Bah, what's wrong with hover-bikes Snyder?!
  • Veidt? Hurrm. All a bit Brideshead/Rupert Everett for my liking. I'm not blaming the actor, because he gives the part his best shot, but I think that he wasn't terribly well cast. Ozymandias should be buffer and blonder. He's a clean cut beefcake with a brain, not a weedy fop - FACT!
  • The violence was over the top. I suppose it did serve to drum home how brutal the characters are, but you know, the original Rorschach doesn't hack up the child killer with a meat cleaver, he ties him up and sets fire to his building. There are also no protruding bones that I can remember in the comic, and no-one gets their arms cut off at the elbows. Sigh.
  • I liked the soundtrack.
  • Dr Manhattan was a lot better than I expected him to be. I know it was all green-screened (or whatever you call it) but the actor still did a fine job on him. All detached, but sensitive and sad like. Nice.
  • The ending was slightly less daft than the original, but fuck that: I wanted me some giant calamari! Not to mention an island full of demented scientists and comic book artists. Gahh! SQUID, SQUID, SQUID!
  • I'm looking forward to Snyder's final cut, because there was a lot of good stuff missing. Leaving out the death of Hollis Mason was a gaffe of near Bombadilic proportions in my opinion. I also need to see more newsstand, and of course Black Freighter. I don't buy many DVDs, but this one's definitely on the list.
  • No Krystalnacht (unless I missed it). Probably a wise decision.
  • I did feel slightly guilty watching the film, after all Mr Moore didn't want it made, and when all's said and done, ignoring that is out of order. Having said that, I think Snyder's proved Moore wrong, because the comic clearly is filmable. It's not the same and it's not as good as the comic, but the movie is nonetheless, unmistakeably Watchmen.
  • I might write some more tomorrow, but it's 1am and I'm too fucked for any more of this gubbins.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm waiting to catch the movie on IMAX. Oh it's going to be so good!

Anonymous said...

Alfred Hilter doesn't agree...
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/03/04/hitler-finds-out-abo.html

Neil said...

Couldn't agree more about the end, Dom. I don't know why a more believeable path to peace can be found in the psychic death throes of a skyscraper-sized, genetically-modified teleporting plant-squid/fake alien attacker, but it just can.

I really enjoyed it, mind. I think Schnyder' taken a damn good swing at it, and I was a ball of jumping excitement when I left the Cineworld in Wood Green (which doesn't happen often...).

Anonymous said...

That was a neat little round up.