Quis custudiet ipsos custodes?
For the non-latin scholars, taken from Juvenal, the quote is roughly translated to mean, “Who watches the Watchmen?” an oft mentioned mentioned quote in the Watchmen trade/movie. I did this past Sunday and came away with a slight sinking feeling. Don’t get me wrong, the movie was solid; the visuals were amazing; acting, for the most part, was good; action scenes, great; plot, good and mainly true to the movie. But… it just wasn’t good enough for me.
Spoiler alert for those who’ve not read the trade/watched the motion comic yet. For those who’ve not read it, a quick summary of the trade is that it follows middle aged has been superheroes in a hunt to find an unknown killer killing off superheroes for seemingly no reason. I’ll try not to reveal so much for those who’ve not watched the movie yet. Condensing a 12 issue arc into a mere 2:45 hr movie that will satisfy both mainstream audiences and hardcore fans of the trade was quite the task. Mainstreamers, coming in expecting your typical flying, high jumping, cheesy save the girl action will be letdown in leaps and bounds. Though Watchmen will be classified by many as a “superhero movie”, it’s more of a movie that happens to have superhero-like figures in it. You’ll not see any cutesy save scenes of teenage angst or someone rekindling a long gone relationship. People actually die in this movie, pretty gory deaths, may I add. There’s your excessive nudity that will have you wondering who was the poor sap that got stuck animating that blue, glowing man-thing that is attached to a bald Data-like naked man and some pretty strong political and philosophical themes going on.
Beginning, with well… the beginning, which was a mix of classic music that retold the past events leading all the way up to the “current” in the Watchmen universe. The beginning was extremely well done and summarized the events pretty well, though I’d have to admit, non-readers of the trade will most likely be confused as there is no text nor is there a narrator, just scenes mixed in with Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix. Although the beginning music really messes well with the intro, sadly the music for the rest of the film (other than the organ music from the second trailer) was quite disappointing. I know the director was probably trying to get music to fit the times, but it just didn’t work out most of the time. The music felt really out of place in many of the scenes, throwing off the whatever vibe was going on in the movie.
The next scene opened with the fight between the Comedian and his then unknown killer, which I’d have to say was one of the best fight scenes I’ve seen in a movie in a while. Although I knew exactly what was going to happen, it left me guessing what was going to happen though the “costume” of the mask killer was outlined in such a way that you kinda knew who he was if you had stay passed the hour mark of the movie. It also a mostly logical retelling of how the fight may have went down minus a particularly irksome item that you Watchmen readers will mostly like notice.
The next hour and a half comprised mainly of the retelling of the Comedian’s past and his unlawful acts that lead to his untimely death. This is where I started getting let down by the movie. The casting of the movie was pretty spot on in my opinion, look-wise anyway. All the characters looked like their counterparts to pretty much a T with some compromising changes. But what had me scratching my head was the acting of the Comedian, it just wasn’t… good. He under acted many of the scenes. Maybe it’s because I expected a certain type of reaction, which has been in grained in my memory since the first time I picked up the book, but he just could have done a better job of expressing emotion. the actor who played the Comedian made it seem like he was just reading off the script he read a few minutes beforehand. The acting just could have been better, but was a momental letdown.
On the other hand, Rorscach was a perfect casting, he not only looked the part but acted like I had imagined he would’ve acted. He was the crazy and conspiracy theorist when he should have been, his mannerisms were believable, his sense of justice and matter of speaking were spot on. He definitely wasn’t afraid to be Rorschach, though I definitely would be if I met him. My favorite scene was in the famous prison cafeteria scene where he dosed a fellow prison mate with boiling hot oil, then shouts out, “None of you understand. I’m not locked up in here with you. You’re locked up in here with me.” Amazing, I could watch that scene over and over again and would not get old of it. Though what was missing was the retelling of Rorscach’s origin, which was a gross oversight of the director. He was the character that made the movie stand out; he was the most interesting, most intriguing character and they just left out how he became Rorschach.It was most likely left out in favor of the retelling of the naked super powered blue guy origin. I’m hoping it was just cut because of time, since I hear the movie was cut down from nearly 4 hours to under 3 to be able to get the masses to not leave.
Generally, the movie was a great retelling of the first 5 chapters of the trade and then quickens up after the 2 hour mark to come to a very different ending than what is in the trade. Philosophical-wise, the ending was very similar, but what had me was the blame being turned around and the changing ultimatums in the movie. There was also a very logical sequence change in the movie of the famous Dreiberg/Laurie sex scene, essentially it was moved back in favor of a more “friendly” scene to Rorschach that is.
Watching the movie in IMAX was definitely pretty awesome, but probably not worth it, since I don’t believe any of the film was filmed using IMAX cameras. So if you think you’ll be missing a lot since there are no IMAX theaters in your area, you’ll probably not be missing much. Be warned there is a fair amount of both male and female nudity as well as pretty gruesome deaths and fight scenes, which added a grittiness to the film. The comic with a comic “Tales of the Black Freighter” were unsurprisingly absent, as the animated version will be coming in separately, as well as the book within a book chapters of “Under The Hood”. I honestly can’t wait to buy the spliced in uncut DVD release when it comes out and sit and watch the marathon of a flick.
So did I like the movie? Yes, I did. Would I watch it again? Yes.
