WATCHMEN--IN MY OPINION THE EXISTENCE OF LIFE IS AN OVERRATED PHENOMENON
Written: Mar 07 '09 (Updated Mar 07 '09)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Bang For The Buck |
 |
|
|
Pros: Jackie Earle Haley's Rorschach; often great storytelling; fab special effects; Silk Spectre's outfit; opening credits
Cons: Conclusion; often generic storytelling; the Silk Spectre-Nite Owl-Dr. Manhattan triangle
The Bottom Line: Zack Snyder's opus WATCHMEN lands in theaters with ultraviolence, superheroes with arch nemesis streaks, and robust filmmaking sandbagged by biblical length, weak storylines and a dud of an ending
|
|
|
| jarvococker's Full Review: Watchmen |
Marchello's journal--March 6.
The squalid remnants of the snowstorm that rocked MoCo earlier in the week litters the streets outside AMC Loews Rio with streaks of mudcaked footprints, emblematic of the raw sewage of geek filled, sex starved humanity that flocks into the dark as blackest night theater showcasing WATCHMEN. I am one of them, and yet no one sees me, as if I was an anonymous blight in this wretched, decadent, economically shattered world that doesn't deserve saving. And nor do I. NOR DO I. Damn you, life. Save me, WATCHMEN.
Okay, that's over. Towards the end of the film, Silk Spectre (Malin Akerman), a femme fatale superhero who dresses like one of the Pussycat Dolls rather than a savior of mankind, reflects on the bone crushing, blood splattering, life obliterating conflicts that have transpired, and her participation in the ironic resolution. "I know what Jon would say," she assesses to her paramour Nite Owl (Patrick Wilson), referring to the human incarnation of her other paramour, Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup). "Nothing ends. Nothing ever ends."
Apparently, neither does WATCHMEN. For two hours and forty minutes it goes on and on like a ballet of operatic mayhem with a slightly better soundtrack. Which is not to suggest that WATCHMEN is boring. How could a film featuring a smurf blue deity who rocks out with his cock out smack of dullness? As directed by Zack Snyder, who made visual poetry out of the apoplectic carnage of "300," WATCHMEN mines vicious thrills from the mythological bombast of its source material. Adapted from Dave Gibbons and Alan Moore's (Who ordered his credit removed from the print, the sourpuss) celebrated graphic novel by screenwriters David Hayter and Alex Tse, viewers will be hard pressed to ignore the savage glee with which Snyder presents this motley band of superhero outsiders who are often as morally frail as they are physically superior. Even harder to ignore is the abject overkill Snyder tends to ensnare the proceedings in. Or the overzealous devotion to the film's source--the filmmakers are more reverent to the material than Mel Gibson was to the bible in "The Passion of the Christ."
Speaking of liabilities, the fact that better graphic novel screen adaptations (Specifically "Sin City") have already hit theaters doesn't bode well for WATCHMEN. While the film vigorously scores as a worthy successor to those electrifying visionary pastiches, it fails to improve on or in some cases even equal them. Okay, the argument can be made movies like "Sin City" weren't concerned with the seedier elements of the modern superhero. Fine. A movie like "The Dark Knight" takes WATCHMEN to the cinematic outhouse and takes a giant dump on it. With studios now scrambling to adapt every comic or graphic novel conceived in the last twenty five years, WATCHMEN stands as a quzzical summation of the genre. As entertaining as the film is, and as delicously macabre as its alternative cold war universe is, it's hardly illuminating, scant on revolutionary, offers only a middling dose of interesting characters that fly off the screen, is bloated and, unfortunately, by the end less subliminal and more cliched than intended.
WATCHMEN starts off like gangbusters. The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), founding member of the old school MinuteMen and the next generation, legally defunct Watchmen, is given a wicked smackdown and thrown out of his high rise Manhattan apartment by an unseen assailant who the Comedian knows. From here the opening credits unspool over an ingeniously inspired and edited montage scored to Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin'." For those unfamiliar with the source material, no need to fret. The whole make believe history of the MinuteMen brethren and their Watchmen counterparts is captured with such brilliant, breakneck clarity that viewers will be brought up to speed immediately. Sadly, the rest of the film, while energetic in fits, hardly maintains such madcap intensity.
The warped universe of WATCHMEN offers a serious breach in the space time continuum. It's 1985, and the Cold War is alive and well, pitting the US and USSR on the brink of nuclear war so much that a metaphoric doomsday clock heralds five minutes left for humanity to exist. Richard Nixon (Robert Wisden, with full on caricature beak) is enjoying his fifth term as president. The Watchmen, once proud protectors of the people, have been disbanded. Is Dr. Manhattan, the omnipotent, sole hero left under government employ, enough to serve as a nuclear deterrent? More important, does Dr. Manhattan still care?
Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley) certainly cares. Not about impending nuclear holocaust, mind you, but the murder of one of his former own. Sporting a mask with ink blots that constantly morph (One of the film's better, subtler visual effects), and keeping a journal (Recorded in voiceover) in the same misanthropic vain as Travis Bickle, Rorschach conducts his own vigilante investigation. Calls on his former colleagues to join him are politely declined. Adrian Veidt (Matthew Goode from "Match Point"), formerly Ozymandias and the smartest man on the planet, has amassed a fortune pimping his iconic former self and is too busy developing a natural energy source to help out. Ditto Manhattan, who is helping Veidt with his project and on the downslope of a relationship with frustrated Laurie Jupiter, formerly Silk Spectre. Dan Dreiberg, formerly Nite Owl, a plump shell of his former self ("That flabby failure," Rorschach hisses) spends most of his free time pointlessly reminiscing with the senior Nite Owl (Stephen McHattie) and hasn't the heart to contribute. "At least I'm not hiding behind a mask," Dan begs off. "No, you're hiding in plain sight!" Rorschach retorts, speaking in the same overdone, "menacing" gravel voice as Christian Bale's Batman.
One of the central questions raised by WATCHMEN is why Rorschach goes to all the trouble of honoring his fallen comrade. As flashbacks clearly illustrate, the Comedian was a poor excuse of a superhero. In one of the more disturbing sequences of the film, the Comedian goes Chris Brown on the original Silk Spectre (Carla Gugino) and even tries to rape her. With such ignoble displays of behavior, is it no wonder the Watchmen are no more? And yet Rorschach's dedication ("An attack on one is an attack on all of us") is one of the few, faint beacons of light in the moral darkness, and the diminutive Haley proves playing a hero need not be an exercise in vanity, and emerges as the soul of the film.
While Jackie Earle Haley is WATCHMEN's fierce avenging angel, the same can sadly not be said of the rest the actors. Morgan acquits himself nicely as the sociopathic Comedian, but the character's volcanic double nature begs the question why the film simply didn't showcase him. The reliable Gugino has next to nothing to work with. Ditto poor Akerman, whose primary function is to inspire lust in male viewers (In all fairness, her portrait in the bare necessities achieves this) and a banal, sexual tug of war between Nite Owl and Dr. Manhattan. Will there ever be a female character in a film based on a comic with any bloody substance? Wilson is effectively ineffectual as Nite Owl, whose Dan in real life suffers from the decidedly nonheroic condition of coitus impotentus (Inviting Rorschach's humiliating putdown "You've gone soft, especially with women."). Billy Crudup does an efficient job under barrels of wondrous CGI as Dr. Manhattan, whose otherworldly powers are the result of a nuclear accident (One of the film's best scenes), and whose m.o. literally appears to be "Talk soft and carry a big dick." As extravagantly understated as Crudup is, the film unwisely regulates the good doctor to self imposed exile on Mars of all places.
As loud as the buzz has been on WATCHMEN being a "different, darker" brand of superhero movie, the film's third act revelations and conclusion are a howling letdown. While different and darker may save WATCHMEN from boredom, it certainly doesn't obsolve it from been there, seen that cliche. Which is a shame, because Zack Snyder is obviously operating on a labor of infinite love. The visual effects astound (A gigantic Dr. Manhattan laying a seige in Vietnam; Nite Owl's flying "Archie" emerging from the Hudson for a secret patrol through the New York night). Every crunch of every blow doled out is given ridiculously exagerrated oomph. WATCHMEN is an imaginative, apocalyptically violent and sensationally ambitious film which bursts from the bubble of a rapidly exploited genre, but never rises above its limitations.
Recommended:
Yes
Movie Mood: Action Movie
Film Completeness: Looked complete to me.
Worst Part of this Film: Ending
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
jarvococker
|
|
Member: marcelo deugarte
Location: bethesda, md
Reviews written: 299
Trusted by: 70 members
About Me:
And the hand that rocks you cuts you up like lyrics of your life.
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.