Did anyone see Watchmen? Thumbs up or thumbs down? I need a movie that will erase Chun Li from my memory...
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Watchmen movie?
(23 posts)-
Posted 2 years ago #
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Jason Lee
Member
haha. A bunch of my friends have seen it. They say it stays very true to the comic. Of my friends who have read the comic they say it's very good. I wanted to go see it over the weekend but everybody I asked was unable to.
Posted 2 years ago # -
MoFoQ
Member
watch Taken then
Good movie...and they have a bluray release in europe already.Posted 2 years ago # -
Jason Lee
Member
Hmm I wanted to see Taken too.
Posted 2 years ago # -
MoFoQ
Member
btw, that was a ヒント
Posted 2 years ago # -
i thought watchmen was great actually -- the thing that's great about zack snyder (the director), it's that he has no directorial vision of his own. he pretty much transposed the comic book to the movie screen panel by panel. seeing those scenes come to life was very satisfying, and i felt the same excitement as when i read the original graphic novel. sure, there's some fanboys who hate the movie (there's an av club thread complaining about -- i shit you not -- the changing of one word in the line "your hands, my perspective" to "your hands, my pleasure". that's how little it deviates from the source), but as long as you don't have a stick up your ass it'll be an enjoyable movie if you liked the original comic. i'm not sure how people who have never read the comic will respond to a character-driven comic book movie, but frankly i don't care because it was made for watchmen fans :-)
Posted 2 years ago # -
I never read this comic so I guess I'll see how I like it or don't. It basically looks like X-Men to me but with a large cast of completely unfamiliar characters. I kind of can't remember if I would have liked the first X-Men movie without knowing who any of the characters were, but I would probably have thought it was kind of random.
It looks like Zack Snyder hasn't done much yet but 300 wasn't bad and I really liked the Dawn of the Dead remake, so I expect the filmmaking to at least be on par with those. As long as it's better than Fantastic Four I'll be pretty satisfied.
IMO as far as comic book movies go I think Batman has done it the best. It definitely seems the most realistic of all comic book movies probably because of the lack of sci-fi/fantasy elements.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Jason Lee
Member
I wouldn't go into the movie thinking "action" like X-Men. Read the Wiki overview of the graphic novel and it might give you insight. The people who were most disappointed with the movie are those that assumed the movie was an action packed comic book movie like X-Men or Spiderman. I think that it's a direct cause of the marketing for the movie.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Weird. Yeah, the trailers kind of made it out to look like an action movie. Hmm, well I don't want to know too much about it if I'm going to see it, I'm just hoping that reading the comics/graphic novel collection (I guess it's a pretty short series anyway) isn't a prerequisite.
Posted 2 years ago # -
yeah, i agree with hookedonanime -- do NOT expect an action movie. the whole premise is based on "what would drive someone to put on a costume and fight crime" and "how the 'real' world would react to costumed heroes running around". the plot is heavy on character development, with a few action scenes sprinkled throughout.
i was told that when the original comics came out, it revolutionized american comics -- unlike spider-man and batman, the "heroes" in this story are multi-dimensional and have real, human flaws. it goes to some very dark places (the R rating is no joke), but all in all i think it's a very unique take on the superhero genre.Posted 2 years ago # -
I thought it looked like a satire on stereotyped comic book heroes, like Mystery Men or something [regardless of it being a non-comedy.] Otherwise, I'll still go see it instead of burning my eye sockets on the Chun Li movie. Still waiting for Wolverine: Origins, T4 and TF 2.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Jason Lee
Member
I'm possibly seeing it today (Friday) so I'll report my thoughts if I do end up going.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Jason Lee
Member
I watched it last night. Pretty good movie. Definitely not your average comic book movie though. If you haven't read the comic, it's got an interesting ending.
Posted 2 years ago # -
I saw it last night and I'm sorry guys, but I thought it was pretty bad. Definitely better than Chun Li, but still not good and by far the worst of the three Mr. Zack movies I've seen. It's kind of at the bottom of comic book-based movies for me. The one good thing that I can say about it is that the film looked really interesting for the most part, although someone got trigger happy with the slo-mo button which I quickly got tired of and made the movie eventually really drag. I thought the best part was the beginning which was a pretty uniquely stylized action scene, but then the opening credits were too damned long and seriously random and confusing. I don't know for sure but I had the sense that they were trying to cram a bunch of scenes from the comic into there for the fans or something. Actually, "too long, random, and confusing" kind of sums up the entire movie for me and it really caused me to zone out in boredom. The overall plot was pretty simple and I got so tired of everyone making way too big of a deal out of it. Lots of eye rolling. And there was all this irrelevant stuff happening with the other superhero characters constantly. Way WAY too much ass... and much more. DUDE. PANTS. PLEASE. I don't care if you're the pantsless avenger in the comic, I still don't want to see your glowing blue dong on the big screen.
Really, pants wouldn't have detracted from the story at all. I mean, think about it like this... If you're talking to a dude about something like, "Oh, am I going to get nuked and die soon?"... wouldn't you want the dude to be wearing pants? I think pants help people take other people seriously. Some say that it might be the reason they were invented. Plus, it's kind of cold sometimes, and maybe you just want some warm pants or something. The list goes on...
Ah yes, I also seriously question the choice of music. Bob Dylan? Hendrix? And Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah making an already ridiculous sex scene even more ridiculous?! WTF??!!
I appear to be the only person who didn't like it here. Ah well.
Posted 2 years ago # -
MoFoQ
Member
LMAO!
maybe if they made it into a mini-series instead of just one movie...it may have been better?
Posted 2 years ago # -
Jason Lee
Member
I also thought the music score was very odd...especially the way it completely overpowers the scene. Helllloooo, funeral scene? Was anybody thinking Old School? I was waiting for Will Ferrell to start crooning, which is an infinitely better scene imo.
There is a lot of backstory for each character so I think that's why it seems incredibly long and drawn out.
BTW, if we were on the verge of nuclear attack, I would be running around naked. Dr. Manhattan wears clothes when he's in public...just not around the Watchmen. Ya full frontal nudity is somewhat strange but I just focused on his face.
Also, I find it funny that a lot of the people in the movie remind me of other, more famous, actors/actresses. Anybody else get that feeling?
Posted 2 years ago # -
This movie was a F+ to a D- at best for me. For a "character driven" based story, there was SO LITTLE meaningful character development and back story.
Blue naked dude: got stuck in some shit and became blue, naked and god. Sort of Spiderman, right? Spiderman is cooler though cause he is more human and thus you feel for him more.
Rorshoch: got angry cause the world is full of bad stuff and then goes all silence of the lambs. Totally done to death (and with far more depth) in other movies. What is his super power anyways? Being able to climb up walls really fast and take loads of punches?
Owl guy: Looks like a batman who does your taxes when he takes off the suit. Pretty weak. No worthwhile back story for him.
Mole Face Girl: Does she even HAVE a super power? What? She looks like a hooker but then kicks you in the face? Cat Woman anyone? Her back story made me gag.
The Comedian: Life is a joke so who cares? Lets just watch A Clockwork Orange and see that same story done at a far higher level.
The Smartest Guy Alive: He didn't seem that smart to me. They should have had him have a slap fight with Bill Gates and Steven Jobs. He just looked like a gay dude with lots of money and he really has no back story. Besides, I don't think being "smart" is a super power. Plus, blue naked dude seemed to have more going on up high (and down low) than this dude.
So what does that leave the film with:
-Very little action
-A really simplistic story that doesn't justify the nearly 3 hour running time.
-A horrible soundtrack (you can't take songs which have HUGE pre-existing historical (and emotional) connotations and try to tie them to something which has nothing to do with those original connotations. You could put All Along the Watch Tower in Apocalypse Now and it would work, but you can't put in a story about super heros on viagra in the late 80s.
-This is a super hero movie but as far as I could tell, only blue naked dude had super powers
-Finally, if you are going to make a super hero movie, you either need to build a story which supports the existence of super powers (like they did for blue naked dude) or, you need to make a character like batman who is just a nut job, or just make it a fantasy world.I don't think this movie was made for Watchmen fans. I really don't. It looked to me like an attempt to make a HUGE budget mass-market super hero movie that someone had the balls to think would change the way people see super hero movies by giving them more depth or something. The problem is, this movie was directed by a 14 year old boy. Its like saying "Platoon" has more depth than "Apocalypse Now." In this case, "Batman" has really had this genre covered so much better.
Ouch.
Posted 2 years ago # -
i know i won't change anyone's opinion of the movie (and conversely, no one can change mine :-) ), but i wanted to respond to a few points that were brought up:
1) the opening montage was actually not in the comic -- it was sort of a substitute for a lot of backstory regarding the fates of the "original" costumed heroes from the 1940's. i think the main purpose was to ground the film cinematically in the "real" (in the historical sense) world.
2) dr. manhattan's nakedness represented his growing detachment from humanity -- in the earliest flashback scenes (when he first meets laurie at the hero meet-up), he wore a full suit costume, but the first time you see him in present day, he is completely disinterested in superheroics and wore only shorts in his lab scenes. when laurie leaves him and cuts his last tie to humanity, he exiles himself to mars and drops all pretenses of being human (including the custom of wearing clothing). it's a bit subtle, and i suppose it's easy to get caught up in the "zomg full frontal nudity".
3) i agree with the points on the music -- it was a clumsy insert more often than not, especially in the funeral and the (unnecessarily long/graphic) sex-scene. oh well.
4) none of the characters (except dr. manhattan) are supposed to have any super-powers. they are all just individuals who wanted to make the world a better place, and in this alternate-history putting on a costume and fighting crime was a way to do it. one main point of the story is that when a bona-fide superhero with actual super-powers, dr. manhattan, finally makes his appearance, he effectively renders all the other costumed heroes obsolete, putting them into retirement.
5) none of the heroes are supposed to be "cool" (although i admit i get some guilty thrill from seeing rorschach rough up criminals). the cold, inhuman dr. manhattan is what happens when an ordinary man gets god-like powers. nite-owl is the sad, pathetic (and infinitely more believable) civilian alter-ego to the thrilling costumed hero lifestyle. the comedian embodies the dark side of america that made the country into a world power. it's a interesting contrast to superheroes like spider-man and batman boy-scout hero archetype who can do no wrong under any circumstances.
it's not by a long-shot an instant classic in any way, and there's still a lot of flaws with the movie (the overstylized violence, the soundtrack, etc.), but it really felt like a labor of love from zack snyder. i don't know how he got the movie execs to fund this, because the story doesn't have a mass-market appeal at all. people have come to expect nonstop action, crazy super-powers, and infallible heroes from their comic book movies, and watchmen is none of that. but seeing those critical scenes from the original comic come to life and feeling the same emotional resonance as when i first read the story is really all that a fan can ask for.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Uhmm, in that case, better save my Century movie tickets from Costco for Wolverine: Origins.
TBC,
BobbyPosted 2 years ago #
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