We went to see Watchmen last night in Redwood City as part of our evening here in the Bay Area before Michelle dropped me off at SFO for my trip to Tokyo. We picked up Anna Moreno, one of M's former students who is currently studying at Mills College in Oakland, went out for dinner and then on to the movies to catch the must-see movie release of the month.
I had high hopes and the fact that Michelle had agreed to go along and see it too meant that she had bought into the months of hyping - by the media and by me - about how awesome it was going to be. It was directed the guy that made '300' that she loved - in spite of the high gore factor - and the special effects promised to be mind blowing.
However, that she and Anna finally left after 2 hours to go and wait outside and that I only stuck it out so as to see more of the special effects and to find out how they had made a change to the ending, should give you a sense that we were pretty underwhelmed. Sure it was visually stunning and titillating in places. But not only did the violence and sex seem over the top (even for a movie in this genre) but I can honestly say that the movie really didn't do justice to the graphic novel with all it's scale, depth, stories-within-stories and doomsday atmosphere. And I can't even say that if you hadn't read the graphic novel none of that would matter as I'm not sure you would really get it without that prior education.
I think Michelle a bit sorry for me as she didn't tease me about it at all afterwards.
Still, if you're interested in seeing a well-muscled glowing blue man's privates, a fat guy have his arms cut off with a rotary saw and a graphic masked hero sex scene inside an owl ship to the sounds of Leonard Cohen singing "Hallelujah" then perhaps this is the movie you've been waiting for.
As for me - I'm looking forward to May when X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Star Trek are released.
8 comments:
You're wrong, of course, but I'm interested to know if you liked it more than "The Dark Knight"? (Or as I like to call it, "The Massive Dark Yawn highlighted with flashes of Heath Ledger luminosity")
Dark Knight doesn't suffer from the weight of specific, well known, novel that it tries to replicate too faithfully. And, of course, has Heath Ledger to bring it out of the doldrums periodically.
When's it released over in Blighty, btw?
I watched it already. It came out 6th March over here, (that's the 3rd June to you) Nearly 3 hours of film passed by in what felt like 30 minutes. I could have watched 6 hours. I'm glad that it was an 18 too; can't get enough of those blue bell(end)s.
I mentioned TDK as a lot of folks are comparing the two. Personally I feel that the Batman films have been, consistently, confused and disappointing which, given the huge amount of decent comic\graphic novel material that they could draw on (excuse the pun), is a real shame. More of a shame than Zack Snyder, fanboy, trying his best (for fellow fanboys) to recreate graphically and thematically the Watchmen as a movie.
Get Mr Snyder to film The Dark Knight Returns and then we'll all be happy :)
Love you x
Just read this synopsis in Time magazine on the way to the airport. Obviously this is written by a professional but he pretty much copied everything I said in my original blog. Perhaps he's a follower of ulloasullivan.com too?
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1883355,00.html
The other thing I've been wondering of late is this - am I just getting a bit too old to really enjoy these kinds of movies anymore? Perhaps I'm simply not the target demographic and hence shouldn't be disappointed by something that's not intended for me anyway.
I'm not sure that it really applies to someone who loves The Secret Show, but then I'm convinced that is made secretly for adults anyway.
Darn! I forgot to add my html tag to that hyperlink. Here it is for those of you that are too lazy to copy&paste: Time Magazine Article
That's interesting that you've lassoed (like Wonder Woman :0) all the super-hero movies together when you say that maybe you're too old (never!) or in the wrong demographic (maybe). I felt that Watchmen was quite distinct from say X-Men or Spiderman (and definitely from something like the Star Trek* reboot) in quite a few obvious ways. I don't enjoy those movies anymore, but loved Watchmen. The guy from Time actually seemed to like the film quite a bit more than you too.
*my prediction for Start Wreck: the feeling you'll get after watching this film, which I won't get as I won't be watching it (despite having an unhealthy admiration of Simon Pegg) will be the same feeling that the scientists of the future will get when they create fresh clones from the aging population and are then distraught to find they are able only to churn out passive grey mannequins devoid of soul. Just as the latest James Bonds left me completely cold, so will any other reboot film that tries to shoe-horn itself into modern psyche with cheap-tricks and sub-standard script writing.
My favourite films of the past 6 months:
The Wackness
Into The Wild
The Serpent
The Lives of Others
The Night of the Sunflowers
Watchmen
"Peace out Luke"
Dang! I was just voicing my opinion. There's no need to get all sulky about it.
I hope you're happy now as you've gone and spoilt it for everyone.
He he. That's funny, because I thought my first post was the sulkiest :0)
Next up, Jason debates the merits of the new Prince album and ends up comparing it to [deleted by moderator].
Post a Comment