Okay finally seen Watchmen and here is my mini review of it. First of like to say I am a huge fan of the graphic novel, its probably my favourite of all time, so in stating that here is my review of the movie.
I think Watchmen as a movie worked very well, I was not board at all throughout it and was gripped by every second of it. Overall its a pretty good adaptation of the story in the graphic novel, with some great performances from the key actors such as Jackie Earl Haley, Billy Crudip, Jeffery Dean Morgan and Patrick Wilson. The first half I thought was the strongest, the sections which adapted the first six chapters of the book. However from then it started to lose its momentum and of course I for one I did not like the ending. I did not like it because to me it felt like the filmmakers were spoon feeding the audience of what to think of Vedit`s plan morally whereas in the graphic novel it was ambiguous and the reader was left questioning what they thought of Vedit`s plan. The framing Manhattan was interesting in concept however I always liked the Squid and what Moore did with it. The emotion of the ending was not there either for me, this was mainly because of a lack of screen time for the NYC characters such as Bernie, Dr Malcolm and his wife. Other problems I had with the movie was the over violence, in the GN the violence was used to a certain point to emphasis what was going on, I think Synder has not heard of the phrase "Less is more" Other problems were the themes if they were there felt like window dressing for example the element of the Soviet Union/USA conflict was there but it did not feel tense like in the GN where I got the feeling Nuclear war could happen at any time. Overall I thought the movie was good even if Moore`s themes and ideas were stripped down it was still a good adaption in my eyes and 1000 times better then V For Vendetta, overall I give it.
6/10
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"You thought we could be decent men in an indecent time. But you were wrong. The world is cruel, and the only morality in a cruel world is chance"
I'm at chapter five in the book and I've gotta say I think I'm liking it better than the movie, especially after the mars part with Jon. In the movie, maybe it was the actor's monotone voice or something but I was left incredibly bored for that entire sequence. In the comic however I found it cool and one of the better parts so far. And I kinda wished the movie had talked more about the minutemen, I didn't even know most of their names from the movie.
__________________ I've got a Charisma of 23, max ranks and skill focus in Seduction, and I just rolled a 17. Are we doing it yet?
Hmmm, here's a thought, for all those who didn't like it or saw it as flawed: How would you have improved on it? What would you have done differently? Thoughts?
Let me repost my idea from page 36 of this thread for you:
"I don't think it can be adapted into ONE movie. What needed to be done was make more than one 90-minute film. Let me break down my weird-ass idea:
Watchmen: The Minutemen- Too much story here to squeeze it into a 10 minute montage. This would establish the importance having masks in a violent, crime-filled city. Once the masks are outlawed, we get a better understanding of what that means. It would also introduce us to Sally Jupiter and Comedian(without going too much in depth), for the big pay-off at the end.
Watchmen: Dr. Manhattan- That would be one of the first. Show the story of John/Dr. Manhattan ending with him winning the Vietnam War or something around that time. They could show the interaction between Comedian and Manhattan here without any Comedian introduction, so that people will go out and watch the next film.
Watchmen: The Comedian- Maybe his story could be told in the Minutemen movie, but because he does his own thing as well, may do better as a solo project. End this film with the beginning of Watchmen.
Watchmen- From here we take off into the material we all JUST saw. Except without the drawn out history of Manhattan, and the too-short snipets of Comedian's past. Also this way, this movie becomes more about current Watchmen, which could have been alluded to in previous films(Kovacs, Ozymandius, Dan and Laurie) without having the past interfere too much with the current story, since we've already seen it.
This is why I think it can't be made. This would take a giant leap of faith by a studio, and alot of money. Squeezing it all into one movie just doesn't quite cut it."
Quite an undertaking.
__________________ "I feel lethal, on the verge of frenzy."
It wasn't that bad. The only things I had a problem with was that I found Dr. Manhattan to be a boring character in the movie (possibly due to the acting) and there seems to be a lot of history left out. However I dunno how well the history portion of it would've panned out, for the minutemen anyway. We didn't exactly have a real in depth way to recreate it, and I think if they'd attempted to make a history of the minutemen it wouldn't have done well.
__________________ I've got a Charisma of 23, max ranks and skill focus in Seduction, and I just rolled a 17. Are we doing it yet?
The actor who portrayed Dr. Manhattan was perfect, I thought. I thought he gave the right about of emotion when needed, and was also perfect at acting incredibly calm, but also caring at the same time.
I liked V for Vendetta movie over all but I'm not a huge fan of the comic. That said I can certainly see why people who liked the comic would hate the film.
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Graffiti outside Latin class.
Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
A juvenal prank.
Yeah, the political beliefs behind the two are totally changed. The film was about an American kind of freedom, while the comic was a lot more Anarchy based.
I think, nowadays anything that's an anti-bush message seems overrated. V for Vendetta had potential, but they screwed it up! They screwed everything up! It was earth all along!!
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Mar 14th, 2009 05:19 PM
