Watchmen Review
Mar. 8th, 2009 03:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drydemSo, caught Watchmen opening night(not midnight, but 8:30, what can I say, I've been sick). I've seen a number of responses to it, some positive, some negative, some selectively positive/negative. So I thought I'd toss in some thoughts of my own.
So, I liked it. It's been a few years since I read it originally, there are definitely parts I forgot and parts that I remembered. There were some changes that I felt were good, some I thought were bad, some I thought were potentially questionable.
The Good: I thought the visualization was on the whole very good. Plenty of Manhattan Wang(which is good because I was worried they were gonna shy away from the nudity Austin Powers style and I feel that the presence of the Wang is more immersive in relating to other characters comfort levels around Jon). I think much of the character design helped, especially Nite Owl, which I felt kept him from looking distractingly nebbishy. I think Snyder's iconic style(everything being very polished and symbolic) really helped drive home that this isn't a story about rubbing dirt on superheroes(see Miller's Dark Knight Returns) but a meditation on the difficulties of iconicity/absolutism and power.
The Bad: There was definitely a lot of cutting and changing. I was sad to lose the everyday elements of the city, as it puts a human face on tragedy. Line changes like "your hands, my perspective" to "your hands, my pleasure" were bad, but not something I noticed in the watching. I feel like Matthew Goode was too young for Ozymandias. Also, I feel like everyone was too super. The original version had only the one superpower in the world, but everyone in this felt way too powerful. But overall, I feel like Snyder took out a lot of the unfilmable aspects and did what he could with the material.
The Questionable: The altered ending is something on both lists for me based on the complication of Ozymandias' character. In the original ending, Ozy plays the numbers game, sacrificing 15 millions faceless people. In the new one, he also sacrifices Manhattan as an inherent part of the plan, not as an obstacle. It makes him not just a villain, but a dick, which I think removes some of his good intention. There was also a minor character design question which left the unmasked Rorschach looking like Chris Owen from American Pie, which was slightly distracting.
The Disputed: Many people have criticized the empty acting of Malin Ackerman. I think that's the key to Silk Spectre II. This is a woman who defines herself purely through her desirability to the powerful, whether it's to Dr. Manhattan or to Nite Owl or to the people who are distracted by her costume. I think of her portrayal(and that of her mother) as Moore's critique of defining identity through external desire and the way in which it is just another form of trying to exercise power over others.
The overall thought: Overall, I feel that Snyder shifted things in order to try and prevent the details from getting in the way of the themes. My personal reading of Watchmen was always as a treatise on the ultimate fallibility of humans exercising power, based on the flawed nature of human perspective and intention. Ultimately, putting your trust in larger than life symbols is a flawed way of approaching life because those symbols are ultimately defined by human weaknesses. And I think that Snyder captures that. Is it perfect? No. Has any film ever been? No. I give it a solid B+ for some excellent performances and a good capturing of the spirit of the original.
A sidetrip to adaptation in general: The thing that amuses me the most is that 90 percent of the criticisms I've seen(other than complaints about Ackerman and Goode) are either Snyder changed too much, or Snyder was too faithful. Adaptation from prior material is going to necessarily include both faithful aspects and deviations. I think that Snyder walked the line pretty well here, with a few pointless but overall minor exceptions.
So, I liked it. It's been a few years since I read it originally, there are definitely parts I forgot and parts that I remembered. There were some changes that I felt were good, some I thought were bad, some I thought were potentially questionable.
The Good: I thought the visualization was on the whole very good. Plenty of Manhattan Wang(which is good because I was worried they were gonna shy away from the nudity Austin Powers style and I feel that the presence of the Wang is more immersive in relating to other characters comfort levels around Jon). I think much of the character design helped, especially Nite Owl, which I felt kept him from looking distractingly nebbishy. I think Snyder's iconic style(everything being very polished and symbolic) really helped drive home that this isn't a story about rubbing dirt on superheroes(see Miller's Dark Knight Returns) but a meditation on the difficulties of iconicity/absolutism and power.
The Bad: There was definitely a lot of cutting and changing. I was sad to lose the everyday elements of the city, as it puts a human face on tragedy. Line changes like "your hands, my perspective" to "your hands, my pleasure" were bad, but not something I noticed in the watching. I feel like Matthew Goode was too young for Ozymandias. Also, I feel like everyone was too super. The original version had only the one superpower in the world, but everyone in this felt way too powerful. But overall, I feel like Snyder took out a lot of the unfilmable aspects and did what he could with the material.
The Questionable: The altered ending is something on both lists for me based on the complication of Ozymandias' character. In the original ending, Ozy plays the numbers game, sacrificing 15 millions faceless people. In the new one, he also sacrifices Manhattan as an inherent part of the plan, not as an obstacle. It makes him not just a villain, but a dick, which I think removes some of his good intention. There was also a minor character design question which left the unmasked Rorschach looking like Chris Owen from American Pie, which was slightly distracting.
The Disputed: Many people have criticized the empty acting of Malin Ackerman. I think that's the key to Silk Spectre II. This is a woman who defines herself purely through her desirability to the powerful, whether it's to Dr. Manhattan or to Nite Owl or to the people who are distracted by her costume. I think of her portrayal(and that of her mother) as Moore's critique of defining identity through external desire and the way in which it is just another form of trying to exercise power over others.
The overall thought: Overall, I feel that Snyder shifted things in order to try and prevent the details from getting in the way of the themes. My personal reading of Watchmen was always as a treatise on the ultimate fallibility of humans exercising power, based on the flawed nature of human perspective and intention. Ultimately, putting your trust in larger than life symbols is a flawed way of approaching life because those symbols are ultimately defined by human weaknesses. And I think that Snyder captures that. Is it perfect? No. Has any film ever been? No. I give it a solid B+ for some excellent performances and a good capturing of the spirit of the original.
A sidetrip to adaptation in general: The thing that amuses me the most is that 90 percent of the criticisms I've seen(other than complaints about Ackerman and Goode) are either Snyder changed too much, or Snyder was too faithful. Adaptation from prior material is going to necessarily include both faithful aspects and deviations. I think that Snyder walked the line pretty well here, with a few pointless but overall minor exceptions.
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no subject
Date: 2009-03-08 10:53 pm (UTC)Lacking your familiarity with Chris Owens, I had no distractions re: Rorschach, and I thought the actor did a fantastic job.
I think of her portrayal(and that of her mother) as Moore's critique of defining identity through external desire and the way in which it is just another form of trying to exercise power over others.
I wish I could read the Silk Spectre thing that way, but I'm afraid I'm in Kevin's camp -- I think Moore just dropped the ball when it came to the female characters, and any thematic relevance we might find in it is a silver lining to what is otherwise a flaw.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-09 12:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-10 01:16 am (UTC)And yes, it's only characteristic of the genre, especially at the time -- but that doesn't make me any happier with it.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-09 12:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-09 02:05 pm (UTC)I only had a few issues with it, and I felt they were minor. A lot of my issues had to do with visual things really.
The casting for Silk Spectre II bothered me a bit mostly just because I thought her jaw was too square, and therefore didn't look enough like the character as drawn.
I also thought that Nite Owl should have been a little pudgier. I liked the visual difference in the comic between Nite Owl in flashbacks, and present day Nite Owl. I thought he looked noticeably pudgier but not overly so. In the comic he definitely looked like someone who at one time was in really good shape, but isn't as much anymore. I didn't think the difference was quite as apparent in the movie. I think visually another five or ten pounds on present day Nite Owl would have been perfect.
I thought the casting for Rorschach was great, visually. I didn't notice how short he was until after he was captured and unmasked, then for the rest of the movie I noticed how he was noticeably shorter than everyone else. I wonder if that was intentional.
I was also glad there was plenty of Manhattan wang. The character just wouldn't feel right without his complete lack of physical modesty.
I know it seems kind of dumb to be picky about visual things but that's one of my greatest concerns in adaptations of comics because there already exists a visual reference for the characters, I want it to be accurate.
Story-wise, there are things I'm sad were cut but I understand why everything was cut, and probably would have made the same decisions myself. It's just hard to adapt a comic as long as watchmen without cutting a lot of good stuff.
I don't think the characters appeared too super. Granted there were several things that the non-Manhattan characters did which were obviously wire-work, but I don't think they were so over the top that it couldn't be explain away by saying that these are people who are in exceptional shape (with the exception of Present day Nite Owl), especially Rorschach, who seemed to have the most wire-worky moves. It makes sense he'd still be in exceptional physical shape since he never retired. That's something I thought got across in both the movie and the comic (or maybe it was just my assumption) that since these people had been successful crime fighters for years, they were pretty much in better shape than almost anyone. On that thought, I do wish they would have gotten across that Ozymandias is not only the smartest man on the planet but also pretty much in the best physical shape that a human can possibly be in, even more-so than the rest of the characters. I don't think that was established well enough in the movie before the showdown with him where he quite handily beats Nite Owl and Rorschach.
Regarding the changes to the ending, I agree that Ozymandias sacrificing Manhattan does just kind of make him a dick, more-so that his original plot in the comic. However, ultimately I think the giant exploding psychic space squid, just wouldn't not have played very well in a movie. There are certain things that you can only pull off in a comic book, and killing several million people by teleporting a giant exploding psychic space squid is one of those things.
Like I said though, over all I think it's the best possible adaptation that could have been hoped for.
Tony
no subject
Date: 2009-03-10 01:15 am (UTC)It was and it wasn't; you saw his physical perfection in the fight against the Comedian, at the very beginning, but of course the newcomer audience has no idea that's Ozymandias until much later in the film.
I did like how they didn't give you any clear look at his face in that fight, yet still avoided being obviously coy about it. It's really easy to trip over that line into "HEY I WONDER WHICH IMPORTANT CHARACTER THIS GUY IS HUH HUH HUH???"