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Watchmen, the movie and the comic
Mar. 16th, 2009 06:38 amI never read it. Comics are not an aspect of geek-life that I was ever really in to. I enjoy some of the movies (I was really impressed by Iron Man).
But I did not like The Watchmen.
Violence doesn't bother me a whole lot in movies, and despite what many people have said, I don't think the violence level was that high in Watchmen, though is was definitely higher than other "superhero" movies. The nudity, even that of the blue male variety, didn't bother me either.
The cinematography was good. The special effects were okay. Dr. M. often looked fake but then it's hard to make a glowing blue guy look real. Some of the short stories told within the movie were good. But overall, the plot and the storytelling were bad. Very bad.
I can see what it was trying to do; trying to say. But what it actually said was something quite different. Something that makes feel dirty and sick to my stomache. Something that makes me want to slap everyone that has said "bible of comics" over the few months.
Watchmen really wants to point out that power corrupts and that evil acts often have the best of intentions (and vice-versa). I'm not stupid. I can see it trying to say that.
But it fails. It's so busy being cool that all it can actually stutter out is how great it is to be a god. It's so hung up on its special effects, its disintegrate people in a gush of blood, its super-cool villian lair in Antarctica (pun intended), its one-man-against-an-entire-prison badassery, its crazy sex in the high-tech owlmobile that all it really gets out is that gods and "superheroes" are so cool that they don't have need of morality.
It wants to be a morality tale. It wants to say that the things that happen are wrong, but it can't do it. It can't actually come out and say anything bad about the things it shows the viewer. Even the brutal rape scene is painted as if it was all a good thing. It's like your best friend in Middle School who stands by and watches you get beaten up by the class bully because he doesn't want to be unpopular.
I bought the graphic novel a week ago. It never crossed my mind that I wouldn't want to read it after seeing the movie, but now I don't. Am I being unfair to it? Probably. But then I think about all of the fans of the comic out there who have seen the movie and raved about it and it doesn't seem so unfair anymore.
It would be unfair to judge the book by the movie, so instead I'll judge the book by the slavering praise and admiration its fans have given this morally bankrupt film. Maybe someday I'll read it but there are far more books waiting to be read that appear to have more potential to make me think or even just to entertain me.
But I did not like The Watchmen.
Violence doesn't bother me a whole lot in movies, and despite what many people have said, I don't think the violence level was that high in Watchmen, though is was definitely higher than other "superhero" movies. The nudity, even that of the blue male variety, didn't bother me either.
The cinematography was good. The special effects were okay. Dr. M. often looked fake but then it's hard to make a glowing blue guy look real. Some of the short stories told within the movie were good. But overall, the plot and the storytelling were bad. Very bad.
I can see what it was trying to do; trying to say. But what it actually said was something quite different. Something that makes feel dirty and sick to my stomache. Something that makes me want to slap everyone that has said "bible of comics" over the few months.
Watchmen really wants to point out that power corrupts and that evil acts often have the best of intentions (and vice-versa). I'm not stupid. I can see it trying to say that.
But it fails. It's so busy being cool that all it can actually stutter out is how great it is to be a god. It's so hung up on its special effects, its disintegrate people in a gush of blood, its super-cool villian lair in Antarctica (pun intended), its one-man-against-an-entire-prison badassery, its crazy sex in the high-tech owlmobile that all it really gets out is that gods and "superheroes" are so cool that they don't have need of morality.
It wants to be a morality tale. It wants to say that the things that happen are wrong, but it can't do it. It can't actually come out and say anything bad about the things it shows the viewer. Even the brutal rape scene is painted as if it was all a good thing. It's like your best friend in Middle School who stands by and watches you get beaten up by the class bully because he doesn't want to be unpopular.
I bought the graphic novel a week ago. It never crossed my mind that I wouldn't want to read it after seeing the movie, but now I don't. Am I being unfair to it? Probably. But then I think about all of the fans of the comic out there who have seen the movie and raved about it and it doesn't seem so unfair anymore.
It would be unfair to judge the book by the movie, so instead I'll judge the book by the slavering praise and admiration its fans have given this morally bankrupt film. Maybe someday I'll read it but there are far more books waiting to be read that appear to have more potential to make me think or even just to entertain me.
