Watchmen (Zack Snyder, 2009)
As most of you already know, I’m quite a huge fan of the graphic novel; I’m actually a little sad that the only reason I ever read the graphic novel was because of seeing the teaser before The Dark Knight. Watchmen’s story is the best story I’ve ever read, and I knew that the film wasn’t going to come close, but I was more off than I thought. It seemed like Snyder was trying to pack too much into just a two and a half hour movie. A lot of the scenes seemed really rushed; there were actually only a few scenes that didn’t feel rushed. The beginning fight scene with The Comedian was one of these scenes that weren’t rushed. I wish that they would’ve made that scene longer actually; it was by far my favorite scene of the movie.
Sadly after the beginning scene with the Comedian and after the opening credits, the movie slowly starts going downhill some. The opening credits sequence for this has to be one of the most well done sequences I’ve ever seen; this actually gives the Dawn of the Dead (2004) opening sequence a fun for it’s money on my favorite opening credits sequence. I didn’t really mind the slow motion in it at all; actually, I didn’t really mind the slow motion barely at all throughout the whole movie. Like I was starting to say earlier in the review, many of the scenes were really rushed. I mean some scenes barely even lasted a minute. Like the scene where Rorschach goes to meet with Manhattan and Laurie for example, almost every line from that scene from the graphic novel was taking out and rushed into one little mini-speech from Manhattan. I also hated Rorschach’s back-story; they messed one of the best parts of the graphic novel up so much. I don’t know why they even wanted to put Dr. Malcolm Long in the movie at all, for his whole minutes of screen time he had. I did love the scene with him and Rorschach during the prison riot though; that was probably one of the very few improvements of the graphic novel.
A few others of these improvements would be the beginning fight scene with the Comedian. I just can’t express how much I really love this scene; easily one of the best fight scenes I’ve ever seen in a movie. The only bad apart about it was Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s lines at the very end of the fight were way too rushed; besides that, it was near perfect. I loved the style that Watchmen had to it, which is probably the best thing that Snyder has to offer any film. I mean the best apart about most of Snyder’s movies seem to be the style that they all have, except Dawn Of The Dead, but that just has so many other amazing things to it. There were some parts that were unnecessarily gory though; that was a bad move on Snyder’s part though. I hated that the Comedian’s “Justice is coming to all of us” wasn’t included in the movie; it was like the best line from the Comedian, and then they didn’t even include it. Many of the music choices that seemed a little odd to me at first though really worked well in the movie. My Chemical Romance’s version of Desolation Row for example, it fit perfect right after Rorschach’s ending lines to the movie.
Jackie Earl Haley and Jeffrey Dean Morgan are tied for my favorite performances in the movie, which may be a little biased seeing as Rorschach and the Comedian are my two favorite characters. Jeffrey Dean Morgan was absolutely perfect as the Comedian; not only is he has a striking resemblance to the Comedian, he played the perfect just as I imagined while reading the graphic novel. Jackie Earl Haley perfectly caught Rorschach; he fully engrossed him. He got so emotional there towards the end of the movie (if you’ve read the graphic novel or already seen the movie, you’ll know what I’m talking about). They totally messed up Veidt though; I mean he had barely any screen time in the movie at all. Most of his time in the book was while he was at Karnak; sadly though, the entire Karnak scene was only about 10, maybe 15 minutes long, so you barely even saw Matthew Goode in the movie. The scenes you did see him in though were pretty good for the most part; Goode made him see a lot more ignorant though. The only actor I didn’t really like out of the bunch was, surprisingly enough, Billy Curdup. I don’t completely blame Curdup though; I mean Dr. Manhattan is a mega hard character to capture, he still a pretty good job seeing as how hard a character it was. Malin Akerman was alright, but no better than anyone expected. Patrick Wilson was good as well, but he didn’t really seem to stand out to me at all.
Despite me not sounding completely enthusiastic during this review, I still did quite enjoy it. After waiting many months to see it, I guess you could say I was quite underwhelmed. I do feel a little bad about everyone that has had to wait twenty to years to see this though; I just hope they can at least like it more than I did. I know Zack Snyder is a huge fan of the graphic novel and I like his attempt to make it movie, but I can honestly see why it’s called the un-filmable graphic novel now. I’m sure I’ll like the ultimate cut more once it gets released on DVD. I’m sure many more fans will appreciate that version as well. Dawn of the Dead (2004) still remains my favorite Zack Snyder movie, like I’m pretty sure it will. I still want to see it at least one more time before it leaves theaters though, so I can see how well it holds up with re-watches. I don’t think I’ll have truly seen Watchmen until a couple of months down the road though; once the ultimate cut finally gets released for everyone to see.
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