thoughts on the Watchmen movie

[johncomic]

I liked it. A lot. I thought they did a very few, small things not quite right, most of it they nailed, some of it they improved over the book.

The casting was amazing. There was obviously a lot of care put into casting the right physical person, so that they were recognizably the same person that was drawn in the book. Most impressively: Patrick Wilson as Dan [Nite Owl II]. Not only did he look like the book's Dan, he also conveyed all of Dan's geekiness and somehow managed to make Dan cooler than in the book without downplaying any of the geekiness. I still shake my head at how he managed to pull that off.

Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach: Hunter left the theatre gaping at Rorschach's badassery, which is exactly what you are supposed to do with Rorschach. Haley looked right, acted right, nailed it.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan as The Comedian: again, nailed it. Morgan has said he wanted to play it so that you wouldn't hate The Comedian like you ought to, and yet not like him, and I think he achieved that.

Carla Gugino as Sally: worked for me. I always enjoy her work and I think she's majorly hot, so I was pretty sure she could pull this off.

Billy Crudup as Dr. Manhattan: did fine. The decision to play him like HAL from 2001 was an interesting one, and I think it revealed an aspect of the character that I overlooked in the book.

Matthew Goode as Ozymandias: at first, I went no when I saw him. Ozymandias is much more an Adonis than the willowy Goode, and Goode himself has said he didn't think he was the right physical type for the part. But director Snyder stressed that he was aiming to convey more of the idealized beauty of the character, and if you look at Adrian as a sort of Tolkien elf as opposed to a Greek statue, then Goode works. I'll admit, if any Watchman can afford to be willowy, it's Adrian, I can accept this.

Malin Akerman as Laurie: with the help of a wig, she pulls it off okay, but I realize it doesn't take much. Hunter said he didn't like Laurie. He didn't dislike her, just that there wasn't much there to like, not much of a character to get a handle on, to get a sense of who they are. And strangely enough, it wasn't till he said that, that I realized that she was simply reflecting the character in the book. Laurie in the book also doesn't give you very much of a sense of who she is (I can't tell you much about her other than she's fairly quick to get into bed). Even Hollis Mason is a stronger, more clearly defined and more appealing character than Laurie. So I don't fault Akerman for this.

MAJOR SPOILER: the changed ending:
I thought this was brilliant. Framing Manhattan for the destruction instead of creating a fake alien was A) much more believable (like changing Spidey's webshooters into an organic mutation), B) simpler and more elegant (ditto Spidey) and C) it cuts to the heart of one of Moore's main reasons for writing the book. He wanted to show how the existence of just one sufficiently powerful being would be enough to warp the fabric of human civilization. In the book, Manhattan had already solved the energy crisis and saved America from dependence on foreign fuel (why they undid this for the movie, I dunno but I think it was a mistake). With that and his winning Vietnam, Manhattan gave America an overconfidence that left all other nations nervous and created the unstable nuclear situation by the time of the story. To a large extent, Manhattan was the problem [in the book]. Adrian coming up with a solution that not only united the nations, but made them no longer willing to work with Manhattan, solved the problem on multiple levels in a way the fake alien never could. The Biggest improvement the movie made over the book.

Niggle: I thought some things weren't explained clearly enough. Why show the newsstand guys huddling together during the blast if we don't even know who they are? Knowing them over the course of the series is what gave that final huddle its poignancy. Why show Manhattan carving his symbol into his head if you don't know why he needs one? How are we supposed to make sense of Sally ever letting The Comedian near her again to conceive Laurie? At least, how about a bit more background on Adrian to explain how he's able to catch bullets? It's like these things presume that you've already read the book in order to give them meaning and sense. Either clarify or omit, sez I.

Another weird observation: I came out of the theatre much more wired up and blown away after seeing Iron Man than I did with Watchmen. Not sure why... except maybe that I didn't have high expectations for Iron Man and it far exceeded them, whereas I expected a lot from Watchmen and it met them. Plus, none of the Watchmen, either in the book or as portrayed on the screen, are as compelling and engaging as Robert Downey's Tony Stark.

Although Rorschach may come close...