kierthos: (Default)
kierthos ([personal profile] kierthos) wrote2009-03-08 09:05 am

And now, criticisms of Watchmen (the movie)

Some of this stuff is slightly spoilerish, even though the comic's been out for twenty five years, but hey....

Don't get me wrong, overall the movie was very good. I could have done without Dr. Manhattan's block and tackle swinging in the breeze, because it's one thing for that to be in the comic and another entirely for ubiquitous glowing blue cock on the large screen. In fact, the movie was better then I expected.

You see, I've seen "V for Vendetta" and "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen", and I also have read the comics that those movies were based on (although for LXG, only tangentially). So, there was a part of me that was expecting a two and a half-hour shitfest. I am pleased to say that this was not the case.

But I do have some things to pick on.

1) Why do all the 'normal' characters seem to have some level of superhuman strength? Okay, maybe it's just for the cinematography, but when Ozymandius, Nite Owl and Silk Spectre are fairly casually hurling people around the room, or causing compound fractures or whatever.... it seems a bit much. Rorschach wasn't doing this so much, though, but he still seemed to have some superhuman levels of agility. (Of course, I fully expect someone like [livejournal.com profile] inunitywefall to explain to me that it's actually amazingly easy to shatter bones.

2) Dan Dreiberg's costume seemed to have concealed corsetry. This isn't so much a complaint as an observation.

3) A couple scenes from the comic were cut that I feel really should have been in there. One visit to Moloch was lost entirely, and Hollis Mason's death is not even in the movie. In fact, he only has the one scene. A shame, really.

4) Ubiquitous glowing blue cock. I'm sorry. This really did not need to be there. Put some pants on. (Also, I have to wonder who drew the... ahem... short straw... to have to do mo-cap on that.)

5) All of those can be relatively forgiven though... the one "Oh what the fuck" moment for me was actually a throw-away line. As Nite Owl and Rorschach are approaching Ozymandius' Antarctic hideaway, Karnak, Nite Owl mentions that Karnak is producing immense amounts of heat. Kind of funny that it's not sliding off of the ice shelf that it's on....

But really, if that's all that I have to complain about in a movie, that's actually not bad. Although I might want to watch it again to see if I heard a line correctly... in the scene where Dan Dreiburg and Laurie Juspeczyk are eating in the restaurant, I swear I heard one of the background actresses say that she was glad she ordered the four-legged chicken.

[identity profile] copper-fingers.livejournal.com 2009-03-08 03:22 pm (UTC)(link)
1) I thought them being 'superheroes' meant they were gifted with general awesomeness and superpowers? I haven't read the novel so I'm not sure if it gets explained better there. But Osymandius being both the smartest man in the world AND have superstrength/speed/whatevs was a bit much.

2) INORITE! He had a cute little pudge in his civvies but then in the suit he looked all buff and tough. So sexy in an 80s middle management/nerd way. My new fangirl crush, I think!

4) I was also wondering about the CGI guys going 'I studied for xxx many years at xxxx prestigious college and now look at me...animating a blue comic book PENIS'

I HEARD THE 4 LEGGED CHICKEN THING TOOOOOOOO!

Reminded me of the stupid radio stations in GTA that have generic american accented people talking about stupid stuff like that...

to #1

[identity profile] hartley.livejournal.com 2009-03-10 04:08 pm (UTC)(link)
In the comic, it is explicitly detailed that nobody except Dr. Manhattan actually has any powers at all.

Just whatever degree of training, etc., they went through, making some of them better than others.

In other words, they're all Batman.