So we watched Watchmen this weekend and we hated it (open spoilers)

Cafe Society
1

Well, Ok, not hated it, or we wouldn’t have finished it, but we were pretty bored and unimpressed. I had heard some great things about this film, how it was a “real” superhero film and how I would love it, but I spent most of the movie being bored out of my skull.

First of all, we spent 1.5 hours on flashbacks, in one way or another, most of them focused on one deeply flawed and slightly insane individual, the Comedian. An attempted rapist. So from the start I was never too committed to caring about his murder. Way I see it, he pretty much deserved what he got.

We spend a lot of time dissecting every little thing that happened in the past, without ever getting to the modern times, except for a few scenes with Roscharch.

We spend some time with Dr. Manhattan, where they throw out things about him without ever telling us much about him - he caused cancer in his friends, something weird happened to him, blah blah blah. Maybe a good bit of storytelling if they hadn’t taken so fucking long about it.

Then the two main characters are also fairly bland and uninteresting - the Batman character and the girl wearing no mask and a fairly slutty superhero costume.

By the time something actually happened we were pretty darn bored. I am actually having trouble remembering details about the movie, because I was so bored. The whole thing is solved because Dr. Manhattan is so impressed that the woman who was almost raped by the Comedian sleeps with him and gets pregnant and keeps the child. This somehow tells him humanity doesn’t deserve to be destroyed. ??? Ok…anyway. It’s saved by a literal deux ex machina.

Who then disappears.

The only thing that kept us watching was Roscharch, and the man who played it. He really made the movie, and was the only redeeming factor, and I loved him when he got in the prison. “0 for 2. Who’s next?”

Oh, and one other thing - I did think it was a neat take on the normal supervillain thing that the villain had already launched the nukes when the good guys got there.

All in all, I think they must have followed the comic book too closely and failed to appeal to non-comicbook fans.

2

As a fan of the original, I was let down by the film adaptation. But I had little faith that a film version could capture the complexity and life of Moore and Gibbons’ work anyway, so this wasn’t a surprise. It was wooden, lifeless. I respect what was attempted but think a good adaptation is not possible.

3

Actually, they deviated from the comics in many significant ways. Whole sections were left behind, the time frames were moved around, and the storytelling method was quite different from the books. Many of those changes were necessary to turn out a relatively mainstream narrative for the movie, which couldn’t have been done with the source material.

It’s not your standard superhero story, that’s for sure.

4

I didn’t like the movie very much either - I think wooden and lifeless is a good description. I agree that Jackie Earle Haley was very good as Rorschach. The comic, however, is fantastic, and I recommend it strongly.

5

Tend to agree that the film was sort of accurate, but somehow lacked any soul. But I think its weird to dislike the film because the characters were a bit messed up. Isn’t that sort of the point?

6

The premise was somewhat interesting but I agree that nothing about the film left me feeling invested in it or caring what happened next.

Agreed that Roscharch was the best part but even that was basic “This guy is bad ass” stuff mixed into an otherwise lifeless flick.

7

I’m not too snooty to read comic books or anything like that, but I’ve tried reading both those and graphic novels, and manga, and the format just doesn’t appeal to me. Even if it’s a lot of text, it basically amounts to a whole bunch of large pictures with text superimposed over it. Someone sent me the pdf version of Watchmen, so I may eventually read it one day, but then again I may not.

I didn’t mean to type “bored” so many times in the OP, so I am sorry for being repetitive.

8

Messed up characters can be extremely interesting, no doubt. No one would say Tony Stark is normal; he’s a severe megalomaniac and dysfunctional on several levels. Batman? Even Albert thinks he’s a bit of a lonely freak, and Albert loves him. Both fascinating and deep characters.

Watchmen? Maybe they should have focused on one or two characters. I mean, Rosccharch was pretty messed up, but interesting. The others? One or two points of characterization does not generate interest.

Lastly, have you heard of Moral Event Horizon? It’s when a character does something beyond the pale so the audience can no longer forgive him or like him. If the Comedian had just been a mega-jerk it would have been different. As soon as they showed the beating and the almost rape (which was only prevented by the other superheroes, not by anything he did), they lost me on him. I have a very hard time sympathizing or empathizing at all with attempted or factual rapists. I can’t read those Thomas Covenant books, either, for the same reason.

9

You’re not supposed to sympathize with The Comedian.

The large cast in Watchmen is sort of the point. In a sense the authors were addressing every type of superhero and exploring the implicatinos of their existence and looking for their character flaws. You can’t do that in a comprehensive way with just one or two characters.

10

I REALLY don’t think you are supposed to sympathize or empathize with the Comedian. He is a horrible person. He commits various atrocities in Vietnam too (can’t remember if they all made it to the film or not)

You are completely right though that there were too many characters and not enough time was spent with them. Its a fairly long book, and the characters are fleshed out a lot more.

11

I find that Zach Snyder movies all tend to be unable to reach emotionally the audience. 300 is okay, because it’s all testosterone-laden action, but every other movie of his is populated by cardboard cutout characters. The worst example is the whole emotional vacuum that was Sucker Punch.

It’s no coincidence that the only one that is drawing praise from the people in this thread is the Rorschach character, a sociopath.

If you compare Watchmen to, say, Dark Knight, you’ll see what I mean. Similar sort of movie, but one is helmed by somebody with a soul.

12

I guess I didn’t so mcuh mean sympathize or empathize. Why should I care even a little about the Comedian’s murder? Matter of fact, why should I care about the murder of any of these jerks? They never gave me a reason, and “because they’re people” is not enough reason to care.

13

In the comic, right before the change-of-heart talk, Doc and Laurie explicitly discuss whether him showing up constitutes a “deus ex machina” – concluding that, yes, it does.

14

I’m not sure that reflects on Snyder. Rorschach is arguably the most interesting character in the book - I’d say it’s Rorschach and Dr. Manhattan, but Rorschach is more immediate - and Haley also gave a really good performance.

15

You realize that at a later point he murders an innocent woman carrying his child? That he’s shown during the title credits assassinating JFK? I would say that the attempted rape is pretty much about the least of his flaws.

16

You aren’t. At all. He’s a bad guy killed by another bad guy. There’s nothing in the movie that asks you to emotionally care about that plot element.

The only interesting part is that the secret he founds is so horrifying that even a monster like him is astounded.

17

Hmm. Anything with the assassination of JFK these days I just totally roll my eyes at. I kind of feel like it’s almost an in-joke in the industry, “HAW HAW he killed JFK” and never take it seriously. Truth be told I am sick unto death of everyone bringing up their own theories, whether for real or for fun or to sell tickets, and whoring out poor JFK. So I guess I didn’t think much of that and certainly didn’t count it amongst his “evils”. The biggest evil there was attributing the death to yet another person. :rolleyes:

I honestly have no memory of the murder of the woman and the unborn baby…hang on…
Wiki doesn’t even mention that scene. I was hoping for a mention so it would jog my memory, but honestly, it’s all a blur.

18

You don’t really need to, at least beyond the fact that it interests you enough to get you reading. The Comedian’s murder is basically a MacGuffin. It happens so the story can get started, and the story itself is mainly a vehicle for Moore to explore his ideas - what the existence of a superhero like Dr. Manhattan would have done to the world, how the world would have reacted to real superheroes, what would have driven a “real” person to become one, things like that. Someone (maybe the authors) said that Watchmen is really a comic book about comic books. The movie reproduced the plot but I don’t think it was able to deal with those ideas to the same extent.

19

In Vietnam he kills a native pregnant woman in front of Dr. Manhattan. I swear that was in the movie as well as in the comic.

Maybe it was the extended DVD edition, tho.

20

I’m pretty sure it was in the movie.