Who watches the Watchmen?

[Darrol]

I guess I did because I went to the midnight showing last night and felt that I should see if anyone else has seen it or is planning to. Below are my thoughts on it for those that might want to read them.

Zack Snyder, the director behind 300, has once again taken a favorite in the comic book world and put it onto film with Watchmen. The film takes place in an alternative 1985 in which Nixon is still president and there is a large amount of tension between the United States and the Soviet Union placing the doomsday clock at 5 minutes to midnight from fear of a nuclear war. After being outlawed in 1977, a few superheroes remain active whether they are working for the government or outside the law itself. After discovering that one of this former colleagues has been murdered, former superhero turned vigilante Rorschach(Jackie Earle Haley) starts investigating the reason behind it. As he investigates the murder he uncovers a plot that is intent on killing and discrediting all past and present vigilantes. As he reconnects with members of his former crime-fighting legion, including Nite Owl II, Silk Spectre II and Dr. Manhattan, they uncover a wide-ranging and disturbing conspiracy that not only links to their shared past but has catastrophic consequences for the future.

I thought the movie was actually pretty good though it is obviously a love it or hate it movie. Those that I was with liked it but I have one friend who says it is the worst movie ever, worse than Plan 9 from Outer Space. With that being said, Watchmen looks like it jumped right out of the graphic novel at times with stunning visual effects. There were a few things that got changed in the process but the feel remained the same. Snyder has brought brought back the slow down and speed up style during fights that many loved about 300. The film also had a considerable amount of blood and gore that includes someone getting their knee bent the complete wrong way.

I have seen a number of people stating that the rating is off for the film. The reason behind that is because one of the characters, Dr. Manhattan(Billy Crudup), provides full frontal male nudity on many occasions along with the sex scene in the middle of the movie between Nite Owl II(Patrick Wilson) and Silk Spectre II(Malin Akerman).

When it comes down to it, I recommend it to anyone that wants to see a good action movie whether or not one has read the graphic novel. My only regret came with the fact that I was exahusted going into the movie which meant I was trying to stay awake during the first half. After finally losing the battle and missing no more than 10 minutes,  one of my friends nudged me and I was completely awake the rest of the movie.

[Barklessdog]

My only regret came with the fact that I was exhausted going into the movie which meant I was trying to stay awake during the first half. After finally losing the battle and missing no more than 10 minutes,  one of my friends nudged me and I was completely awake the rest of the movie.

You are such an old man now. Do you eat dinner at 4:30 now?

I saw it last night. I was a fan of the book when it came out (80's). I thought it was a great film, not the best ever or ground breaking, but really good. Rorschach & The Comedian were excellent and made the movie for us. The Owl ship was really cool. I recommend it if you liked the book. My son really liked it. I took my teen daughter & her friends to it (awkward). My daughter's one friend texted through the whole movie and "did not get it". Surprise!
They could have done without the sex scene. Dr Manhattan's Blue  "boy" was not that bad, no more than a statue. Not like it was flopping around everywhere!

The violence was not as over the top as I thought it might be. Certainly no worse than most movies these days, not like "The Audition".

[Barklessdog]

I also wanted to point out how hokey the sound track was in my opinion. Yeah they tried to set the time period mood, but to me, came off amateurish and almost comical in parts (not meant to be).

[Darrol]

You are such an old man now. Do you eat dinner at 4:30 now?

I still eat dinner between 9 and 10 but my sleep pattern is completely off with school starting back up after 2 months off.

My friend did point out that the sex scene was kind of long considering how it is 1 page in the actual book.

Edit: I just went online to watch what I missed and I was only missing 4 minutes max.

[rockinrayduke]

Saw it last night. Terrible.

[uwe]

Why terrible? I haven't seen it, but I might. How does it rate on a meter where X-Men Part I, Constantine and the Spiderman series are credible comic book adaptions and something like Aeon Flux is utter crap (making Catwoman Academy Award deserving in comparison)? Oh yeah, and I thought Sin City fascinating and "300" okayish but laboredly overlong.

[Barklessdog]

Saw it last night. Terrible.

Did you read the graphic novel ?

You probably did not care for Sin City either? I will never think of Elijah Wood in the same way after that.

Most people (non comic book fans) do not realize when Watchman came out it was unlike any other superhero comic, in that the characters were "dirty", just as evil as they were heroes.  It shook the comic world and made Alan Moore's career. It was marketed to adults not kids, much like Frank Millers "The Dark Knight" & his run on Daredevil.
From Wiki -

Moore used the story as a means to reflect contemporary anxieties and to deconstruct the superhero concept. Creatively, the focus of Watchmen is on its structure. Gibbons used a nine-panel grid layout throughout the series and added recurring symbols such as a blood-stained smiley face. All but the last issue feature supplemental fictional documents that add to the series' backstory, and the narrative is intertwined with that of another story, a fictional pirate comic titled Tales of the Black Freighter, which one of the characters reads. Watchmen has received critical acclaim both in the comics and mainstream press, and is regarded by critics as a seminal text of the comic book medium.

On the other hand it was the mark of death for comics for "real" kids.

As with anything either you like it or you do not. You can't convince someone, nor am I trying.

[Barklessdog]

How does it rate on a meter where X-Men Part I, Constantine and the Spiderman series are credible comic book adaptions

This Sin City with capes

[Darrol]

Well it doesn't look so good for Watchmen this weekend.

As Watchmen (Warner Bros) falls, "The Rock" appears to be racing to a weekend win. Disney's Race To Witch Mountain, starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, is off to a solid start with $7.2M or so on opening day, and, with its expected surge in family matinee audiences on Saturday and Sunday, it will likely triumph with a possible $25M.

Meanwhile last weekend's winner Watchmen staggered to a second Friday of only $5.2M or so, and I am projecting only $15.75M for the 3-day. That marks a 71% drop. Anything over $20M would have been acceptable, but the bottom has fallen out of this movie, and it will now struggle to reach $100M domestic. When the foreign and DVD are added, it may make a small profit, but it will likely be negligible. The superstitious might suggest that Watchmen writer Alan Moore's alleged curse may be to blame, but the reality is that word-of-mouth has been more negative than for any movie in recent memory.

Source

[Andrew]

I wouldn't expect a movie that's rated R to be able to compete against bigger, more mildly rated movies. There's no child audience for Watchmen, so that's a big chunk of the market it cannot reach.

Watchmen certainly is a movie with a polarized response, no doubt. But the success a movie, based on a cult comic with no recognizable super heroes in it and no mega star actors in the cast, has had is already huge. It seems like there's too many critics and media people wanting a movie with an overt lefty political message to fail. No one seems to see how much this movie has succeeded despite having so much against it to be accepted by popular culture.

Another way that Watchmen has succeeded that other comic movies havn't is sales of the comic has gone up immensely from the profile the movie has given it. DC (who is owned by Warner, the company that made Watchmen) has sold over 1,000,000 copies of the trade paperback.

I love the Watchmen comic, and enjoyed the movie, despite a few aspects of it I thought were off. I never expected this movie to get made or find success, but I think it's important it does get success because this movie will open the door for other more daring comic adaptations to get made.