I haven’t updated this blog for a long time. Probably because I just haven’t been inspired/motivated to sit down and start typing.
That was until yesterday.
“Watchmen” has finally made it to the big screen!
The Watchmen
“Who cares?” you mutter under your breath. Well, I don’t blame you. Like most non-comic geeks, I had to Google it to find out what it was about.
I’ll make it short: Remember ‘V for Vendetta’ with the Matrix’s Agent Smith donning a white Guy Fawkes mask speaking in Iambic pentameter before knifing you?
No?
How about that movie where Natalie Portman dresses up as Jailbait to entrap a Bishop?
Evie just realized that she forgot to pay the TV license
Bet you remember NOW. (Best Friend Damian helpfully pointed out that if you freeze the DVD EXACTLY at the part where V jumps through the window and she dives onto the bed, her skirt flips up and you can see her g-stringed butt)…(going off to check if there are any SCRATCHES on your copy of “V” now are we? Its ok, I’ll be here when you get back.)
See? Told you he was telling the truth.
Oh, and it was Directed by the same dude who did “300″.
Back to business. Mr Alan “3-way” Moore is the author of “V for Vendetta” and also of “Watchmen”. That’s the point of reference for those of us who’ve had sex before. With other people. Live people. Who were conscious at the time. And consented. Without payment of any sort.
Alan Moore quoted as saying: “I’m not the fucking guy from Harry Potter!”
Anyhoo, its a great movie. Someone I knew kindly passed their copy of “Watchmen” on to me to read a few months before the movie was released. I must admit that while I think I’d probably end up hitting Alan Moore if I were forced to share a bank queue with the man (on the basis that he’s rather whiny), I do admire his work very much.
He writes for an intelligent audience. And I’m not just saying that because I liked it. He genuinely doesn’t treat you like a moron. He writes to tell a story, not to please an audience. Most of his work tends to float around some well grounded premise or patterns of thought. The theme of “Watchmen” revolves around being true to yourself, and what would you do to uphold those principles that you define yourself by.
I’m not going to comment further on the story save to say that you’ll REALLY enjoy the movie even if you’ve never, ever read the graphic novels. Its filmed almost panel for panel and is probably one of the most faithful on screen reproductions of any story in print available today.
At over 2 hours long, you’re definitely getting your money’s worth. Its also a difficult job to try and condense such a long and sweeping story into a single 2 hour movie and still have it retain its original coherence, its pacing and its ‘feel’. Kudos to the Director, Zack Snyder for achieving just that.
Some critics may feel that he was too faithful, in that he constrained his characters and hindering any new interpretations of their personalities. But then lets be honest, people love “Watchmen” because it is what it is. What you see on screen is the essence of what is in the graphic novel.
Spiderman 3 sucked ass because it wasn’t the Spiderman people expected. Why r-interpret a story that was so successful in an almost completely different way?
Would YOU go to see the Killers if they decided to re-interpret all their hits into Polka versions?
So: Bottom line. Go see the movie. Its smart, funny, hard hitting, well filmed and contains some spectacular acting. But above all it will do for you what very few movies are capable of doing nowadays. It’ll make you want to discuss it for hours afterwards.
Hell, it’ll maybe even make you want to start writing on your blog again.
The Author back at work
