Watchmen Movie Review: Hating The Watchmen
If you caught the beginning of my belated Watchmen movie review, yesterday, I outlined what I loved about the Watchmen film adaptation. Today, I will detail what I hated about it. Hang on to your hats…
Malin Akerman’s Acting - Wow, just wow. It’s a good thing she looked hot in that latex costume, because that’s the only positive thing I’m taking from her performance. Her “You’re such an asshole!” line prior to shooting at Veidt should go in the Overacting Hall of Fame. And what about the crying scene on Mars? Dr. Manhattan tells us FIVE MINUTES PRIOR that Laurie is going to be crying. We get to the finish of the scene and guess what? NO TEARS! She does a horrific sniffling job, but that’s it. The worst part about the scene? They shoot it from underneath! So we’re looking at Laurie from the ground up, WHERE WE’RE SUPPOSED TO SEE HER CRYING. Next time, yell CUT! and bring in the intern with a freaking saline bottle. Sheesh.
Watchmen Movie Review: Loving The Watchmen
While one of my fellow Comicbook.com writers weighed in with his Watchmen movie review on opening weekend, I was one of those rare souls who didn’t rush to see the movie immediately. Ok, I had a travel conflict, but I finally got the chance to see the Watchmen movie over its second weekend of release. My reaction: when it was good, it was REALLY good. When it was bad, boy did it stink. I’ll break my thoughts into two columns. Today, the good:
Jeffrey Dean Morgan/The Comedian - Time will tell on his performance, but if I had to rate it today, I’d say that Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Comedian performance is one for the ages. Right now, it’s in the top five of all time comic book role adaptations. Some of you may think I’m crazy, but I’d put it right up there with Heath Ledger. Why? Because, like Ledger, Morgan got into the heart and mind of the character. Hell, as I was watching it, I could have sworn that Morgan must have channeled Alan Moore, because that character was the EXACT one from the page. Amazing. The range of emotions was there. You felt the Comedian’s violence, his lack of tolerance, his sadness. The Comedian is the microcosm of Watchmen, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan brought every bit of that world to the screen.
The Watchmen Is The Feel-Good Movie Of The Year
Many things have been and will be written about the Watchmen movie. Some people are calling it a flop, while others are praising it as a masterpiece. The one thing for certain is that no one will describe it the way that we jokingly just did in the headline for this article. While hardly the feel-good movie of the year, the Watchmen movie is a graphically violent, intense, often disturbing, but yet brilliant piece of cinema.
Whereas The Dark Knight took people to the edge of what can be shown in a comic book movie and still be deemed socially acceptable by the mainstream public, the Watchmen movie jumps right over the edge. As scenes of superhero rape, mutilation, and mass murder play out, people who prefer their superheroes to be Tobey Maguirish are obviously going to be immediately turned off by the movie.
Watchmen Movie Reviews Are 68 Percent Positive
While there are many headlines reporting that Watchmen movie reviews are mixed, there are only a handful of reviews that have surfaced from actual movie watchers. Because Warner Bros. initially placed an embargo on reporters in the U.S. that had seen advanced screenings of the movie, most of the reviews that have surfaced have been from England and Australia.
However, a couple U.S. reviews have leaked out from news sites that either broke the embargo or are now clear and free on the embargo since the movie has opened overseas. Comicbook.com searched online to locate as many Watchmen movie reviews as we could find. We left out reviews written by reporters who were reporting secondhand from what a friend said and only counted reviews written by writers who had actually seen the movie.
Comicbook.com was able to locate twenty-five Watchmen movie reviews in all. Of those twenty-five reviews, 68 percent of them could be labeled as positive, 20 percent of them could be labeled as negative, and 12 percent of them were too mixed to clearly label.
Watchmen Movie Reviews Not Living Up To Watchmen Movie Trailer
Uh-oh, some critics, who have seen advanced screenings of the Watchmen movie, are not being kind to the highly anticipated film. Could it be that the fantastic Watchmen movie trailers have built up expectations so high that there is no way the actual movie can live up to the hype?
One of the biggest questions about the Watchmen Movie has always been how it will play to the general public. So far, the answer among some critics seems to be not very well. In a very negative review that is circulating quickly online, Kirk Honeycutt in the Hollywood Reporter predicts that the box office slide could be drastic after the opening weekend. Honeycutt even goes as far as to suggest that the Watchmen movie could be the first real flop of 2009.
New Watchmen Movie Video Warns Against Vigilantes
Warner Bros. has run one of the best online viral campaigns ever for the upcoming Watchmen movie. Of course, they had me as a viewer of the film with the very first Watchmen movie trailer that I saw. All indications are Zack Snyder has directed a winner, and all the online videos just reconfirm it.
Would Bad Watchmen and X-Men Origins: Wolverine Ruin the Comic Book Movie Industry?
Now that Fox and Warner Brothers have settled their Watchmen movie lawsuit, the next big question is whether or not the Watchmen movie will be a huge draw at the box office. With a reported $130 million budget, it’s going to take more than fanboys and graphic novel lovers to put that thing in the black.
Will the general public want to see Watchmen? The trailer itself should get a lot of folks excited, which should translate into a large opening weekend. But what about after that? Watchmen is an intricate tale with a ton of flashbacks. Will Zack Snyder be able to take the material and craft it into a story that anyone can follow? Especially those folks that know NOTHING about the story before they sit in the theater?
The Watchmen Movie Delay Watch Is Over
For the last several months, the entire entertainment world has been caught up in the possibility of one of the most anticipated movies of all time getting delayed. Twentieth Century Fox’s lawsuit against Warner Bros. over the Watchmen movie resulted in the movie getting a ton of free press coverage as entertainment journalist hung on every twisted legal turn.
When the judge in the case recognized that Twentieth Century Fox had some interest in the Watchmen movie property, thousands of comic book fans held their breath in fear that the Watchmen movie might be delayed. However, everyone can now exhale a sigh of relief as the Watchmen movie will keep its March 6, 2009 release date.
Watchmen Movie DVD Animated Feature To Be Rated R
A segment to be featured on a companion DVD release to the Watchmen movie has apparently received an “R” rating. According to reports on MTV’s Splash Page, the MPAA has issued the rating for the Tales of the Black Freighter animated feature that is scheduled to be released on a forthcoming Watchmen companion DVD single.
Tales of the Black Freighter is a mini comic that’s plot plays out throughout the entire storyline of the Watchmen comic. In Tales of the Black Freighter, the hero, called The Mariner, is a shipwrecked swashbuckler, who desperately tries to return to his home port before a fleet of pirate ships arrives. The pirates are known for their bloodthirsty acts, many of which are gruesomely portrayed in the comic. For example, the Mariner disposes of the rotting corpses left behind by the villains. Since Watchmen director Zack Snyder has repeatedly promised to make a “true to the original” movie, those scenes are primarily responsible for the segments “R” rating.
