Hallelujah...?

Rating: 4/10 (7 April 2009)

I watched the Watchmen. And I'm still in turmoil somewhat. In essence, I reckon it lost a bit of something in translation. Now there's been a lot of Snyder-bashing just recently over this movie, but let's face it, the man is fantastic at what he does - he makes things look awesome. Poppcorn-munchingly, fanta-freeze-slurpingly eye-poppingly awesome. Butthat seems to be it. Which sometimes isn't bad. We all like movies we can put on and enjoy without engaging brain too much. But the source material this movie owes itself to is not mindless gloss. It's a very complex, well-drawn, brilliantly written multi-layered triumph. It's a Harvard study text for crying out loud. I think that's what's lacking. Some of the characters are not great, some are fantastic. Rorshach? Dark, sinister, psychotic, and brilliantly played by Jack Earle Haley. The Comedian? He looks like he's been pulled straight from the comic book. Nicely done. Nite Owl? He's great, a timid, slightly repressed pseudo-loser, well-portrayed by Patrick Wilson who incidentally, has one of the most gorgeous mouths I've ever seen! Malin Akerman's Laurie, to be brutally honest, sucks. Bad. She's nothing much more than a quasi-feisty, foot-stomping piece of eye-candy. Which is pretty much what she is in the book, but she's also a real spitfire. OK, movie Laurie throws some wickedgood punches, but in a Zack Snyder film, EVERYONE can kick ass. Billy Crudup's Dr Manhattan's not bad - a little scary, but I suppose a naked blue dude wandering around babbling about quarks would have that effect on many people. Ozymandias is a bit of a weird casting choice. He reminds me too much of the character of Niles from 'Fraiser', a little effeminate and delicate. He doesn't do bad though, he's just a bit different from what I'd have expected. (lest we forget, Ozymandias had brains AND brawn.) The whole look of the movie is amazing. Snyder has an unmistakable cinematic style. It's glossy, - relatively faithful to the book, too, look out for the Gunga Diner balloon! - dark, and ultra slick, and coupled with Snyder's signature fast-mo/slow-mo action sequence filming (which a lot of people find highly annoying. I find it highly cool, even if it is purely visual-only), it does look breathtaking. This movie spawned a trailer that promises fabulous things, and from an aesthetic point of view, it doesn't fail. It triumphs, it's a beautiful movie to look at. Aside from that though, I don't think it delivers much else. Even with dialogue lifted directly from the comic (Rorshach's monologues. Brilliant!) and being as faithful as possible to the plot line (less some edits, and a slightly altered ending) it still lacks a certain somethingsomething that the comic book had a big fat stockpile of. Maybe Snyder is just a purely looks-only filmmaker, maybe I expected too much from a film of a comic book that I've loved for years. But there's still something niggling at me, and until I see this film again, I'll be bugged as hell about it.