Comments on: Should We Have Been Rooting For ‘Watchmen’ All Along?

By: Nick Tinsley

Nick Tinsley — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 10:46:00 +0000

I really, really liked the movie. I hated “300” with a passion usually reserved for rapists, and so it took a lot to get me to see “Watchmen,” not having read the comic, and I was so delighted by how good it was. The first 85% of the film is just character study, and it’s fascinating, brilliant character study, rich with great actors, great music, great shots, and great scenes. Seeing it in IMAX was a dream. So often IMAX movies are big, dumb, loud explosion fests, but this was mostly human drama, and it was fantastic. It’s the best experience I’ve had in an Imax theater since Bruce Wayne’s flashback to childhool in “Batman Begins.” It makes me wish Tarsem, or Terrence Malick would get the Imax releases, not just giant action movies and animation.

By: Scene-Stealers

Scene-Stealers — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 19:16:00 +0000

This is a great article. Whether you loved or hated the film (or were somewhere in between like me, just very disappointed), you have to acknowledge that its box office failure is bad all most all around for other serious-minded superhero flicks. I blame much of it on Snyder straddling the line between genre and non-genre too uncomfortably (continuous slo-mo action, fetishized violence). He should have stuck to his guns and tried to make a tried-and-true drama without so much modern action “spiffiness.” Nolan got away with very little action and a less compelling story in “The Dark Knight” and turned out a great picture. Oh well. They’ll probably put the “Fantastic Four” series back into production now.
P.S. America: Get over the penis.

By: Chadams

Chadams — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 17:35:00 +0000

I'm not going to rip into the movie again, but I will say that I think The Dark Knight was able to accomplish some of the things Snyder was shooting for in Watchmen: greater license in directorial vision (and in casting) and adding a solidly different/darker perspective to superhero movies.

I can't say that I foresee those being applied to other superhero films (save a potentially horrible F4 reboot), but there's quality "dark superhero" material lurking out there. My hope is that whenever that stuff gets adapted, the costumers & set designers don't feel the need to make it look "comic-y" (Sin City & Watchmen, e.g.)