Movie Review: Watchmen

THE PART IN THE WATCHMEN REVIEW WHEN ONE SHOOTS THEIR LOAD ABOUT HOW IT’S THE GREATEST COMIC BOOK IN HISTORY, SECOND ONLY IN ACCLIAM TO...THE SECOND GREATEST COMIC BOOK IN HISTORY...

(droning) Watchmen is the most acclaimed comic book in the history of the known Universe. I know this because the ads tell me it’s the most acclaimed comic book in the history of the known—

(I believe you mean, graphic novel. There is a distinction)

Yeah, it takes me longer to write ‘graphic novel’ than it does ‘comic book’ and since I don’t really care...

(You don’t want to upset comic book fans all over the world by using such an obvious misnomer. It just isn’t right)

What are they gonna do, Inner Monologue, throw their virginities at me? Well, I could...Oh fuckit, fine. Graphic Novel. Watchmen has been hailed as the finest graphic novel in the known Universe...and the best one I’ve ever read, because it’s the only one I’ve ever read after reading that it made the Time’s Best Lit List.

I liked it. I liked it a lot. But what I think about Watchmen doesn’t matter.

Here are some blurbs extolling Watchmen from far more influential people than myself as an example of how far-reaching this Graphic Comic Book has been over the years.

“I love Watchmen. I’d rather read it than the Bible as it’s less boring and is more relevant to the world today. If I had the power to replace the Bible with Watchmen in seedy hotels where you cheat on your spouse, I would, but there’s all kinds of legal hassle to go through, and it’s kind of a pain and I’m just really busy now...”- God on 3/12/98

“I love watching Men”- Harvey Milk on 6/26/75

“Reading Watchmen and beating off. That’s All I do”- Karl “Dark Lord” Schleblefirth on 2/22/08. He’s your neighbor’s 16-year old son who dresses up like Rorschach and yes, that’s really all he does. He also runs the website www.iheartwatchmen.net and on April 17th, 2011 he will detonate the bomb he’s been building in his basement since he was 11 and will kill himself as well everyone within a 4 block radius. The reason: He asked Nicole Lubermeyer out on a date and she said no. Lesson: Being a teenager is awkward enough, but to all the teenage guys out there, DON’T ask a girl while you have inky bandages wrapped all over your face along with a trench coat. It’s a look very few people can pull of and not come off as creepy.

“I’ve never heard of Watchmen. As far as I’m concerned there are no other books that exist in the Universe other than Stephanie Meyers’ Twilight Series. I will marry Edward Cullen. Even though he isn’t real, he’s real in my head and so I’m going to have to find and marry Robert Pattinson. Once he sees my devotion he has to choice because I’m going to change my name to Bella when I’m 18 and I’ll find him and keep him and feed him when he’s good. I won’t eat until I’m married to Robert Pattinson, unless you count the gallon of Ice Cream and the 4 roast beef Sandwiches I’ve had in the past hour”- 15 year-old Gretchen McMackmuc, about 2 hours ago...at least I think that’s what she said, as I couldn’t really discern all of what she was saying between inhaling Hohos and Fiddle Faddle. Now that I think about it, she really didn’t seem like a Watchmen fan at all...Oh well.

IN THIS PART OF THE REVIEW IT’S REQUIRED THAT WE GET ON WATCHMEN DIRECTOR ZACH SNYDER’S NUTS

In 2004, Snyder directed the Dawn of the Dead remake. It’s better than it had any right to be, and I find that I like it more every time I see it. The “Birth” is a minor classic and any movie that has Ving Rhames and Sarah Polley in it can’t be all that bad.

In 2007, he directed the gay dance movie 300. I don’t think I’m alone in this, but I really do believe that in the long run 300 will do more for gay rights than Milk, even though Milk is a better movie. For all the Prop 8 Proponents: If 300 Gay men can hold off hordes of Persian Armies (Fun Fact: Most of the Persian Soldiers died not at the blade of a Spartan, but by slipping and falling to their doom because of all the baby oil the Spartans coated themselves with), then shouldn’t they at least be able to marry? It’s worth a thought.

Did I like 300? I didn’t hate it, but I think we’ve all seen better dance movies. I don’t personally get the “visionary” part of “From the Visionary director of 300”, but I guess ad guys and gals have to think up something.

SYNOPSIS IN WHICH I TRY NOT TO GIVE TOO MUCH AWAY EXCEPT THAT BRUCE WILLIS IS DEAD, MUCH LIKE SHYAMALAN’S CAREER RIGHT NOW

The year: 1985. Richard Nixon is President and Doctor Emmet Brown is Secretary of State. Superheroes are outlawed. People still have walkmans with earphones the size of small moons. William Hurt will win Best Actor for Kiss of the Spider Woman. The last time the Bears won the Super Bowl.

The US and Russia are on the brink of nuclear annihilation as it only takes 4 minutes to destroy the world.

A former masked hero named Edward Blake (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is thrown out of a window. He used to be a superhero way back when known as the Comedian but no matter how super he used to be he doesn’t have the upper hand against pavement especially at the height from which he’s been thrown. Comedian has...issues. Perhaps fighting crime in masks and tight leather outfits has lowered his sperm count and he can no longer have children. It doesn’t matter, because if you’ve read the comic book you’ve seen what he does with women that carry his child (in a scene lifted directly and VERY graphically from the novel).

A person killing masked heroes can’t be good for anyone, according to...

Rorschach (Jackie Earle Hailey, the perv from Little Children) who believes that an attack on one of the Costumes can’t be good for any one of the remaining heroes (whose identities are for the most part, private). Rorschach has issues as well, and does he ever. So he enlists the help of some of his former Watchmen pals...

-Nite Owl (Patrick Wilson, you remember the perv from Hard Candy as well as the dude banging Kate Winslet on a washing machine in Little Children)- He’s grown fat and lazy but still likes to tinker with his huge flying machine, Archie. But if cornered, he can still kick your ass.

-Silk Spectre- (Malin Akerman- Freak Show’s wife in Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, and as far as I know she’s NOT in Little Children)- Her mother used to be a superhero too and she’s having problems with men, maybe because she goes out with guys like...

Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup, not a golden god this time, but a light blue one)- He’s blue, big, bald, and he can rearrange atoms and do anything he wants. He also has the largest blue penis in cinema history.

Fat Albert- By the end of the movie he’ll teach you some great lesson about getting along and not being racist or something. He lightens things up a little by saying “Hey, hey, hey” all the time but you wonder what having the word ‘fat’ as part of his name will do for his psyche. He has the 4th largest blue penis in cinema history.

Ozymandias- (Matthew Goode, from that um, good movie The Lookout and >i>Match Point)- He’s the smartest man on Earth and has the cutest little kitty-goat thing.

Can the Watchmen find out who killed The Comedian before it’s too late for them all? Yes...

Wait. That just ruined the ending. Lemme do that again...

Can the Watchmen find out who killed The Comedian before it’s too late? Will Nixon get elected to yet another term? Will Malin Akerman be naked in yet another movie? You’ll just have to watch the movie to see, but the answer will involve rape, arms being sawed off, doggies thrown thru windows, little girl legs and some of the 80’s greatest hits. Kinda makes you wistful for the 80’s again, don’t it?

What works with Watchmen-

1) Jackie Earle Hailey will make you squirm as the deliciously twisted Rorschach and is the best developed character in the movie. In fact, his is the only performance you remember after you’ve left the theater. He uses some kind of Clint Eastwood/Batman rasp (“I have to use the men’s room”) but it grows on you after a while. Hrrrrm, indeed...

2) Nite Owl and Silk Spectre Vs. Everybody they fight- features the best CRACK moment of 2009 so far (I mean ‘crack’ as in bones breaking and not ‘crack’ as the word you usually associate with ‘Lohan’)

3) It’s 2.5 hours, but like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, doesn’t FEEL that long. Yes, there are some dead spots, but you’ll get through them and be rewarded. I have a renewed appreciation for the skill in which Snyder and Co. paced this movie because...

...I recently had to re-watch and review the never-ending Australia for 2Snaps.tv and am thankful for a movie with a long running time that doesn’t make me...

...Where was I? I must have nodded off thinking about Australia again.

4) Rorschach’s incarceration is the best sustained sequence in the movie. It transcends its comic-book roots into something that’s truly cinematic (I’m not locked in with them...they’re locked in with me”)

5) Second best sequence- Dr. Manhattan’s “birth.”

6) Carla Gugino’s makeup- It’s amazing how plausibly they made her look 67.

7) Comedian’s dispersing of a crowd.

8) The Ending- One of the best endings I’ve ever read in ANY kind of novel and the movie does do it justice.

What doesn’t work-

1) The Spectre/Nite Owl romance is still the weakest part of the story. While you’re watching any of their non-fight scenes together you wish the movie would focus on any of the other less dull characters, and Akerman and Wilson do nothing for their characters.

2) A feeble reference to 300 that will leave you rolling your eyes. Fortunately it occurs near the beginning of the movie so you have ample time to forget about it.

3) An over-explanation typical of a Bond villain but feels out of place in this movie (“I started it 35 minutes ago...”).

4) Aside from the previously mentioned Rorschach incarceration and Dr. Manhattan sequence, there’s nothing in the rest of the movie that will leave the audience with anything more than neutrality. Yes, there’s blood and violence and sex but it’s all relatively “safe” as you know you’re watching a comic book movie and you don’t have to take it any more seriously than that.

Overall. Yes, there are changes from the book, but they’re pretty minor within the context of a movie. Yet I’m guessing there’ll be bitching on message boards all over the web about who (wah!!!) didn’t do this or said that (Wah, Wah!!!), but Twilight fans, you now get to hear what you sound like when you whine about what did or didn’t happen to your beloved sacrosanct text. Still, Watchmen is probably the best English language movie in theaters (Gomorrah being the best, despite the subtitles) from now until the start of the summer, so watch it and see what all the fuss is about.

It’s got boobs, blood and animal mutilation. What more could you want in a movie? Okay, not so much the animal mutilation, but you get what I mean with the other 2...