That spoof is so funny it hurts!
The sad part is that I have a hunch the general public would prefer the goofy Watchmen over
Alan Moore's Watchmen. (No, don't ask me for evidence, I said it was a hunch.)
I saw the movie on the weekend, but I'm still sorting out my thoughts about it. I think I need to see it a second time. My first impressions of it are positive. The problem for me is that I'm so familiar with the story, and it has influenced me so much over the last 20 years - that it's impossible for me to see the movie with fresh eyes. My mind automatically fills in the gaps when the movie skips over some part of the book.
Yes, the movie falls well short of the book in matters of character and story depth. But when I see so many of the book's images so gorgeously and precisely rendered on the big screen, it takes my breath away. Alan Moore may no longer associate himself with movie adaptations of his works, but that doesn't mean the guy who drew Moore's stories can't have fun. I hear Dave Gibbons is absolutely thrilled with how his art for Watchmen has been translated to the screen, and I'll celebrate with him too.
What does strike me as a negative is how unpopulated and smallish the movie's sets seem in comparison to the places as depicted in the book. Maybe that's because deep shadows and and muted colors pervade the movie. There is a more claustrophobic feel than in the book.
The "Black Freighter" storyline isn't in the movie, but I had not expected it to be. I'm sure more than a few fans guessed that the pirate story would be one of the first things eliminated from any film adaptation. I don't mind its absence from the movie, even though it's such a powerful part of the novel. Its inclusion would have made for an unwieldy movie. Not that that has ever stopped filmmakers...
What Watchmen fans must be most upset about is the scuttling of the whole "alien attack from another dimension" in favor of Ozymandias simply making Doc Manhattan the scapegoat. It's certainly an interesting change. I didn't cry foul over it because I already suspected they would not do the alien monster thing, since there weren't any foreshadowing scenes of the artists and scientists working on it. I think I can accept the film having Ozy frame Manhattan for the crime. It further reinforces to the audience how smart and ruthless Ozy is, that he could learn how to mimic Manhattan's power and then use it against him.
I think the cast is terrific. The only questionable choice is the actor who plays Ozymandias. He looks too thin to be playing a character who is supposed to have a commanding physique. (Surely if Christian Bale could work his butt off to turn into Bruce Wayne...)
Okay, so that's me as a fan talking about the movie. But what about people who've never read Watchmen and don't plan to? I talked about the movie with some young guys (late teens I figure) who were helping me at work. They had seen the movie and thought it sucked. Now hey, I
want to get opinions from young people today. But it was hard to get a coherent answer out of these guys as to why they thought the film sucked - which is why I have to come here for some intelligent dialog, not that I'm dissing teenagers. These two were all right, but they were more interested in jokes than a real discussion. Oh well. What I got out of them was the impression that they could not understand the actions of the Watchmen: comic book heroes aren't supposed to brutalize and kill people. Also, they were disappointed that more well-known superheroes didn't make an appearance. What, Superman? At that point, I wondered if I was working with Beavis and Butthead; I don't think these guys got the premise of Watchmen at all. Or it's possible the movie just didn't do a good enough job setting the premise.
See, I'm not sure, because I'm too close to it. I can't tell if the movie will really turn people onto Watchmen, or if they'll just think it's the most preposterous "superhero" movie yet made.
It's dawning on me that Watchmen is possibly not as relevant to today's audiences as the original 12-part series was to readers back in '86, when it was innovative and the epitome of cool for those in the know. But as a big budget movie today, Watchmen has arrived to a moviegoing public spoiled by a slew of remarkably good comic book adaptations in recent years that have already pushed the boundaries of what comic book movies are "supposed" to be. So maybe Watchmen has come too late to the show to be hailed as something really special among moviegoers.
