Ashley Hillard
Ashley Here.
You’re probably not going to like what I have to say.
What a nice looking pile of garbage. I really wanted to like the ”Watchmen”, after ”300 ”it seemed director Zack Snyder could almost do no wrong. With so many characters and decades to cover, it makes no sense as to why this tent pole film was not broken up into at least two parts. Instead, writers David Hayter and Alex Tse cram as many storylines as they can into this two hour plus (four hour feeling) epic waste of time and money. Thumbs down on the score too – during one emotional scene, Simon and Garfunkel’s Sound of Silence is played – I thought 1) this isn’t The Graduate and 2) this doesn’t take place during the ‘60s, it was a completely ill fit and the editing, scenes and music do not match up well throughout a majority of the film, taking the audience out of the experience.
This film could have been fantastic, a great start to a long line of sequels, but they leave no room at the end to even have a sequel, let alone want one. I’m going to try to give a synopsis the best I can, but I’m not sure if I’ll even get all the plot lines right because there are too many and they don’t make sense. No, I haven’t read the comic book, but any proper film translation of a comic book should allow an audience member to jump into the story regardless of whether or not they are a fan.
Watchmen jumps back and forth between the origin stories of the first generation of Watchmen, which is fantastic. The costumes are great, one is reminiscent of a Betty Page outfit, and it’s interesting to get a modern take on what superheroes of the ‘40s would look and act like. The story then jumps to the present with the current group, Laurie Jupiter (Malin Akerman), Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup), Ozymandias (Adrian Veidt), Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley), The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and Nite Owl II (Patrick Wilson).
The original Watchmen are touted as heroes until they slowly, one by one, fall from grace. The next generation, circa 1985, is under government crackdown and some have revealed their identities to the public. Rorschach is determined to find The Comedian’s killer – signified by way too many bloody smiley faces – and attempts to recruit the rest of the disbanded Watchmen. Dr. Manhattan is too focused on his experiments to pay attention to his lover, Jupiter. She begins to see Nite Owl II, yawn, the most disinteresting character of the gang. A sort of love triangle is formed between the three that features one very graphic sex scene set to a song that doesn’t fit. Eventually, the team joins forces to solve the mystery of The Comedian’s death and stop a threat to life on Earth. Just when you think this movie is going to end, it doesn’t.
There are some great lines in the film and it would be great to see more of The Comedian. It would also be great if the movie was shorter and there were fewer sub plots. Even the visuals will probably not live up to the hype – with the exception of Dr. Manhattan and Rorschach’s ever changing face. It will be impressive if this movie makes all of its money back, with a $100 plus million budget. In the end, this should have been the beginning of this series, leaving some room for dessert.
Two and a half stars.
READ CLINT’S REVIEW OF “WATCHMEN” HERE
