Sunday, March 8, 2009

Watchmen

I bought advanced tickets.

That's right I did it, I spent the extra two dollars and am not ashamed of it. I rarely do that with movies. The last movie that I bought advanced tickets to was the Dark Knight, and I'll be damned if I feel sorry about doing it.

After reading the Watchmen graphic novel during the Christmas holiday break, I was as excited as any 30 year old male geeko who had actually read the Watchmen graphic novel when it was first released. I went with my girlfriends to see the movie, and afterwards found myself startelingly...dissappointed.

It wasn't that the movie itself was bad. On the contrary. The actors themselves (with the exception of the skinny little white man that played Adrian Veidt) fit and portrayed their roles as acurately as could (does anyone think that skinny little stick dude could kick Patrick Wilson's ass?).

Rorschach was deliciously insane, Dr. Manhattan's penis was a little too blue for my taste but accurate nonetheless, and Laurie was disgustingly gorgeous. Everything appeared to check out.

The length wasn't too bad. I understood the reasons for removing the internal subplots to keep the movie from being 5 hours long. I understood the rhetorical effectiveness of the soundtrack.

So what was so bothersome?

I suppose in the end, some of the central themes didn't quite grab me. While Mr. Denny Duchette portrayed The Comedian quite well, the sense of humanity's ironic degredation that was interwoven in the subplots of the graphic novel didn't quite translate onto the movie screen. In the end The Comedian wasn't quite nasty enough. He wasn't quite sweet enough. His part in the plot just wasn't important enough.

I guess I just now realize that The Comedian is my favorite character within the entire story. He isn't the boyscout, or the brain. He isn't sweet and cuddly. He isn't insane either. He is brutal. He is honest.

He is the human condition at both its finest and worst.


"What has happend to us?"
"What has happend to the American Dream?"

"It came true."
- Nite Owl to The Comedian

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