#April Hickman | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

popculturebuffet · 2 years ago

Text

Watchemen Retrospective Finale: Zack Snyder's Watchmen (Comission for WeirdKev27)

Hello all you happy capes.. and welcome to my final review of 2022 and my grand finale to my look at Watchmen. I've looked at all 12 issues with a brief April Fools detour to look at the unmade Sam Hamm version, but there's still one last piece of Watchmen media I want to look at as the Clock strikes 12. Yes folks we're talking about the divisive, loyal as it could possibly be, greatly soundtracked, 2009 film Watchmen.

Filming the Unfimable

As the fact I had a full script to review should show, attempts had been made to adapt the Watchmen for decades. The Hamm script was pitched with Terry Gilliam of all people who considered the project unfilmable as a movie, and better as a mini series.

The biggest attempt was made with David Hayter, voice actor and writer, aka Metal Gear's Solid Snake, Zangetsu in Blodostained, and Captain America in Spider-Man TAS. He also was a writer on the first two x-men films, the scorpian king, and an executive producer on of all the things i've reviewed, A Christmas Horror Story> I knew NONE of this when looking him up and i'm incredibly impressed. This is one hell of a career the man's gotten. His draft really impressed executives, but attempts at paramount, rogue pictures and others stalled until eventually Warner Bros scooped up the rights.

Hayter's script had a few diffrences from the final product as Alex Tse, who'd go on to make wu tang an american story, would do some touch ups. His was set in modern day, at one point Nite Owl straight up killed Adrian, and at one point Adrian's plan ivnolved a MASSIVE SOLAR DEATH RAY

Yeah I mean I get why Christ Almighty it's the goddman watchmen gets mentioned more, it's objectively funny.. but the fact Adrian used a solar death beam at one point still should come up more. Don't get me wrong, the idea of using the power of the sun is awesome: Jonathan Hickman's run had Iron Man build a dyson sphere to potentially smash planets. But there's a difference between taking a real world floated concept and making it high concept sci fi.. and having your morally complex if ultimately evil despite his claims villain have a fucking death ray powered by the sun. The other ideas.. are also not my forte. The 80s setting and the 50s start to mystery men are integral to things, as the films eventually director agreed, and having Dan kill adrian just feels a step too far. What the film goes with is still cathartic and we'll get to it, but Adrian should live not to reap the benefits of his actions.. but to live with both the guilt of what he's done and any consequences should the truth come out.

As for who would direct this, with the recent success of 300… Warner Bros tapped Zack Snyder to direct. We'll get into Zack Snyder himself in a second, but to his credit, he was a huge fan of the graphic novel and most tweaks to Hayter's script were out of reverence to it, though he did keep that ending which again we'll get to.

The resulting film was.. divisive. Some critics loved it, some hated it and fans were split on everything from the performacnes to.. that ending. It's part of why I wanted to dive into it. See when the Younger Me saw it over a decade ago.. he dug it. He liked it a lot and thought it was a great adaptation. So I wanted to see if it held up: if it was still good a decade, a through yearlong re-read of the source material, and Zack Snyders lesser adaptations after it later. So let's answer that question shall we as I watch the Watchmen one final time.. at least for this year.

Watchmenmaker So yeah.. before we can even get into the film we have to unpack it's director. And I'm not one to take the side door, I'll come right up front and knock: Zack Snyder is a kind generous man who uses his massive fanbase to help charities, seems to really love his fans and his work, and who generally seems to be an upright guy. He's hard to hate on his own. That said while as a person I have nothing but respect for the guy, his other superhero works i've seen Man of Steel and Batman V Superman are not great films, especially the latter. If you like them great, your allowed to disagree with me but their just not the best superhero films and I for the life of me can't understand why some people are so ride or die on them.

Man of Steel is.. fine. It's a flawed film with a palette that can best be described as "Hope you like grey!", and easily the worst Jonathan Kent in the characters history, a selfish dumbass who has the sheer gall to berate his son for saving lives and who stupidly throws himself into a tornado for reasons that make entirely no sense and who clearly fucked his son up to the point he's traveling the world and the seven seas instead of living a normal life because SOMEBODY felt he never could. It's not a film I really fondly remember, but it's one I felt okay about coming out of the theater. It's alright. It's not the best take on superman, but I can see why some may like it.

Batman V Superman on the other hand.. is giant mess. I liked it a bit out of the theater, but the more i've thought abotu it the less it's become. Part of it isn't entirely his fault: it's clear DC wanted to FastTrack the justice league and shoved as many heroes in as they could. Wonder Woman, while a great part of the film, feels just kinda there, and while Ben Affleck gives it his best, his version of batman just doesn't work. It's clear Zack Snyder has the same reverence for the Dark Knight Returns as Watchmen.. but fails to get that that's not necessarily how to approach batman, nor that even THAT batman does not kill and will not.

His lex luthor is also just baffling, with it being hard for me to figure out just what he was going for. The idea of a younger luthor whose a tech bro was brilliant.. but the resulting writing has a luthor who sounds and acts like he did a literal, not figurative, mountain of cocaine before every scene, whose plans are needlessly convoluted , and who thanks to said cocaine thinks a jar of piss is a good statement. Seriously I did not realize he pissed in a jar the first time around, probably because Lex Luthor pissing in a jar and leaving that jar wired with explosives is not the kind of thing that usually makes it past first draft. There's a reason we never got Superman fighting a giant spider-man while Braniac wrestled a polar bear after all. Trying to jam Death of Superman in there without having properly built up to it doesn't remotely hep and the film that results is just an overly long, overly dour mess that is more concerned about tlaking about superman being a god for 40 minutes than actually telling a good story. It's overly long, overly self indulgent and ultimately just.. just bad. It's bad.

And look I don't begrudge Snyder himself for wanting his cut of Justice League. He only left the film due to the worst tragedy that could befall a parent, and had it cut to shit behind his back. What I begrude is the cultlike beahvior that's formed out of it. While there are likely fans of Zack Snyder's dc work who are nice, kind, and don't mind if someone has a difference of opinion and if your reading this, I value your existence, there has been a foaming, loud, asshollish horde of fans that has not shut the fuck up since getting said cut. Wanting more of something you love is fine. Right now as an Owl House Fan we're hoping desperately Disney gives us more of the series in some form and actually listens. Sometimes you have to scream to be heard.

The problem is instead of accepting the snyder cut as the cool what could've bene it is and being happy with what they got.. they gnash their teeth at ANYTHING they percive outside it. They've taken the screws to Shazam for not being as edgelord as the films they like, and lately have been just outright insufferable. They have gotten RABID since James Gunn was made one of the heads of DC and made the decision to get rid of Henry Cavill… a decision I udnerstand as the snyder verison of superman has a LOT of baggage and while Cavill did his best, I can understand James wanting to start fresh and using a new actor as a way to do that. It's an understandable decision from a guy who was given the hard task of coming in and steering a ship that has no direction in a company that's on fire thanks to David Zaslav's escalating selfish, terrible and downright baffling decisions. He did not come in guns a-blazin to gut everything: Gal Godot and The Rock are still on board, with his black adam announcment merely being that their going to hold off on using him again at first, rather than "your fired get out" as many are intepreting. And while I get it's weird to fire cavill after the stinger to black adam, it was included more because Dwayne Johnson wants to fight superman than being a coherent plan for a sequel, and I say that with all the love I can to the rock whose an awesome dude. I just don't care about seeing Black Adam fight superman. That's not who he has a connection to.

It's just been so draining. I get liking a film but I doubt Snyder wants .. any of this. He's fine. He's moved on from his superhero work. You are NEVER going to get what you wanted back> Let someone genuinely talented who will likely pull out some weird, wonderful cuts do what he wants and give him some room to do it. Zack Snyder is not a bad filmmaker but like superman. .he's not a fucking god. He doesn't want a fucking cult in his name. He just wants you to enjoy his films and support them. Just.. do that. Love his dceu work if you like but accept it's over, move on and for god's sake stop harassing people for it. I shouldn't' have to say this but it's gotten bad, and I felt it couldn't' be ignored. When Snyder fans are, no joke, going up to a tweet Gunn made trying to get support for charities and saying "DON'T CARE WANT CAVILL", I have to say.. SOMETHING, when I have the chance to speak to said fanbase. To those of you not doing this shit.. thank you. Thank you for being good people like Zack likely actually wants. Your awesome.

Now you may be asking yourself "Well how did I get here?"… or more likely "Okay nice speech and all Jake but what does this have to do with the film your actually reviewing" or

If your a tad deranged. My reason is that while I can see bit sof the DCEU in here, particularly Zack Snyder preferring to deconstruct superheroes than actually play it straight, Watchmen.. zigs a lot of places he'd later Zag. It's shockingly colorful while still being grounded, still having the gaudy outfits, but keeping them because he knows their important. The only change he made to them was to make them more like something you'd see in a superhero film of the past, to help evoke these costumes come from the past: Nite Owl and Ozymandis in particular have outfits that come out of a Burton Batman and Schumacher Batman film respectively. Laurie's is more shiny latex, and the Comedian thankfully keeps his domino mask during his full career and either wears your standard Sterling Archer spy turtleneck on missions or his costume rather than bringing out the gimp. I do think it clashes a LITTLE with the 60's and 70's these costumes are supposed to come from but I get that putting them in say, a 60's batman style outfit would be a bridge too far given the tone of the work, and that the original outfits, while neat, were also intentionally goofy in a way that just dosen't work on flim. It's why you only saw The Scarlet Witch, Vision and Quicksilvers full silver age costumes as halloween costume easter eggs in wandavision or Steve Roger's classic cap outfit as his uso outfit. These are iconic looks.. but they just don't work on screen. You can still hav ecolor and flair as the MCU has shown us, but you have to rework it to fit the present.

This way Snyder gets to both have pops of color.. while also having the costumes still get the slightly dated look in a way people who haven't read the comic will get. It's honestly a stroke of brillance and while his works aren't my forte and he slapped a palette of grey over them, his later works do have neat costumes.

His watchmen shows a respect for these characters and world his DCEU work dosen't quite have. He replicates panels, only didn't replicate the costumes beyond rorshachs for the reasons mentioned, and really tries to get as much of the story in as he can. Which brings us to

The Times they Are A Changing

The film is for the most part a fairly straight adaptation of the Graphic Novel. There's a big change to the ending I keep ominously hinting at and we're almost there just hold on, but there are changes either stylistically or just for compressions sake. It's why I tilt my head at reviews that said he was overly reverent to the graphic novel. I agree he could've used a touch more of his own take.. but Snyder still put his own spin on it and his own style. There's some bits of his trademark slowmo and some quick pans and he does brilliantly find ways to incorporate scenes into motion. The opening scene of the comic is a great example of this, as he somehow manage to pan up in the exact same way David Gibbons does while accounting for having to show EVERY frame going from the street to the Comedian's penthouse.

There are some goofy touches, for some reason he thought adding whipcrack sound effects to some fight scenes was neat, likely to parody it being used in 80's and 90's superhero films, which Watchmen takes some style cues from, but it jus tdosen't mesh when said scenes are played dead serious. This is a deconstruction, not a parody and there's a fine line between the two.

Out of his personal style touches my faviorite is easily his use of music. While there are only a handful of sequences, Snyder picked his soundtrack masterfully. It's nothing but the hits but often used in ways that help play off the scene beautifully or create just the right dissonance.

The first and best example of this is the Times They are a Changin scene. Even people who don't like the film admit this scene slaps and for good reason. It's easily one of the best openings in any superhero film ever if not THE best. In just a few minutes of montage, nicely set to one of the iconic songs of the 60's (not a huge Dylan fan myself but I can't deny this song rocks), it takes you through both ages of superheroes easily, gives you all the exposition the film couldn't thanks to Under the Hood being something they couldn't fit in easily (Maybe a tv movie or something but it would've come off obvious to me), and just looks gorgeous: it breaks down the triumphant rise and tragic fall of the minutemen, the hope of the new era of supermen and it's sad fall beautifully. The imagery just does not leave your brain and it's easily a beautiful little mini movie in it's own right. While the film is still good after this, it's easily the best part of it, kind of like how Up's intro is easily it's best part too for similar reasons but the rest is still fantastic.

That said, the next sequence with this.. is no slouch. The Vietnam flashback with ride of the valyrkyes, as Dr. Manhattan looms over the Vietcong and explodes anyone in his path, is masterful, taking an already great one panel image from the comic and IMPROVING on it. Seeing him in motion really sets in the dread of this giant, looming all powerful godlike figure coming towards you and you can do nothing to stop him and really helps set in the scope of manhattan. I also noticed when writing this section that Manhattan has a nice motif of classical music, to establish a timeless feel, using Phillip Glass' music to really set things in motion.

Dan's sequence is no slouch though, as it amazingly uses the funk classic "i'm your boogie man", and is part of why I love that song so much. It both nicely contrasts with the protest going on.. and nicely matches to Comedian horribly responding to it by violently beating up the protestors. Granted said protestors are pro police, which is especially odd given some are POC.. but I write this off as Snyder, like many of us white dumbasses, not fully grasping the history of police violence on people of color at the time. It's not great in hindsight but I can't say many knew much better and he still shows off that someone with undue power and no checks and balances, i.e. the Comedian, going into a crowd and wailing on them is as horrible as it should be seen.

Then we get a long break, just one sequence with Manhattan i'll talk a bit more about later, before we get the next one.. which stuck out in my mind for the wrong reasons and I was ready to give Zack Snyder all the shit for.. till I learned out why he did it. If you've seen the film you know and if not.. the film takes Dan and Laurie's sex scene.. and make sit into… an over the top, in tense and gratuitous as fuck sex scene.

It's just so ludicrious, so unecessary, so out of nowhere it's parody.. and that… was ex-zactly the point. Yeah turns out Zack Snyder did not ask for this scene, the crew did not ask for this scene and i'm pretty sure Dan Steven and Malin Akerman did not ask for this scene. No one wanted to do this except the executives, who demanded

So Zack pulled a Sean Micheals and decided to give it to them in the goofiest, dumbest, most over the top way possible. It's likely why EVERY movement dan makes seems to make laurie orgasm. Akerman was likely in on the joke, and I salute her for it. Like if your forced to do a gross fanservice sex scene, you might as well make it hilarious and honestly the sequence is: you've got Hallujeah blaring over it, Malin going 80 times over the top, dan stevens just .. rolling with it and the gloriously stupid finish when Laurie climaxes as she hits the flamethrower button. The Silk Spectre has a FLAMING orgasm that is seen by ongoers in the night sky. I.. I can't even add to that. I didn't know Zack Snyder could make a funny but here we are. Good on him.

The last music sequence is a classic and a pretty obvious drop… like while all the songs are pretty well known in a song called the watchmen that pulls heavily from the 70's and 60's to evoke a sense of nostalgia a lot of the characters clearly have… All Along The Watchtower was a perfect pick. It's how I first heard the song and it is fucking dynamite and setting it to Dan and Rorschach's descent into the artic.. fucking perfect.

We get two more songs in the credits. The first is an awesome cover of Desolation Row by My Chemical Romance. I loved them since hearing Danger Day and love Gerard Way's awesome comics work after MCR, so I do like the song.. but it's also a touch too modern to really fit with the film. It was clearly made because the studio wanted a soundtrack tie in.. but it's also very hard to hate because it's so awesome and the first issue's title directly references this song.

The other is We'll Take Manhattan, which I feel was likely Snyder's first choice and is a nice cheeky nod to the horrors that just happened.

Okay so now we've cued the music , let's talk about another change.. one i've been omniously hinting at all film and one where I can't help quoting a certain critic I admire's theme song

They Made Watchmen Without the Slimy Squid

Yeah out of all the changes, one bit of casting, and other various things… this is the single most divisive part of the film. See most of the plot and even the ending is the same: Nite Owl and Rorshach find out Adrian was behind it, confront him at his arctic fortress, and while him kicking their asses is mostly omitted, it's for a good reason we'll get to, and while they plan to not let him do it but..

And thus his plan goes off and while Dr. Manhattan also confronts him, ultimately our heroes are forced to back down for the sake of the world. The big diffrence is WHAT the plan was. See when the Hayter script was made .. it was intended for 2003, complete with a screen test. This was two years after 9/11 so showing what was likely minutes of bloody bodies lying in the streets of new york after an attack.. was something they really coudln't do. They coudln't drop NYC either as it's grimy 80's exterior is as much a character as our heroes. So he came up with something else that made it all the way here.

So instead of Dr. Manhattan having harnessed his power to change the world, he's just getting to it as the film is in progress and is working with Adrian, who goes from a psychic alien attack.. the much simpler plan of using his energy to simulate Dr. Manhattan attacking the world, still giving humanity a common enemy.

Now while I like the squid sequence.. I get why a change had to happen. Even in 2009 9/11 was still fresh in minds. It was likely hard enough getting just dr. manhattan exploding people through. And besides just being sensitive to a reall life tragedy by making things more fantastical… the Squid thing is convoluted as fuck. Like Adrian does lay it out… but it requires a psychic's brain, kidnapping scientists and artists, and genetically cloning it into a squid. It's a BRILLIANT scheme, as it was made to be as believable as possible, and I love it dearly.. but when your trying to streamline an already beefy narrative to fit three hours, it's a LOT to unpack and something not everyone might get and understandably so. I even missed the whole psychic part till adrian brought it up. It has that many moving pieces.

You also have to remember this was pre-guardians of the galaxy. Studios were very gunshy about weird shit and they'd already let the naked blue man hanging dong pass inspection. Zack and Hayter likely didn't want to push it too far. So changing it from the slimy squid while sad.. was necessary.

That said the replacement.. just dosen't work for me. I get using Dr. Manhattan.. but how he pulled it off just raises a LOT of questions and leaves a hell of a lot more holes that could be traced back to him than in the original verison. For one thing the project wasn't some secret project on a remote island and then the arctic but a HIGHLY public clean energy project. I'm not sure they knew manhattan was powering it, but a bunch of scinetests going mising from that suddenly.. isn't going to go away forever. I mean sure Adrian can probbaly bury it with his money, but iwth the journal, there's every chance someone might look into it. Now i'm sure Nixon and later Regan after him would likely gladly shoot anyone who questioned this for world peace.. but i'm also sure someone could leak it eventually.

In the comic.. part of why Adrian won besides assuring world peace.. is he covered his tracks emacuatley: Everyone went missing long before he killed them, he could always fake bodies if needed given his genetic engineering and the squid was so convincingly alien, no one would really THINK to investigate something else. I do get Dr. Manhattan is so throughly. .not human it's supposed to be the same principal, but i'm also not convinced someone wouldn't buy the continence of it.

Not only that is trips away the ambigiutiy of Adrian getting caught as if he does.. Jon could just show up, go ooga booga and confirm the plan. It wipes away any chance of him blowing this away. Unless Jon intentionally lets Vedit hang out to dry, which dosen't seem likely, he gets away completely. It just.. dosen't work for me. I get what they were trying to do but it just dosen't add up.

There's one other adjustment to the ending, but this one I like: LIke the comic everyone but Rorshach agrees to keep quiet but for one thing it's even clearer Dan and Laurie aren't on board with this. We also get a nice adjustment to Rorshach's death as Dan follows.. and sees it happen… crying for his death. Even if Rorshach wasn't a great perosn.. he was still his friend and didn't deserve to die like this. While I like dhis lonely death in the comics.. this still works.

The part I like the most though.. is Dan storming in afterword's and beating the shit out of Adrian. Adrian dosen't fight back and it's left ambiguous: Does he feel guilty or is he just patronizing him like a father whose child is having a tantrum. It's what Dan says though that I really love

"You haven't idealized mankind, but you've deformed it, mutilated it.. that's your legacy.. that's the real practical joke".

Just Dan, tears down his face, knowing he can't get the justice that's required.. but not being content to just.. let Adrian smugly step away. He's given humanity utopia but before marred it with it's cost and will forever carry that burden as he damn well should. It's not QUITE as satisfying as "nothing ever ends".. but it still works with Vedit left just as stunned wondering if he really won. Which nicely brings us to

Under the Hood:

While snyder brought the core of the story well enough to screen, his character work was a bit more.. mixed. Some actors soared, others fell, and some were just let down by the script

We'll start with the character both most prominently used in marketing and whose often see as the franchises mascot, Rorshach. Jackie Earle Haley's performance.. is stunning, it's absolutely perfect to screen, having a nice gruff batman-esque tone that still sounds coarser more tired, and perfectly growly. It fits his uncomoromising mindset, blunt nature and perfectly captures that Rorshach needs help more than he needs to be murdering people. Haley PERFECTLY captures the character, and while he spends most of the film under a mask, he emotes greatly. He also BEAUTIFULLY excutes one of the best scenes of a comic, Rorshach's death. His response is growly.. but when taking off the mask.. he looks utterly destroyed at first, nicely replicating the crying and the fact that despite being so resolute.. even rorshach is sad not only is he passing.. but that a horrible man has gotten away with everything and his scream of "Do it!" is just.. perfect.

Writing wise however.. it's a mixed bag. Hayley does a lot of the heavy lifting.. but a lot of Rorshach's character and backstory was cut. We see flecks of it in his psychological examination but the darkness of mere being itself.. is largely cut out of the film. Malcom Long gets nothing of an arc, a huge shame given he was the only POC character of note in the piece (something Snyder could've rectified and didn't), while the context for Rorshach's fall is mostly gone. The change to what he does to the villain works, having been switched from the saw like handcuffs for understandable reasons ot him savagely meat cleaving the guy, but the slow slide from a man with a tragic past being a vigilante to a man who badly needs a therapist but is so far gone he can't accept the help he needs. .is gone and it takes weight for the character. A lot of what makes Rorshach so neat is gone.

Also gone.. are his right wing leanings. While his opening monologue his kept his homophobia, sexism and general other unpleasantness. This is a double edge sword.. on one hand it makes him more likeable.. but on the other hand it robs the ending of some of it's punch as even if Rorschach sucks.. the fact he's throughly RIGHT hit hit harder coming from someone so often wrong and his right wing fanaticism makes it less obvious if his words will carry weight givfen his various prejudices. The character only still works so well.. because Haley does such a phenomenal job in the roll that the various sanded off edges don't come off as bad as they should. He's just so good and so perfectly cast it helps. It's still not the strongest version of Rorschach, but damn if it isn't memorable.

Less well translated is Dr. Manhattan, who I feel gets the shaft despite his sticking out. I mean at least he probablyg ot some nice resduals form his condoms

Yeah while I feel bad people often overly focus on the character hanging dong, as the whole poitn of that is that he is so far beyond human concerns he dosen't evne care he's hanging dong anymore, I can't knock dc for having a perfect tie in with that.

Look dick jokes aside Dr. Manhattan's representation is really spotty. Some moments are translated perfectly: the aforementioned ride of the valyrkye scene, his spotlight with Watchmaker which shockingly shows off his sense of time despite being portrayed in a fraction of it, and his ending return as a giant blue man.

But a good chunk of his scenes are muted. Part of this is on Billy Crudup. He tries his best.. but ultimately just HOW good he is at portraying a detached godlike being.. varies on the scene. Sometimes he sounds perfectly alien and emotionless.. and other times he sounds like he's just.. bored. The latter just dosen't really work.. I mean sure he's lived through all of this but part of the characters mistique is he's often very hard to read. He also stumbles on the time he is, still coming off emotionless during his ephinany about Laurie or , most damingly when shouting for everyone to leave. Crudup just coudln't figure out the righ totne to match the scnee sand the character dosen't come off well.

Writing wise he's mostly fine.. but the Mars bit is completely botched. Like out of all the stuff the film adapts it's easily the issue that is done the absolute worst. See in the comics it looks like this

Nice crystaline but still pink and otherworldly. Easy enough toa dapt for some reason…. Zack Snyder went with..t his

yeah not only does mars look crappier as while ti's more realistic it's also all brown and muted, taking away a lot of the planets haunting majesty from the comic, but the palace for some reason is entirely made of glass, and cgi.. and as a result it looks REALLY bad. LIke I get using CG, I do, and Manhattan himself is an amazing effect. They got him to screen beauituflly, hanging dong and all. But this is just.. I can't tell if it was just the tightly stretched budget or terrible design choices but it just looks ugly and the scene is so cut down in the theatrical cut it just drains the whole phislocpiacal argument between Manhattan and Laurie. It's just..awful and when you cut a characters best scene down to ribbons he's bound to not come off great. Manhattan looks great but just.. feels souless

So speaking of laurie, stop me if you've heard this one: They cut out most of her backstory. Yeah that's a problem with the film as a whole: I get having to streamline things but not finding some way to intergrate the backstories as well damaged most of the cast. With Laurie it's especially bad as the pressure form her mother, the strained relationship and her painful history are all either underplayed or in the latter case gone entirely. Most of what character she did have is gone.

There is a TINY bit of good as she no longer breaks out into hysterics over most thing, an unfortunate trait I noticed that I don't think Moore or Gibbons thought through for you know, one of only two major female characters in the piece, and the other.. is defined ENTIRELY by nearly being raped then having sex with her rapist so not too good on either account.

That said they replace it with

Malin Ackerman tries her best, but even she admitted that she regretted taking the role, citing it was out of her comfort zone and being the only none shakesphere experinced one in the group and the work's importance, got a bad case of imposter syndrome. I just feel bad for her and her feeling out of her depth shows in her performace. it feels stilted like she dosen't know what to do.. and it's one of the times I blame the acting on Snyder himself. Sometimes acting can be bad direction but not helping an actor whose clearly struggling and not having the good sense to give her way more to work with and an actual character.. that's on him. He had no probelm adjusting the script when needed, so laurie coming out this underbaked is inexcusable. The fact she comes off more as a sex object thanks to her outfit and sex scene without having any AGENCY in said sexuality does not help.

WE then have Dan.. and he may be the only one tha'ts a full on improvement. Patcik Wilson is perfect in the part, not only looking exactly like dan but playing him well: he comes off just a touch more confident.. but not so much he isn't still the insecure, withdrawn nerd the story needs him to be. HE's still a painfully shy man, but he not only has a closer friendship with adrian that helps give him more to do in the plot, and more reason why he's more doubtful he's behind it at first, it also makes Adrian's actions hit harder. IN the comic it wasnt' clear if Adrian was all that close to any of his collegeues. Here the betryal feels personal. He also has great chemistry with ackerman. Wilson is the mvp of the film. And like I said he dosen't just sorta.. collapse and go along with the plan at the end, but is actively spiteful about having to and leaves Adrian devistated. This is easily the better version of dan, and it's likely because unlike the others we didn't get a ton of his backstory, so we only gain more of him instead of loosing a lot.

We then have our mastermind Ozymandis and he's done.. fine. Goode dosen't look the most like him, but did put a lot of effort into the roll. Granted he also infamously told people against his casting "Suck my dick because I don't give a fuck"

But he still did his best and I support his casting: he dosen't look like the superman of the books but more gaunt.. yet he does in the past, giving the feeling the weight of his actions and what has happened has worn on him. While he puts on the cold vener of detachment he dosen't have the smug ego. It makes the character diffrent.. but not in ab ad way, coming off as someone who is doing the grim work necesary to save the world instead of a smug egotist who thinks he's the only one who can. Neither is a good person, but both versions ar eintresting. Admitely Goode slips in an out of an accent but it came from the good idea of having Adrian be german and hide his accent in public to blend in more, as well as distance himself from his nazi parents. I wish this was more texual than just something he thought of but poitns for effort

Finally for the main cast we have our boogie man himself, The COmedian. Along with Stevens and Haley, Dean Morgan not only perfectly matches the role in apperance.. but just ooze sinto it. And since we get his full backstory bit, he's one of the few not as badly marred. The only issue I have is changing his attempted rape to have him be older: him being young and still trying to do something his awful signified that he'd ALWAYS been this cynical, selfish asshat and age only made him worse. The roll was a departure for Morgan who was best known for Grey's Anatomy at the time, but nicely blended into the roll and I wouldn't be shocked if, while not having seen him in wlaking dead, this roll landed him negan as I have read the comic version and the two characters are just similar enough for it to be perfect casting. Ther'es not a lot to say about the comedian I havne't in the comics reviews, Morgan is just perfec tin the roll and desreves more love as an actor.

Finally we have the only two minute men of consequences. Stephen McHattie does a great job as hollis mason though sadly his best scene was cut out of the film, as his death was done BETTER in the extended cut, which I almost reviewed but decided for KEv's wallet and times skae not to. It shows Hollis going down swining, imagining the top knot's as his foes. IT's a great death and I wish it'd been kept in.

Carl Gugino does great as Sally and while she dosen't get many scenes, she is great and I like adding a line about Sally having not regretted her one night stand with Eddie because of wha tit gave her, making her reconcilation with her daughter feel way more plausable.

So with that we just have a few odds and end to

The Cutting Room Floor

As you can probably guess the film exercised a lot. in addition to the various backstories, under the hood and tons of other stuff, pretty much every subplot is excised; The Newspaper Man, the kid with him, Malcom Long, the Lesbians, everyone is gone. The newspaperman and malcom long are unfortunate and it's asd to see them go.. the lesbians not so much as their subplot came off untiotnally homophobic. They also removed mustache cop and you can just imagine my reactoin

Most cuts are understandable. And with that

The Clock Strikes one

So overall Watchmen is a decent film: It has visual flair, some decent aditions, and cast that mostly tries their best even when some aren't given a lot. Is it a GREAT superhero film? Honestly.. no. The cut portions mute the story a bit and Gilliam was likely right that a mini series was a better fit, not to mention there's some tarnish of the time with the executive mandated sex scene and general poor writing for laurie as well as that freaking mars cgi. It's far from a perfect film.. but I still maintain it's pretty good and I still enjoyed it. It's not the best adaptation of the work.. but it's the best it could be within the time, budget and paramenters given and it's a clear labor of love. It's clear Snyder loved watchmen and while he amde some changes, he did his best to get the spirit of it down on film. THe result is a real treat if your a fan of the graphic novel or just a superhero fan in general and if your a fan of snyders, you'll likely enjoy this even more than his justice league works. Doubly if your not a fan. So check it out, it's on HBO max and.. thanks for reading all this way. This has been a decent retrospective and one of th ebiggest and most ambitious project si've done.. But it's time to put away the doomsday clock, let it chime to one in storage.. and stop watching the watchmen. It's been a long road but now.. I rest. See you in the new year.

#watchmen #warner bros #zack snyder #david hayter #david gibbons #jackie earle haley #malin ackerman #dan stevens #matthew goode

8 notes · View notes