(no subject)

[andrewducker]

Empire's review is out:

That Snyder has gotten a version to the screen at all is a triumph. He has found a way — although this is 160 minutes of a dense, geek-orientated blockbuster for grown-ups. Inevitably, but hardly catastrophically, it fails to truly capture the cascade of ideas and bracing cynicism of Moore’s writing. Yet there is a challenging, visually stunning and memorable movie here, moored halfway towards achieving the impossible.

It will also inevitably be judged from two angles: what it means for those that have read the comic-book, and those who will enter the cinema unequipped, say, with the history of the Minutemen, predecessors of the Watchmen, or the nature of Bubastis, Ozymandias’ genetically mutated lynx. Snyder nearly manages a film for both, but errs to the former. While necessarily filleting down the vast story to something palatable for human bladders, he is slavish to the original text. In his desire to encompass the novel’s strands, storylines and their payoffs are short-changed, leaving the film emotionally subdued, more an intellectual mystery than natural thriller.

And there is no compromising for the junior dollar: arms are snapped, heads hatcheted, and Viet-Cong splattered like flies by Dr. Manhattan, while Silk Spectre keeps her kinky boots on during mid-flight coitus. The entire atmosphere, dunking the cleaner lines of the novel into a pungently vivid, rain-sloshed superhero noir, lacquered in blood stains and midnight shadows, is superbly realised, a true world-unto-itself far more stimulating than Iron Man’s Windowlened sparkle or even The Dark Knight’s shimmering, Michael Mann-ish nightscapes.

Good enough for me!

Rest here.

Comments

[bracknellexile.livejournal.com]

Yup, I can live with that too. Wonder how the full 3hr+ version will be when it comes out in the summer. Rumour has it that, unusually for a film that's had its original cut released so recently, that version is also getting limited cinema release in the US.

[meihua.livejournal.com]

What a very reassuring thing to read! I'm really looking forward to it.

[vereybowring.livejournal.com]

I look forward to seeing this, but it will always be with a bit of trepidation as I tend to agree with "inherently unfilmable".

[princealbert.livejournal.com]

I'm looking forward to it, but as Dave Gibbons says it will probably end up being the film adaptation Moore, (if he ever sees it), "hates the least". Added the word film there, because Moore did like the Halo Jones play.

I am looking forward to it, but I am cringing at the changes I know they made. Persuaded poisonduk to read the original material after the film, why have two of us tainted?

The review has its own mistakes too, Moore had already distanced himself from the Studios before Gentlemen, and has always donated his slice to the graphic artists. Gilliam did figure it out, but in the days before CGI got to this level he proposed a 12 part tv series but couldn't get the funding.

And personally I'm not trusting a single review that can only quote Moores previously filmed work, after all he returned to the Watchmen genre years later and filled a whole city with superheroes...

[andrewducker]

The first I heard about him giving away all the money was V for Vendetta. And he only stopped talking to studios at all after that point - particularly when Joel Silver claimed Moore was enthusiastic about the film version.

Certainly when I met him around the time of the LOEG movie he was still happily saying "They give me money to make bad films, and people will be able to tell the difference." - the main thing that killed that for him was having to give evidence in a court case that he hadn't ripped off someone else for the LOEG idea.

I strongly agree with poisonduk not reading it until she's seen the film. diotina read V for Vendetta the week before she saw the movie and it was ruined for her (whereas I hadn't read it in years and rather enjoyed the movie, albeit as being different to the book).

[princealbert.livejournal.com]

From Hell was 2 years earlier and he was already "out of the picture":
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2002/feb/02/sciencefictionfantasyandhorror.books

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the warning. I think my approaching-senior dollar will be happier if it doesn't get spent on more violence than I'm in the mood to see.

Also, much of what I liked about the print version was the very rationalist presentation, and even the trailer I saw months ago implied that it was going to be mor of a dreamlike flickering of sex and violence.

[andrewducker]

Oh, he was absolutely avoiding involvement in the movies - but he wasn't quite so hateful about it all at that point - more condescending to the filmmakers. They could get on with making their pretty pictures, and he would carry on making the works of art.

[johnbobshaun.livejournal.com]

There's also this incredibly detailed 4000 word review at CHUD.

http://chud.com/articles/articles/18250/1/REVIEW-WATCHMEN/Page1.html

Spoilery? Kind of. It talks specifically about how certain scenes have been done and what's been left out.

In short, he thought it was staggeringly good and the main criticism is that it isn't the Director's Cut.