Adult DC
Director Zack Snyder's preferred cut of Watchmen (2009), a DC Universe movie with an alternate world history timeline, taking place in 1985 with lots of flashbacks to the 1940s when a previous bunch of Watchmen battled evil, left me wondering often who these characters are and why I should care about them.
I didn't expect to feel this way about this movie, such a praised work, a favorite of one of my relatives. What it has going for it is an original look, a premise depicting a 1980s America run still by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, surely a nightmare scenario by itself. The film seems ambiguous in its showing of America as a relatively innocent country, when in fact Vietnam was the idea of American politicians and intelligence men. The desire on the part of the CIA to corner the market on Southeast Asia heroin is not a subtlety this film addresses. In fact, Nixon sends to Southeast Asia the Blue Man, Dr. Manhattan, a mutated scientist who can expand or contract his glowing blue body, bending spacetime, blasting into nothingness anybody in his way. Watching him in one scene, about a hundred feet tall, obliterating Viet Cong, didn't sit right in my stomach. I thought, what's the attitude of the filmmaker here?
The Watchmen, in fact, are pretty violent and horrible. The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), one of the original gang, shoots in the heart his Vietnamese girlfriend who's pregnant with his child. Dr. Manhattan has ended the war WMD-style. She wants the Comedian to take responsibility for the child and herself as maybe he promised. He's a killer and in one scene he tries to rape Sally Jupiter (Carla Gugino) i.e. Silk Spectre (her superheroine role). She looks like a million bucks in the scene, taking place in the 1940s, Bettie Page-like underwear. The Comedian kicks her around a bit, takes a few hits himself, shoves her against a pool table, begins unbuckling, pressed against her ass. Interrupted by other team members, he gives off that Jeffrey Dean Morgan shit-eating attitude everyone familiar with The Walking Dead has by now seen a few dozen times. He's a good actor, but sometimes he acts, a problem Paul Newman exhibited. When I see Newman, I can see him acting. It's hard to explain, but it distracts me. It just seems a conscious thing coming through, like when Paul Newman says, "Well..." before saying his line, as he does in several of his films. I'm guessing Newman himself said that in life. Morgan's eye glint, seen in this film and in The Walking Dead should be recognizable to anyone studying this actor.
The world is about to end in an escalating series of steps leading to nuclear war between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. Should the Watchmen get back together and fight crime even though the world's gonna turn to powder next week? Two of these, Laurie Jupiter (daughter of Sally, played by Swedish Malin Akerman, a very gorgeous woman) and Dan Dreiberg (Patrick Wilson) dust off the airship and go into action, saving Hispanic tenement dwellers from a high-up fire. They make love in the auto-piloted ship. We see some of it, the kind of fucking shown on Lifetime Movie Network. We see Laurie's face as she cums, lying back as Dan thrusts inside of her, perfect image of a romance paperback novel cover--she isn't even rubbing herself so it's hard to accept the orgasm's reality in Missionary Position. I began to speculate that Zack Snyder's theatrical release didn't feature these titillating moments. They're really not titillating. They do, unfortunately, contribute a few minutes to the film's excessive three plus hour length.
My lack of familiarity with these characters led me to care not much for them, although I found Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley) interesting. Wearing a mask with an unexplained shifting series of ink stains, a long coat, and an early 1960s brimmed hat, Rorschach is the most dedicated Watchman. Wiry and small, red-haired, resembling John Lydon (Johnny Rotten), Rorschach has a code. He's not ambivalent like nearly everybody else in the film. Most ambivalent of all is the Blue Man. Laurie leaves him, goes to Dan. This ultimate human, created in a technobabble experiment, has to mull over the fact that she left him and now she's with someone named Dan.
Dan! Dan! I can see the Blue Man brain-crafting his glass ship on Mars, putting pieces into place...Dan, Dan, Dan! Full views of this character, played by Billy Crudup, show a naked glowing blue man, no hair, translucent skin, energy flowing through his body like blood, a limp penis dangling, always dangling. The dangling penis ruins many of his best moments. The alternative would be to make it hard, I guess. As he incinerates Vietnamese defending their country from imperialist manipulations and theft, his raging blue cock spews white matter more toxic than Agent Orange.
There's a lot to consider in this movie. The beauty of Malin Akerman. Carla Gugino's faded decadent 1980s character, remembering the past. Rorschach confronted in prison by those he put there (that old story). A man getting his arms power sawed off. A midget smashed headfirst against a toilet rim, blood mixing with the overfill flush. Dan's big-lensed 1980s glasses. A parody of CNN's political debate show of the 1980s, Crossfire. Nixon deciding to preemptively strike the Soviet Union, the tactic of surprise, with the acceptable losses of tens of millions of Americans on the East Coast before all Soviet missiles are neutralized.
Something, too, about tachyons traveling backward in time, affecting the normal timeline. Could explain why Ronald Reagan is referred to as a presidential candidate announcing a 1988 run.
There's too much in this movie to absorb in one sitting. It seemed like two films, even three. An entire film dealing with the first Watchmen of the World War Two era would clarify things. Instead, a montage during the credits covers about forty years, showing, for instance, the Comedian shooting JFK in the head. Why he did this is never explained. Does he work for others than the Watchmen? I felt, especially in the first half, as if the filmmaker expected me to know who these people are. There seemed no character development leading to their first appearances on screen. Each character arrives fully inside themselves. This is a strength, but here it made it difficult for me to comprehend where these people are coming from.
The Blue Man, giving Laurie a tour of Mars in his glass ship, goes from wanting to live a completely sterile life on a lifeless world to rejoining her on a quest to stop one of their old colleagues from, I'm guessing, destroying the world for some reason. All she does is cry and smash her fists against the weirdly fragile glass ship, which collapses into shards. He has a revelation that her parents meeting and creating her, just her, is the true miracle, and off they fizzle to Earth to contribute to the fight. Super-being confronted with a woman's tears. Super-being changes all of his plans.
I'm aware of the risk of taking on a popular film, finding it difficult to swallow, receiving heated responses. I welcome criticism of my criticisms. I'm offering my viewpoint having just seen it. I'm not sure if it's good or not. I'd have to watch it again; maybe if I see the theatrical release I'll enjoy it more. There's too much in this movie is my judgment in essence.
Vic Neptune
Director Zack Snyder's preferred cut of Watchmen (2009), a DC Universe movie with an alternate world history timeline, taking place in 1985 with lots of flashbacks to the 1940s when a previous bunch of Watchmen battled evil, left me wondering often who these characters are and why I should care about them.
I didn't expect to feel this way about this movie, such a praised work, a favorite of one of my relatives. What it has going for it is an original look, a premise depicting a 1980s America run still by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, surely a nightmare scenario by itself. The film seems ambiguous in its showing of America as a relatively innocent country, when in fact Vietnam was the idea of American politicians and intelligence men. The desire on the part of the CIA to corner the market on Southeast Asia heroin is not a subtlety this film addresses. In fact, Nixon sends to Southeast Asia the Blue Man, Dr. Manhattan, a mutated scientist who can expand or contract his glowing blue body, bending spacetime, blasting into nothingness anybody in his way. Watching him in one scene, about a hundred feet tall, obliterating Viet Cong, didn't sit right in my stomach. I thought, what's the attitude of the filmmaker here?
The Watchmen, in fact, are pretty violent and horrible. The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), one of the original gang, shoots in the heart his Vietnamese girlfriend who's pregnant with his child. Dr. Manhattan has ended the war WMD-style. She wants the Comedian to take responsibility for the child and herself as maybe he promised. He's a killer and in one scene he tries to rape Sally Jupiter (Carla Gugino) i.e. Silk Spectre (her superheroine role). She looks like a million bucks in the scene, taking place in the 1940s, Bettie Page-like underwear. The Comedian kicks her around a bit, takes a few hits himself, shoves her against a pool table, begins unbuckling, pressed against her ass. Interrupted by other team members, he gives off that Jeffrey Dean Morgan shit-eating attitude everyone familiar with The Walking Dead has by now seen a few dozen times. He's a good actor, but sometimes he acts, a problem Paul Newman exhibited. When I see Newman, I can see him acting. It's hard to explain, but it distracts me. It just seems a conscious thing coming through, like when Paul Newman says, "Well..." before saying his line, as he does in several of his films. I'm guessing Newman himself said that in life. Morgan's eye glint, seen in this film and in The Walking Dead should be recognizable to anyone studying this actor.
The world is about to end in an escalating series of steps leading to nuclear war between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. Should the Watchmen get back together and fight crime even though the world's gonna turn to powder next week? Two of these, Laurie Jupiter (daughter of Sally, played by Swedish Malin Akerman, a very gorgeous woman) and Dan Dreiberg (Patrick Wilson) dust off the airship and go into action, saving Hispanic tenement dwellers from a high-up fire. They make love in the auto-piloted ship. We see some of it, the kind of fucking shown on Lifetime Movie Network. We see Laurie's face as she cums, lying back as Dan thrusts inside of her, perfect image of a romance paperback novel cover--she isn't even rubbing herself so it's hard to accept the orgasm's reality in Missionary Position. I began to speculate that Zack Snyder's theatrical release didn't feature these titillating moments. They're really not titillating. They do, unfortunately, contribute a few minutes to the film's excessive three plus hour length.
My lack of familiarity with these characters led me to care not much for them, although I found Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley) interesting. Wearing a mask with an unexplained shifting series of ink stains, a long coat, and an early 1960s brimmed hat, Rorschach is the most dedicated Watchman. Wiry and small, red-haired, resembling John Lydon (Johnny Rotten), Rorschach has a code. He's not ambivalent like nearly everybody else in the film. Most ambivalent of all is the Blue Man. Laurie leaves him, goes to Dan. This ultimate human, created in a technobabble experiment, has to mull over the fact that she left him and now she's with someone named Dan.
Dan! Dan! I can see the Blue Man brain-crafting his glass ship on Mars, putting pieces into place...Dan, Dan, Dan! Full views of this character, played by Billy Crudup, show a naked glowing blue man, no hair, translucent skin, energy flowing through his body like blood, a limp penis dangling, always dangling. The dangling penis ruins many of his best moments. The alternative would be to make it hard, I guess. As he incinerates Vietnamese defending their country from imperialist manipulations and theft, his raging blue cock spews white matter more toxic than Agent Orange.
There's a lot to consider in this movie. The beauty of Malin Akerman. Carla Gugino's faded decadent 1980s character, remembering the past. Rorschach confronted in prison by those he put there (that old story). A man getting his arms power sawed off. A midget smashed headfirst against a toilet rim, blood mixing with the overfill flush. Dan's big-lensed 1980s glasses. A parody of CNN's political debate show of the 1980s, Crossfire. Nixon deciding to preemptively strike the Soviet Union, the tactic of surprise, with the acceptable losses of tens of millions of Americans on the East Coast before all Soviet missiles are neutralized.
Something, too, about tachyons traveling backward in time, affecting the normal timeline. Could explain why Ronald Reagan is referred to as a presidential candidate announcing a 1988 run.
There's too much in this movie to absorb in one sitting. It seemed like two films, even three. An entire film dealing with the first Watchmen of the World War Two era would clarify things. Instead, a montage during the credits covers about forty years, showing, for instance, the Comedian shooting JFK in the head. Why he did this is never explained. Does he work for others than the Watchmen? I felt, especially in the first half, as if the filmmaker expected me to know who these people are. There seemed no character development leading to their first appearances on screen. Each character arrives fully inside themselves. This is a strength, but here it made it difficult for me to comprehend where these people are coming from.
The Blue Man, giving Laurie a tour of Mars in his glass ship, goes from wanting to live a completely sterile life on a lifeless world to rejoining her on a quest to stop one of their old colleagues from, I'm guessing, destroying the world for some reason. All she does is cry and smash her fists against the weirdly fragile glass ship, which collapses into shards. He has a revelation that her parents meeting and creating her, just her, is the true miracle, and off they fizzle to Earth to contribute to the fight. Super-being confronted with a woman's tears. Super-being changes all of his plans.
I'm aware of the risk of taking on a popular film, finding it difficult to swallow, receiving heated responses. I welcome criticism of my criticisms. I'm offering my viewpoint having just seen it. I'm not sure if it's good or not. I'd have to watch it again; maybe if I see the theatrical release I'll enjoy it more. There's too much in this movie is my judgment in essence.
Vic Neptune
Comments
Post a Comment