Watchmen (Zack Snyder, 2009)

[dx23]

Apparently, the cast of the film have a sequel clause in their contracts.

[dr. calamari]

A history of Watchmen-to-film failures

Warning: It has a depressing ending.

More depressing than the film got made?

[HarryLong]

the cast of the film have a sequel clause in their contracts

Which will not happen if the film tanks.
(No director's cut in July, either.)
My suspicion, based on the early reviews [the fanboys like it because it doesn't mess too much with the original storyline, critics evaluating it as a movie hate it]:
It will have a big opening weekend ... maybe two ... and then sink from sight.

[Murdoch]

A history of Watchmen-to-film failures

Warning: It has a depressing ending.

More depressing than the film got made?

That's the depressing ending.

[royalton]

Lane aside, I actually think the description of Snyder's aesthetic as combat eroticism or fascistic is fairly accurate - it's imbued all his movies, leaving 300 and the truly mediocre Dawn remake to wow people with sound and fury they could've just gotten better for their money at, say, 28 Days Later. What's more, he doesn't have the true creative spark - or venom for what he's glorifying - that, say, Paul Verhoeven does. He just seems like a silly kid trying to do cool shit with violence.

The fanboy reviews have begun to turn sour over at AICN and it doesn't surprise me. The general attitude seems to follow the rest of the press - Snyder is so obsessed with the action dynamics and the literal translation that the whole thing collapses under its own pristine whatzhoosis. Plus, Malin Akerman.

[Antoine Doinel]

Apparently, the cast of the film have a sequel clause in their contracts.

Pretty much every cast member and Snyder has gone on record saying they won't do a sequel. Which isn't to say WB won't find a way to make a sequel or prequel if this film is successful.

[RidgeShark]

Wow, Roger Ebert gives it 4 stars and wants to see it again!

[dx23]

Wow, Roger Ebert gives it 4 stars and wants to see it again!

I'm really surprised since I expected Ebert to blast the film for all the nuances that have been mentioned in this thread.

[domino harvey]

Are you kidding? I knew Ebert would fall for it

[statsman]

Ebert has one guiding principle as a critic- How good was the movie at accomplishing what it was trying to do? That's why he's the best critic going for trash movies, exploitation films, etc. He compares "Reanimator" to other low budget horror films, not to "The Shining".

Sometimes he gets it wrong, such as with his "Phantom Menace" review, where he seemed to want to believe it was better than it was, and minimized the significance of its failings. From reading his review, it seems that a lot of the things he liked were derived from the original graphic novel, which Snyder slavishly followed.

I'm going to see it. I intend to form my personal rating on whether or not the movie adds to the story in the manner that film is uniquely suited to do. Is the visual image better than the books? Is the movie able to make me care more about the characters and their relationships? These are the things good movies excel at.

[dx23]

Are you kidding? I knew Ebert would fall for it

Really? I thought Armond White was going to do the honors of giving it an splendid review, but he has also surprised me. Still, his review is as idiotic as they come.

[domino harvey]

Props to him on getting to "hipster" in less than fifty words

[jbeall]

Among unsophisticated readers, Alan Moore’s melange of cultural history passes for postmodern analysis when it’s merely kitsch.

So the original graphic novel is "merely kitsch" and we're all too unsophisticated to realize it? Damn. 8-[

Neither political satire nor camp, it fails the unique, fantasy mix of classicism and modernism that distinguished both 300 and Vin Diesel’s The Chronicles of Riddick

Gotta say, though, you know a movie's bad when it compares unfavorably to 300 and Chronicles of Riddick.

[GoldenPilgrim]

Two friends of mine caught a midnight showing last night. Both of them love the graphic novel, had seen the jail footage, and were still really looking forward to the movie.

They both said that it was awful, and that they laughed through most of it.

Not that this blows anyone's mind around here, but even fanboys hate it.

[dx23]

Among unsophisticated readers, Alan Moore’s melange of cultural history passes for postmodern analysis when it’s merely kitsch.

So the original graphic novel is "merely kitsch" and we're all too unsophisticated to realize it? Damn.

You are giving Armond to much thought. Kitsch and melange were probably the words of the day in his calendar, so he had to incorporate them to his daily living and "review". He probably said that lunch was kitsch that day and it was the cook's melange of culinary history that caused that.

[Cde.]

...imagine a Watchmen film with an aesthetic like Suspiria's.

[jbeall]

You are giving Armond to much thought. Kitsch and melange were probably the words of the day in his calendar, so he had to incorporate them to his daily living and "review". He probably said that lunch was kitsch that day and it was the cook's melange of culinary history that caused that.

I've posted a couple of rants about what an asshat Armond is, so I thought my post was pretty restrained! Clearly, they guy just throws $10 words into his reviews without any clue what he's talking about.

[karmajuice]

Not to agree with Armond, but I'm about halfway through Watchmen now (I started it twice before without getting to finish it, so I finally bought it) and I'm not nearly impressed as I should be. Don't get me wrong, it's very good and some parts of it are masterful, but. . . well, I wouldn't call it kitsch, but over-rated certainly fits the bill.

I haven't finished it, though, so that's only a half-formulated judgment. More on that later. (And I may or may not see the movie, haven't decided yet.)

[Cold Bishop]

This is better than any footage I've seen from Snyder's film.

[jbeall]

The NY Times review is up.

The only character in “Watchmen” who possesses actual superpowers — resulting from an accident at a top-secret government research lab in the late 1950s — is Dr. Manhattan, a blue, bald, naked dude with blank eyes and the voice of Billy Crudup. Dr. Manhattan’s existence is busy and fairly melancholy, but I do envy him his ability to perceive every moment of past and future time as a part of a continuous present.
If I had that power, the 2 hours 40 minutes of Zack Snyder’s grim and grisly excursion into comic-book mythology might not have felt quite so interminable.

[domino harvey]

This is better than any footage I've seen from Snyder's film.

Amazing

[knives]

This is better than any footage I've seen from Snyder's film.

This is the best super related thing I've seen since that Mr. Incredible/ Frozone cartoon.

[jbeall]

Surprisingly, Andrew O'Hehir thought it was great.

I'm shocked to be writing this, given the number of screenwriters, directors and studios this adaptation of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' ground-breaking 1986 anti-superhero comic series has gone through, but "Watchmen" is absolutely devastating. Dense, intense, tragic and visionary, this is the kind of movie that keeps setting off bombs in your brain hours after you've seen it. After coming out of the theater, I wandered the frozen streets of Manhattan watching passersby and wondering which was the real city, the apparently peaceful one I inhabit now or the one that faces Armageddon at the mid-'80s height of the Cold War in the Moore-Gibbons universe. If I could have gone back inside and watched the movie all over again, I'd have done it.

[royalton]

I'm re-reading the TPB as prep, so I'll weigh in in a couple days hopefully. Just reading this again after so long makes me hope it works out onscreen, despite all my misgivings and complaints about The Snyd.

[hot_locket]

My review: When important dramatic weight is given to horrible Nixon impersonations lasting more than 10 seconds, you know you have a winner on your hands. Yet such choices are not even in the top 100 of "Horrible Things Zack Snyder Should Never Have Even Considered in Making This Movie".

All in all, worst movie-going experience since Transformers.