I don’t get it. I just don’t get it. I guess this movie is for fans, even though there are apparently enough differences to rile up the most hardcore of fanboys. I’ve never read the graphic novel [Book | Blu-ray] and never really had the desire to read it. Just wasn’t on my radar. So I don’t know anything really about the source, the story, what’s missing, what’s an exact frame grab from the book. So my review is coming from that angle.

First off, it’s a long movie. The director’s cut that supposedly will be released in theatres in a few months (and assuredly on Blu-ray/DVD) is supposed to be an additional half hour or so. As it stands the movie is just over 2.5 hours. And it starts out slow. The pacing of the first 20 or so minutes is drag along slow. It definitely picks up. There isn’t a ton of Zach Synder time shifting. I think the dialogue and the voice-overs kind of add to the slow pace of the film. I think, as has been written a few times, the dialogue, while apparently pretty slavish to the source, doesn’t really work well out loud. This next sentence shows how unfamiliar I am with the source. The dialogue sounds like Tarantino dialogue. Tarantino-Kill-Bill dialogue. Very stilted. Tarantino did it to mimic the samurai flicks he loved. And here it was done to show the love of the source. I think it kind of detracted from the movie here. Sort of the same thing as in Sin City [Blu-ray | DVD].

I can’t say the movie stuck out too much visually for me. There were some cool visuals, but as it stands right now, I can’t say anything comes to mind as particularly memorable. I can say, even though I didn’t read the source graphic novel, that there were clearly scenes in this movie that were direct grabs from the frames of the comic. And you could tell because they seemed to stay on screen a beat longer than necessary. Or were overtly “stylized.”

I think the performances, save Jackie Earl Haley, were fairly mundane. Patrick Wilson was passable as a kind of middle of the road guy in his post-hero life. Malin Ackerman just seemed flat. I think Jeffrey Dean Morgan did okay with what he was given. Billy Crudup, I mean, I guess it was an interesting performance in as much as it was written devoid of emotion, for the most part, and played as such. Jackie Earl Haley was spectacular I think. The bits of Rorschach sans mask were the best parts of the movie. I even got past his Christian Bale Batman Dark Knight gravel after a bit, though it really bothered me at first. I think Matthew Goode was okay in his role. I couldn’t get past the fact that he looks kind of like a “normal” Steve Buscemi.

I will probably watch this movie once more when it’s out on disc. Just to catch some of the detail. And then probably never again. I can’t say this movie will stand the test of time like a lot of the lovers of the movie do. I can’t say that it was the best way to tell the story of the “unfilmable” graphic novel. I can see how this story really appeals to college age kids. And things you love in college you tend to love into full on adulthood. And I think that plays a role in some of the reviews out there. It’s kind of like Fight Club [DVD] in that respect. I love Fight Club. The book, the movie, the whole nine. But it’s kind of a college/rebellion/rage against the machine kind of thing that really flourishes in college. The book and the movie are good. Both have problems that I willingly overlook because of my love of it. I think Watchmen is the same thing. Though I’m not saying this is as good a movie as Fight Club or that Synder is anywhere on Fincher’s level. Just that loving something at that time of life resonates for a long time.

Watchmen definitely has an audience. I don’t think it’s a movie made for the population at large. It feels a bit like Serenity [Blu-ray | DVD] in that regard. A vocal group of fans (I can’t say how large a group), but not sure it really resonates with the general population.

Addition: By the way, the world that Watchmen populates sounds a lot like what I’ve heard of Araonofsky’s Batman (via /Film).

“It was a hard, R-rated Batman,” he says. “What I pitched them was Travis Bickle meets The French Connection — a real guy running around fighting crime. No super-powers, no villains, just corruption. For the Batmobile, I had him taking a bus engine and sticking it in a black Lincoln. Real low-tech geek stuff.” (via Cinematical)

The /filmcast guys have a more detailed synopsis in one of the podcasts, but I can’t remember which one. If I find/remember it, I’ll link it here.

[Blu-ray | DVD]

I’ve only seen the Ang Lee Hulk [Blu-ray | DVD] in bits and pieces as it aired on television, so I can’t really compare this to that. I thought this movie was okay. I didn’t quite understand the second plot point of General Ross pursuing Banner to get his Hulk-ness or whatever, since he clearly had some sort of magic juice to make soldiers all kinds of hyped.

If I were Ed Norton, I wouldn’t have been fighting so much to have my name on the script. I didn’t quite buy his post-Hulk Banner. I thought William Hurt as General Ross was better than Jeff Bridges as Obadiah Stane. Though I thought maybe the role needed more of a moral quandary for him picking between his weapon and his daughter. Liv Tyler was serviceable. I recently watched her in The Strangers and she sure can scream, but I don’t know if anyone does a plaintive whisper better than her. Tim Blake Nelson played his usual kind of offbeat guy. Wasn’t sure about Tim Roth as the British special forces guy. I mean he had the attitude down, but dunno. And if he was such a long-standing special forces guy, I suppose I could make the argument that he is used to acting independently, etc., but I’d also think that he’d have a real respect for, if not a whole chain of command, the very top ring of said chain.

The movie was okay. The visuals were alright. I can’t say that I thought the CGI was integrated seamlessly, but it looked alright.

[DVD]

Just don’t bother. I’m a Statham fanboy, but this is probably worse than The Transporter 2 [Blu-ray | DVD], Transporter 3, and War [Blu-ray | DVD] combined.

[Blu-ray | DVD]

So I watched Cloverfield way back when, but wanted to see it on blu-ray so hit up the Netflix to watch it again in HD. I wasn’t particularly fond of this movie the first time I saw it. I mean to say, I didn’t particularly care about this movie the first time I saw it. I can’t say a second viewing, HD or not, has changed my mind on it.

I think Cloverfield is commendable in the same way M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs [Blu-ray | DVD] was commendable. But it also suffers the same major problem. Both of the movies were so scary dealing with the unknown. Signs was particularly effective with it. Cloverfield did as much as it could with the concept given that it was a godzilla flick. But the point is, and this has been much covered before me, the less I actually saw of the monsters in the respective movies, the scarier they were. I was unbelievably disappointed when I saw the alien in Signs. And I certainly was disappointed when I saw the full monster in Cloverfield, as well as the little bugs.

I know there is no way to go without showing either. If they hadn’t been shown there would’ve been huge outcry. “The largest macguffin ever!” “What kind of monster movies doesn’t show the monster?!” But I really feel seeing both really took away from the suspense and fear the movies built up. J.J. Abrams produced Cloverfield. And I really wish he had pushed Matt Reeves, the director, to take a pseudo-Mission: Impossible III [Blu-ray | DVD] tactic. In that movie, J.J. Abrams had Ethan Hunt chase down “The Rabbit’s Foot.” In the movie, it’s is the macguffin. But it is never explained. What it is, what it does, why we should be worried it’s in terrorists’ hands. Nothing. But who cares. That it is there is the reason for worry. Do we really need to know all the minute details?

I think this would’ve worked great in Signs or Cloverfield. We know NYC is being ravaged by some huge monster (by the way, I really disliked the seeming from nowhere insect monsters, there had to be a better way to introduce other scary things than that idea). Do we really want to see it? Do we really NEED to see it?

[DVD]

This movie might’ve been good. I have no idea. I had it on the full running time, but it didn’t interest me enough to watch carefully. I suppose that’s an indication of what I thought of the movie as well.

[Blu-ray | DVD]

Okay, so I wrote tangentially about this movie way back when in the context of race. So here’s my review after actually having finally seen the movie. It’s classic Rocky. It’s not a bad movie. Buy only in as much as it apes EVERY SINGLE good boxing movie ever made. That’s all there is to it. From Raging Bull [Blu-ray | DVD] to Ali [DVD] to all of the previous Rockys [DVD], it’s all in there. So it’s good because it takes all the best parts, but bad because it’s just derivative? It definitely made me nostalgic for my youth and watching the Rocky series. I can also say, after 6 movies, nobody, and I mean NOBODY, does a better training montage piece than the Rocky series.

[Blu-ray | DVD]

I can’t say I was a fan. This movie was certainly a visual spectacle. And that covers a WHOLE lot of ground for me. I can deal with a lot of bad just to watch a movie that looks good (see e.g. Michael Bay movies). But that said, I can’t say that this movie really accomplished that for me. I mean it is a visual movie. And colorful. And all of that. And most definitely had some amazing vistas and locations. But it was kind of mostly about costume and color. And I don’t think that those two things were used as artistically as they were in “Hero”.

I guess I was just bored by the dynamic of the two central characters. Even at the end, when it took a slightly more melodramatic turn, I just couldn’t buy into it. It’s not a terrible movie and it’s contains some beautiful imagery (looked amazing on blu-ray), just not something I’d really watch again.

[Blu-ray | DVD]

Wow, what a thrill ride. This is a horror movie of the top order. It just throws you into a night of terror. A random night of terror by basically never known assailants. I recently watched The Descent and it suffered from the same kinds of problems that Signs by Shamalan [Blu-ray | DVD]. It ruined the suspense with crazy bad monsters/aliens. The Strangers showed the crazy killers in masks. And unmasked them. But never really showed them. And “You were home” just added to the total random nature of the terror. It was basically all “unexpected” scares, but not bad. There were only EIGHT characters in the whole movie. That’s how focused the movie was on the scary alone. If you like scary movies, this one ain’t bad at all.

[Blu-ray | DVD]

This was about as typical thriller/conman movie as you could get. The basic plot points/twists were all there. Nerdy guy looking to live life. Suave con man. Hooker with the heart of gold. Turn the tables. Happy ending. BORING.

[DVD]

I love Charlotte Gainsbourg, and not even she could hold my attention in this movie. Maybe I’m just not the target audience.