Merry Christmas guys! Start drinking because 2010 will be a very tough year. Swiner Flu deaths have...
Merry Christmas guys! Start drinking because 2010 will be a very tough year. Swiner Flu deaths have risen 10% world wide this week alone and Iran is in Obamas gunsight.
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To be honest I'm unaware of the whole 'Watchmen' legacy , other than it's a revered graphic novel and its famous author, Alan Moore, lives in my hometown of Northampton, presumably where he got the apocalyptic and grim utopian inspiration from for it. If only Northampton was as uplifting as the said book. Jeffrey from Rainbow is the only other famous person born in Northampton I have seen lately.
Alan can occasionally be spotted walking around the town and lives quite frugally in his two up - two down urban terrace house in one of the towns more salubrious areas, rather odd considering how loaded he must be, The League of Extraordinary Gentleman, From Hell and the excellent V For Vendetta also his. When I did see him I asked the rather dishevelled and bearded crazy-eyed one what he thought of this movie. He mumbled something derogatory I can't possibly repeat here pertaining to still not seeing it and not intending to until a certain hell freezes over. I have no idea how the books ethos parries with the film but he's clearly not impressed. In Moore's view, the film industry as a whole is guilty of "watering down our collective cultural imagination". He has likened the cinema-going public to "freshly hatched birds with mouths open as Hollywood feeds them regurgitated worms". As quoted in the Guardian...
He was originally asked to do the screenplay back in the late 1980s, that time gap expressing just how long this film has been in production, but Moore declining that offer, the wonderfully named Sam Hamm getting the contract but his screenplay also going unused. At this point I should apologise if the reality of Moore living in boring old Northampton walking around
like a tramp has somewhat destroyed the fantasy of the man and his work some of you revere so much and I will duly get back on message. By the way guys this is long movie, some 160 minutes or so, so you will need to get the Scooby Snacks in. And by all accounts there's a lot lot more of it on the cutting room floor by all accounts. If you want his autograph we are on staring terms and I know were he lives so leave it with me.lol.
-Chronicle & Echo trivia-
Alan Moore is the second person who has lived in Northampton to appear in The Simpson's, Roger Moore the other. Two Moore's. What are the chances!
-The Cast-
Malin Akerman ... Laurie Jupiter / Silk Spectre II Billy Crudup ... Dr. Manhattan / Jon Osterman Matthew Goode ... Adrian Veidt / Ozymandias Jackie Earle Haley ... Walter Kovacs / Rorschach Jeffrey Dean Morgan ... Edward Blake / The Comedian Patrick Wilson ... Dan Dreiberg / Nite Owl II Carla Gugino ... Sally Jupiter / Silk Spectre Matt Frewer ... Edgar Jacobi / Moloch the Mystic Stephen McHattie ... Hollis Mason / Nite Owl Laura Mennell ... Janey Slater Rob LaBelle ... Wally Weaver Gary Houston ... John McLaughlin
-The Plot-
After a very bold opening credit sequence we are in early 1980s New York and someone Called 'The Comedian' (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is about to be thrown out of the twentieth floor window to his death, his masked assailant possessing superhero strength. We learn that Blake ,a.k.a The Comedien, through flashback, is one of the 'Minutemen', a group of now retired superhero's that changed history as we know it back in the 1960s, like winning the Vietnam War for Nixon so he could have his full two terms, meddling with every iconic moment of that decade for right or wrong. If there was a problem the Minutemen would sort it.
Dan Dreiberg (Patrick Wilson), one of the surviving mothballed Minutemen-his superhero name 'Nite Owl II'- is very concerned about 'The Comedians' death and suspects he and the other living Minutemen are under threat, to the point where he gets in contact with the said motley crew. They are token superhero 'totty' Silk Spectre 11(Malin Akerman) who is dating fellow Minuteman Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup), a living super being that is made up of blue atoms and glows a lot.
Where as the others want to remain anonymous the most public Minuteman, billionaire Adrian Veidt / Ozymandias (Mathew Goode), revels in his fame and crime fighting history, currently working on new free energy sources, Dr Manhattan the chief scientist on one of his projects, these two the most intelligent of the Minutemen. Walter Kovacs / Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley), on the other hand, is the black sheep of the superhero family, soon in the frame for the murder of The Comedian. Dr Manhattan is also under scrutiny, people close to him dying of radiation poisoning, both men soon having to explain their actions through various bodies in the public eye.
Dr Manhattan is able to predict the future, but only seeing nuclear war and total destruction for Earth, the theme of the film, the doomsday clock at 11:55 and ticking fast, the world on edge fearing America and Russia are about to fling those nukes. Manhattan, for all his super powers, able to work, rest and play at the same time, can't keep his woman happy though, a blossoming romance between his girl and Drieberg an increasing distraction. But with the world now on the precipices the greying Minutemen have no choice but to reform of sorts and to take to the streets and skies to bring back law and order and try and find out who exactly is trying to kill them and, more importantly, why.
-The conclusion-
It's hard to know what to think about this movie, reading the graphic novel before you watch this probably essential so to critic it. The sophisticated political message that the comic book is known for did seem to become scrambled here some early on and director Zack Snyder of '300' fame perhaps too keen to the pursue special effects angle to disguise that cop out, which always results in clunky dialogue, the ultimate sin to Moore fans, although it could have been a lot worse as Michael Bay was connected with it once.
After we are introduced to the characters and their secret lives the film then rambles on through the past, present and future to construct some sort of narrative, offering you plenty of hints on who the bad guy may turn out to be. As it has been dumbed down so much the film isn't that inspiring and the story on show here rather weak, that political message and some of the sexual perversion and extreme violence Moore salivates over completely gutted from the final cut. It is based on a graphic novel after all.
The cinematography is pretty good and it doesn't try to be too graphic novel like Sin City and '300' were. Maybe the producers looked at the numbers those movies did in the multiplexes and didn't want to risk that style that adhered to a niche audience. I suspect The Watchmen fans expected it to be more like Sin City's X-Rated stuff and so part of the reason that hardcore demographic apparently didn't take to this on its DVD release. It really did polarise opinion in the recognised film press on its cinema release, although scored surprisingly well on the Internet Movie Data Base, suggesting someone understood it for what it was, what ever that is. But if fellow Northampton boy Alan Moore doesn't like what they have done to his work and I am cut from the same no compromise local cloth then so be it. Maybe I should read the comic book and then rewrite this review in the BluRay section to get is true meaning because quite frankly I just don't get what the legend is all about.
= = = = Special Features = = = =
-Mechanics: technologies of a fantastic world-
Some boffin discuses the validities of the science and science-fiction in the movie...
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Imdb.com scores it 7.9 out of 10.0 (97,812 votes) RuN-TiMe 162 MINUTES Any 2 films for 2 nights for £5 at Blockbusters = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Summary: Comic book yawn....
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Production Year: 1964 - Action/Adventure - Director: Cyril Endfield - Original Language: English - Classification: Parental Guidance - Starring:Stanley Baker, Jack Hawkins, Ulla Jacobsson, James Booth, Michael Caine, Nigel Green
Production Year: 2002 - Action/Adventure - Director: Vincenzo Natali - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring:Lucy Liu, David Hewlett, Anne Marie Scheffler, Joseph Scoren, Matthew Sharp, Jeremy Northam
Advantages: Visually superb. Very faithful to its source material. Exciting. Beautiful Disadvantages: Female characterisation and casting flawed. Ozymandias' hair. Slightly slow centre section
mattygroves 07.03.2009 (08.03.2009)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Watchmen (DVD)
Advantages: The sequences with Dr Manhattan, the intermittent bursts of genuine cinematic invention. Disadvantages: The rancid, disgusting streak of misogyny.
DavidJay 16.03.2009 (16.03.2009)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Watchmen (DVD)
Sep 5th, 2009
exceptional by (11%):
very helpful by (89%):
