I recently tried out that movie-mailed-to-home thing, and, well, I guess I live too far out in the boonies to really get the best of this deal. It takes me about a week before I can get a movie, and then another week to get another movie (even if I send the viewed movie back the next day!). However, I did get the chance to see Watchmen (directed by Zack Snyder) last night, a movie I was looking forward to.
First off, I like super-heroes. Spider-man. Superman. X-Men. I'm all over it. The action is usually pretty great and the plots (while a tad predictable) are satisfying. So, when I popped Watchmen into the DVD player, I was expecting something along those same lines. Mainly, entertainment.
Er, not so much.
"Watchmen" is set in an alternate 1985 America in which costumed superheroes are part of the fabric of everyday society, and the "Doomsday Clock" - which charts the USA's tension with the Soviet Union - is permanently set at five minutes to midnight. When one of his former colleagues is murdered, the washed up but no less determined masked vigilante Rorschach sets out to uncover a plot to kill and discredit all past and present superheroes. As he reconnects with his former crime-fighting legion - a ragtag group of retired superheroes, only one of whom has true powers - Rorschach glimpses a wide-ranging and disturbing conspiracy with links to their shared past and catastrophic consequences for the future. Their mission is to watch over humanity... but who is watching the Watchmen?" Written by T-Hen (Courtesy of www.imdb.com)
I never thought I'd call a super-hero movie deep, disturbing or thought-invoking, but this was all of those things. It starts off with The Comedian getting murdered (pretty typical action movie, right?) but then it pans back into all this political stuff dealing with the Cold War and nuclear warheads. You see glimpses into the Comedian's past, and, well, he's not what you would call a typical super-hero. Not even a typical dark and tormented super-hero. If I could sum it up in one word, I would say that he's a bastard. Definitely not what you would think of when you think of a "good guy".
And then we get a very GRAPHIC (har har) history of all the other flawed super-heroes. Even Dr. Manhattan (who is often referred to as 'god-like') is apathetic and unconcerned with the fate of humanity. (Is that an alliteration for God? Probably.) This is shown in a disturbing (yes, I'm going to use that word many times in this post) exchange between the Comedian and Dr. Manhattan in Vietnam. Thinking about it now still makes me shudder.
The beginning is slow, but when you get to the end, all those scenes that make you think "Ok, yeah, so? Can we move on please?" make sense in the end. It's definitely a movie you have to pay attention to, so if you're looking for mindless entertainment, I'd pass on this one.
I wouldn't recommend letting the kids watch this one either. It's Rated R for a reason (and trust me, there are a LOT of reasons, including watching two dogs play tug-of-war with a girl's leg.) However, if you're wanting to watch a movie that will make you think, definitely pick this one up. If you're anything like me, you will be deeply affected. And also saying, WTF?
Memorable quote:
Adrian Veidt: It doesn't take a genius to see the world has problems.
Edward Blake (aka The Comedian): No, but it takes a room full of morons to think they're small enough for you to handle.
Watchmen is a movie I probably won't watch again, at least not for awhile. It is definitely NOT mindless entertainment. "Disturbing" is a good word. It was disturbing how each of the "heroes" could have easily been a villain. And the two heroes who were hero-ist of them all were still brutally violent individuals. The climax pretty much epitomizes the non-black-and-white mentality of the whole movie.
ReplyDeleteI agree about not seeing it again. It's one of those movies that only takes one time to leave an impression. Sort of like Passion of the Christ. I'll never watch that movie again either.
ReplyDeleteYea, that blue guy, he had a really, really, big.... brain. =P I went to see this in theatre, and some guy had his kids, like 7 and 12 there with him. I alot of people hit him up, and then he about got mobbed becuase he blew up on a few of them.
ReplyDeleteAs for the movie, meh, I watched it, but after getting done, I just really thought, this is kinda something our politicians would do, on a much smaller scale. As for the thinking thing, really music makes me think more than movies do. I can connect with the singer and really understand his pain, been thru quite a bit in the past. For instance, here, I am listening to Hollywood Undead - Circles, and the video this person put together on youtube really flows with it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FXJItBMhGo
Check it out.