Categories: and-another-thing
Date: 28 July 2009 21:24:47
((or: Trailer trouble)).
I wanted to like the film of the graphic novel Watchmen.
I REALLY wanted to like it. Watchmen has long been one of my favourite works of any medium and, to be honest, getting it to the screen seemed to have taken such a herculean effort I wanted to enjoy it, any of it, and let go of the issues. It's such an emotive story that I was expecting to be picking nits... I just wanted to enjoy the whole. I didn't really like V for Vendetta as a translation but enjoyed it nonetheless. The Graphic novel is better but I found a fair amount to enjoy in the film. That's at least what I hoped for from Watchmen.
OH BOY.
Just finished watching the DVD. Shan't do a review. A: everyone's probably doing that and B: I don't want to waste too much time typing.
Wasn't good though.
The main problem is the lack of subtlety. Not in terms of content, the graphic novel is in places dark and violent and a film that captured that vision might end up being similarly punchy. It's the tone that was bodged. That and the character motivations.
Two examples before I get onto the next job I need to be doing:
1: Rorshach, when he reaches the prison, seems a lifeless automaton. His emotional state is derived not from who he is but by what he is when he wears the mask. He stares blankly from the page and interacts with the world around him only when threatened - an automatic response that the removal of his mask cannot fully remove from his character. He wants to survive.
In the film he's cocky, arrogrant. As self assured without the mask as he is with it. It's a small difference and, to someone not aware of the original story, probably not a bother. Yet the addition of his emotions as a character serve no purpose and weaken the telling and made me wonder why people feel the need to change things for the sake of it. Hrrrm indeed.
And then there's the end.
Sigh.
Someone I like said that the film was great if you ignore the ending. That's a pretty big if but, again, I really wanted to like the film.
The ending is something which kills the tone of the piece stone cold dead. Instead of the rationalising of facts and figures it's a ho-hum end of the world, cookie cutter action film sequence. In the graphic novel the ratio is compelling. More than that it's personal: one of my favourite lines of the original is: 'they only went out for a curry...' You can see streets of people dead but no more than that.
In the film. Well, you know. Subtlety. 10,000 people versus 15 million. That's a bit of a diff.
Anyhow: my nervousness was kindled on the film almost as soon as I saw the trailer. There's a sequence where Dr Manhattan appears out of thin air and the resulting shockwave blows a caretaker over.
Except it doesn't. The caretaker falls over a second before the shockwave reaches him.
In animation there's a rule which states (although everyone tells it differently) that the amount of anticipation and reaction should be equal to the action itself. Basically if you want to really telegraph something cartoonish you do the BIG EYES AARGH Tex Avery anticipation. For realism you look more to a physical effect. If a shockwave were to knock someone over it should hit them, they should resist for a split second as the energy is absorbed by something which does not expect to be moved and then you have the person fall over. The trailer was, basically, wrong. Cartoonish, maybe. Stylish... Well, yeah. Watchmen has some stunning imagery. But wrong. And seeing it made me nervous. I remember seeing the trailer for Star Wars Episode one when the world and it's wife was keen to see it instead of keen to forget it. That trailer opened with an awful space ship that looked like a cheap youtube nurbs tutorial with chrome shading on it. From that point on I knew the film may well be awful. History bore me out.
Also, don't get me started on the whole Silk Spectre as a 30 year old playing a 70 year old by wearing a wig and having a darker shade of lipstick. That was pretty amateur and the scenes of Sally and Laurie just looked like an expensively shot episode of 90210.
Apart from that? Costumes and props check and check. Beautifully done. Walter looked brilliant as Walter and... um... Hmmm... Well, it was a herculean effort to get it to the screen. Some of the imagery was arresting and powerful.
Still, as it turned out, it wasn't that great. Which is sad.
Basically, I didn't like it. Onwards.