Watchmen

Before the Watchmen there was the Minutemen
Originally uploaded by Bucky Rocket

I did see and enjoy Watchmen in less than 24 hours. This film is quite good, entertaining, and worthy of adoration. However, that being said there are some problems with Watchmen.

I do have to say that my first pet peeve with Watchmen is some of the music. I understand that Snyder wanted to keep the music rooted in the era of Watchmen but for me when two of the songs were used it ended up being utterly laughable.

The first was the use of Flight of the Valkyrie’s when we first flashed to Dr. Manhattan & the Comedian participating in the Vietnam War. This was such a cliché and took me out of the moment completely. After Apocalypse Now that song cannot be used without very specific connotations and imagery. It shouldn’t be used for Vietnam any more.

Secondly, I thought using the song Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen when Nite Owl & Silk Spectre finally hook was downright laughable – and I’m not the only one that thought that – a majority of the audience at both showings I went to laughed at this song choice and this is not supposed to be a laugh educing scene.

I must also express without giving any spoilers that I liked Watchmen but after reading the graphic novel I am not sure if I like how they changed the ending. The original ending in the graphic novel plays on the very 1980’s mentality that was afraid of the outside world; now the ending plays to the very contemporary mentality of the enemy within and I am not sure I like that. I think time will tell which is the better ending.

What I do have to say is that I am very sorry that Alan Moore fel the need to exclude his name from the credits of Watchmen; Moore has been burned time and again by the Hollywood system and when he found out Watchmen was going to be a reality he took his name off of it without ever considering it. As rumor has it Moore refuses to ever see the film. Ultimately, I think that is quite sad as Watchmen preserves as much of Moore’s tale that is physically possible.

Edward Blake: God damn I love working on American soil, Dan. Ain't had this much fun since Woodward and Bernstein. Congress is pushing through some new bill that's gonna outlaw masks. Our days are numbered. Till then it's like you always say, we're society's only protection.
Dan Dreiberg: From what?
Edward Blake: You kidding me? From themselves.

Watchmen

Watchmen: Comedian
Originally uploaded by AsceticMonk

Since its publication there has been the universal theory that Watchmen is one of the single most brilliant pieces of literature ever written, and possibly right next to Atlas Shrugged as one of the most unfilmable pieces of literature.

I am one of the ones that agrees - Watchmen is unfilmable – but Zach Snyder may have gotten as close to filming Watchmen as anyone can every hope to get. There are simply things in Watchmen that cannot fit into a movie: Hollace Mason’s autobiography, the news stories of missing artists & scientists, the relationship of Sally with her husband/manager, the newsstand, the black freighter, the lesbian cab driver; if everything that were in the graphic novel were in Watchmen the movie would have to be at least six hours long, or 2-3 separate movies.

Watchmen at its core is the story of a group of retired superheroes; it is told from the perspective of a world that is our reality (only slightly tweaked to change history), a world that actually relied on heroes until they began to see them as a threat. The question behind the story is how do these characters deal with being more than the average citizen when they are no longer allowed to use those skills. For some it eats away at who they are, some have no sense of identity, one feels like he is no longer a member of humanity and only one of them remains active despite being a wanted man. This is a story that explore the morality and humanity of the superhero myth.

When reading the graphic novel my favorite character was Comedian, which is actually quite disturbing as he is possibly one of the most amoral characters in history, but he is the character that galvanizes the plot of the story, and he is by far the most symbolic of all the characters. In the filmic version Comedian is played with brilliance by Jeffrey Dean Morgan. I have loved watching this man at his craft since I discovered him on the CW’s Supernatural and I hope he has a long career on the big screen.

All in all Watchmen is a damn fine interpretation of Alan Moore’s graphic novel, but it does have a few things I have issues with. However, that is for a different review as I saw Watchmen twice in less than 24 hours.

Director: Zack Snyder
Writers: David Hayter & Alex Tse
Laurie Jupiter/ Silk Spectre: Malin Akerman
Jon Osterman/Dr. Manhattan: Billy Crudup
Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias: Matthew Goode
Walter Kovacs/Rorschach: Jackie Earle Hayley
Edward Blake/Comedian: Jeffrey Dean Morgan
Dan Dreiberg/Nite Owl: Patrick Wilson
Sally Jupiter/Silk Spectre: Carla Gugino
Hollis Mason/Nite Owl: Stephen McHattie
Richard Nixon: Robert Wisden

Adrian Veidt: It doesn't take a genius to see the world has problems.
Edward Blake: No, but it takes a room full of morons to think they're small enough for them to handle.

Dawn of the Dead (2004)

When Dawn of the Dead came out I avoided it like the plague. I really didn’t think it could be any good; remakes in general are usually never worth your time and even though I hadn’t seen George Romero’s original at the time I knew there would be no way that a remake by a then no-name director would be able to hold a candle to the original. Turns out Zack Snyder and James Gunn had the same thoughts as I did.

The remake of Dawn of the Dead is as different from the original as it could possibly be. Snyder and Gunn took the idea of the zombie plague and survivors trapped in the mall and changed everything they could to pay a gentle homage to Romero without being caught in the trap of having to do a literal remake.

In this remake the rules are slightly different than Romero’s; in Romero’s zombie infested world there are several things that remain constant – people are fighting against the undead and the zombie’s populace. For Snyder’s remake no help might be somewhere but it is not an available presence. However, the most memorable change is the zombies.

The Dead trilogy has a very specific style of zombie; when you are bitten it takes days to change, and when you do you are a slow, lumbering, brainless beast. From the first sighting of a zombie in this film the difference is evident – victims are changed as soon as they release their last breath and they are vicious. These are not zombies that will slowly make their way to you and try to tear you apart, these zombies are lighting fast, brutally strong and completely savage. Changing the zombies changes the tone and feel of the piece, taking it from a remake into a film that could have been given a different name and the avid Romero fan would have simply recognized the film as an homage.

What I did love is that Gunn and Snyder take the time to pay homage to Romero. The mall is obviously an homage to the original Dawn of the Dead, to pay tribute to Night of the Living Dead the first zombie that is seen is a little girl and to in reference to Day of the Dead the survivors want to escape to an island where they hope the undead won’t have reached. There are a great deal more subtle nudges to the original films, but these were by far my favorites.

Having seen what is considered Snyder’s first major film it is easy to see that he is capable of much more than comic book adaptations. The man does have a style of his own and it is a very fun one. I just want him to start working with completely original material because he is quickly going to becoming the man who does movies based on graphic novels.

Director: Zack Snyder
Writer: James Gunn
Ana: Sarah Polley
Kenneth: Ving Rhames
Michael: Jake Webber
Andre: Mekhi Phifer
Steve: Ty Burrell
CJ: Michael Kelly
Terry: Kevin Zegers
Bart: Michael Barry
Nicole: Lindy Booth
Norma: Jayne Eastwood
Tucker: Boyd Banks
Luda: Inna Korobkina

Kenneth: Is everyone there dead?
Steve: Well, dead-ish.
Kenneth: Is everyone there dead?
Steve: Yeah, in the sense that they all sort of, uh... fell down... and then got up... and started eating each other.

Dawn of the Dead image from Art of the Title.