Fafhrd on 9/3/2009 at 06:18
Quote Posted by thefonz
Nerds rule the world.
and girls find it hot.
Can you send some of these my way?
Scots Taffer on 9/3/2009 at 06:35
Quote Posted by thefonz
When I saw it on Friday night it was in a cinema full of geeks who kept shouting MEGATRON LIVES! during the Transformers 2 trailer. It was hilarious.
Ha ha! Yeah...
:(
ZymeAddict on 10/3/2009 at 08:20
(
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xu8l0q4rgcg&feature=channel) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xu8l0q4rgcg&feature=channel
HA! I TOLD YOU INTERNETS!!!1!!1 :mad:
I haven't seen the film yet, but this Mark Kermode guy seems to confirm exactly what I've been saying all along (and he does it with a stylish British accent to boot).
Al_B on 10/3/2009 at 23:28
I appreciate Mark Kermode's sentiment, but I saw it the other day and really enjoyed it. Is it the best film ever? No. Is it better than the vast marjoity of mainstream comic adaptations that have been churned out over the last ten years? Yes. (I haven't yet seen V for Vendetta or Sin City)
I read the compiled version about 12 years ago or so and enjoyed it thoroughly. It's a source material so full of details, nuances, and observations that there is pretty much no chance a film adaptation will be able to capture it all. This, to me, is a bit like the Peter Jackson adaptation of Lord of the Rings. It's never going to as good as the original material and you can always say what you would have done differently. Spend money on this or another interpretation of the hulk? I know where my coins rest.
Fafhrd on 11/3/2009 at 05:43
That review is so off-base in the focus of its negativity (Silk Spectre's latex costume looks a bit naff and '80s? THE MOVIE TAKES PLACE IN 1985) that it's actually pushed me closer to loving the film.
And the idea that it's all surface and no depth is just flat out wrong, considering Ebert got all the important themes in one viewing, without having read the book. Kermode just seems to get so caught up in the surface details (and this goes for some of his other reviews as well) that he can't be bothered to look past them to see the depth. Example: he writes off the usage of music as being purely easy pop culture touchstones, without any thought to how and where the songs are being used is actively subverting both how the songs are usually used in films, and what the songs are actually about. I..E. (spoiler):'Boogie Man,' on the face of it, is an utterly ridiculous song to be playing during the '77 Keene Act riots. But look at the lyrics, and look at what character it's being applied to, and what the audience has been shown about him so far, and what he does when the chorus hits. It's not necessarily subtle, but it's far cleverer than Kermode gives it credit for. My problem with the music was the way it was inserted into scenes, not the song choices themselves.
I will agree that 'V for Vendetta' does work a little better as a film, but that's more because the emotional payoffs aren't really there in this cut of 'Watchmen', as a lot of the scenes that set them up were cut to get it under three hours. And 'Watchmen' is a much less straightforward story than 'Vendetta' is, so it needs the length.
Morte on 11/3/2009 at 11:58
I'm not quite as down on the movie as Kermode is, but I think he's right, it *is* mostly surface and no depth. There's a difference between stating that This is A THEME, and actually exploring it in a meaningful way, and I don't think Snyder manages to do it. You'd have to be a complete dullard to miss the Niteowl/Dreiberg potence/impotence thing, but Snyder doesn't really make it stick very well. There's no humanity and frailty, because he's so obsessed with making everything cool and stylish and bonecrunching to the point where you actually question if these people *are* actually only disturbed people putting on masks, or actually superhuman, just not to the degree of Dr manhattan. Rorschach is supposed to be horrible and extreme, but the gruesome violence of the alley scene undercuts that contrast to the other characters.
And the thing about the flippant tone of the thing is definitely true. Take Rorschach's death which is a moment that actually threatens some emotional impact, until Snyder completely undercuts it with a gag. Likewise with comedy popping glasses in the assassination scene.
There certainly is a lot of *stuff* in the movie, but that doesn't mean there's much depth to it.
Muzman on 11/3/2009 at 12:59
Not that I've seen it yet, but in general I'm tired as hell of letting films off because it'll get a proper cut/extended version on the DVD/bluray/whatever's next. This is a shite state of affairs that should rightfully kill cinema (particularly genre-ish nerdy and epic cinema) dead. It reduces the cinema release to a big pointless con job.
