Prosaic Paradise

Like almost everyone else I know, I lined up this weekend and saw the Big Geek Movie Of The Year. I didn’t have the investment that my cohorts did, although I did read it the first time back when it hadn’t been out too long. I was just 13 and totally didn’t get it. So I read it again last year in anticipation of, or in self-defense for, this movie coming out.

So I am someone who liked the comic but can’t say I have the dedicated reverence that many have. Also – still probably didn’t get some of it.

A note about going to see movies like this: You might feel a budding and wonderful kinship with your fellow geeks as you wait in anticipation. You might feel that for that afternoon, together you are all one in a tribe of earnest subculture citizenry. And if you are me, this feeling will explode into white-hot stabby rage when the people in front of you, self-professed browncoats, begin filk-singing about Serenity. But this isn’t about my ever-growing Whedon backlash. The rest awaits after the click!

We saw the film in “IMAX” which is now apparently code for “a bigger screen” and I’m not sure I’d have known the difference. I thought they would have changed the seating or something, but no. I can’t say I would pay extra for that again. Now – onto the movie. The opening credits were brilliant. They actually may have been the highlight of the film for me. An impressive introduction, fitting so much into so little time. Striking and emotionally grabbing.

Most of this has been said before, but I agree with all of the assessments that say Rorshach was perfectly cast. I was blown away by this. The lack of his frame story in re: how he got the mask was a disappointment to me but I also think the film hung together without it.

The scene with the Jon Osterman’s accident – I knew that even though this is a dark, dark film, that this scene would be one of the most painful to see put to film. I was not wrong.

I had issues with the fact that Laurie and Dan are supposed to be aging. They are supposed to have aged. It’s part of their characters. I don’t have my copy of the GN in front of me, but I recall there being a line on the face here or there. A bit of a paunch for him, a little extra padding for her. But in the film? You see her in the scene with Manhattan as a teenager and then you see her in the contemporary timeline and nothing. She looks exactly the same. I have a BIG problem with this because I think part of what makes them human characters is that they don’t look like Hollywood stars. Well… I knew it going in so I’d prepared myself. Sally Jupiter is missing her strange poodle hairstyle, and looks so obviously like a younger actress aged with makeup it’s just silly.

So yes – as I think about it more things about the film bug me, but honestly, I still think this was a really good job. At first I was like, “That silly Alan Moore, see, it can be filmed!” and I still kind of feel that way – but on the whole, I really really hope that people who see this film having never read the source material go out and read it.

Most of the people whose reviews I really enjoyed have them locked up, but one that isn’t is Splicer, a fine writer and artist from the Fountain Pen Network (on which the Watchmen thread was so horrible and heated and filled with misconceptions I had to simply close the tab lest I burst into flame. Though I do kind of want to go back and see if anyone knew what pen was in Rorshach’s psychiasrist’s briefcase.) So check out Splicer’s review.

Tags: movies

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