Welcome to the Cinema Cafe Podcast, the film podcast, by the fans for the fans. Join us as we review new movie releases, talk some film news and share our general love for all things cinema. Also, newly added, book reviews!! We review a lot of movies that are adapted from books, and we've generally read those books beforehand, so we also like to have in-depth discussions on the differences between the original book source and movie adaptation. Enjoy!!
And we are back with another installment in our Fantastic Short Film Friday series, as we continue to showcase films released in the "lesser" known form of cinema- the short film.
Just released in theater's is an amazing coming of age superhero origin story about three friends gain special powers from a falling meteor and the resulting fallout on them and the world because of their powers. It's an amazing piece of science fiction that uses the framework of the anime Akira to create a truly riveting tale. In honor of the movie Chronicle I wanted to showcase a short directed by the writing of the film. Max Landis (the son of famed Animal House director John Landis and screenwriter of Chronicle) has released The Death and Return of Superman, an entertaining, drunken-fueled 17-minute rant detailing one of comics most famous deaths and returns of an iconic character.
Remember when the Man of Steel died and came back in the 1990s? Well, this is the closest we're going to get to a live-action Death of Superman movie. And it's kind of amazing. Also featured are Mandy Moore as Lois Lane, Elijah Wood as Hank Henshaw, Simon Pegg as John Landis, and some other surprises.
There's no real synopsis needed, but even if you don't like comicbooks and never read a superman story this is still a must watch just to see how crazy and out of control some stories can get and let's just say, this concise breakdown of that storyline brings my love of comics into question because I lived and breathed these stories when they came out in the 90's. I was that guy on the line retuning to the shop multiple times to get more then one copy since each shop had a limit of one. Juts bad.
Check this out if you you're curious to see what all the fuss was about in the 90's. Check this out if you just want a good laugh at the excess of modern pop culture in all its campy glory. Enjoy this weeks dose of short form goodness in, The Death and Return of Superman.
And we are back with another installment in our Fantastic Short Film Friday series, as we continue to showcase films released in the "lesser" known form of cinema- the short film.
I'm going to mix things up a bit this week. Generally Fantastic Short Film Friday has showcased one and done short films, but this week I want to take a look at a webseries about the life of a cartoonist and all the real sad sack reality being a cartoonist entails. Here is the first 10-minute part in a webseries called, Mythomania from filmmaker, Derek Kirk Kim. The first season in 9-parts has already been released and it's really a wonderful look into the daily lives of a group of cartoonists struggling to get by. Yes it's scripted, but you can tell the filmmaker pulled the details of each episode from real life experiences.
Written and directed by Kim, the show follows aspiring cartoonistAndy Go as he navigates the joys, challenges, sacrifices, screw-overs and other assorted indignities suffered by those who seek their fortunes in the comic book book business. This show can get real honest and personal and is a wonderful window into what life can be like for cartoonists, and how easy it can be to face not only rejection but also opportunity. What I like so much about this series is that it doesn't sugar coat how tough and sad and filled with rejection the life of an independent cartoonist can be.
I am a huge comicbook fan. I still read comics every Wednesday and have been doing that for over 20 years, and while I'm not a cartoonist, I know a lot of the stuff that goes behind the scenes as any lifelong fan would. It's not a glamorous job. Sure there are people that make a fantastic living doing their work, making their art. But there are hundreds more that are struggling to make ends meat, struggling to get their vision out there, and this is one of those stories.
Check this out if you love comics and want to see what the everyday life of an average cartoonist looks like. Check this out if you like heartfelt drama's that show people striving to create and find joy in what they do while the world tries to tear then down. Enjoy this weeks dose of short form goodness in, Mythomania .
This 2010 action comedy is adapted from the 6-issue graphic novel of the same name created by Bryan Lee O'Malley and is written and directed by Edgar Wright (of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz fame). It's easy to summarize this movie, but truly difficult to convey the absolute brilliant geek righteousness of it all. Basically Michael "Emo" Cera stars as Scott Pilgrim, a listless 20-something who is the bassist for the not very good indie rock band, Sex Bomb-omb. One day he meets the woman of his dreams in Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), an aloof 20-something package delivery girl. Just as things start to blossom, Scott finds out that in order to continue dating Ramona, he must battle and defeat her 7-evil ex's. Battle after battle, can Scott survive and win the true affections of Ramona, or in the end is all love doomed with the eternal question, "continue?"
As the days have gone on since I intially first watched, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, there's been a huge and continued backlash towards the star of the film, Michael Cera. No other actor in recent memory calls forth such vitriol from movie goers everywhere as the eternal man-child, the emo-epicness that is Michael Cera. His detractors cry out that he's the same in every movie, just always slightly moving his face, pouting and generally being an overall wimp. Frankly I'm stunned by this. Not only because I can't understand why so many hate the guy, I mean truly from-the-bottom-of-their-heart hate the guy, but also because I've always liked his style. So with all the hate in the forefront of my mind, I decided to rewatch his Scott Pilgrim-ish turn as Nick in Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. While my initial observations still hold true, it's more a soundtrack than movie (and the soundtrack isn't very good), a more documentary of NY music culture that indie-love story, and yeah I'm still way to old for the movie (where no adult appears to exist in the Logan's Run style that is NY of the movie), I have to say that I enjoyed it on my third watch. Perhaps after 2 repeat viewings I've just grown accustomed to it's mediocre character and plot development, but the movie and it's culture, it's panache washed over me on my third viewing and damn if I didn't enjoy it. I even went on ebay looking to buy a Yugo, but then again, I don't have a death wish.
Going back to Scott Pilgrim, this role is the ultimate Michael Cera-type role. I mean he's still the same nebbish, emo loser in a band, who's still reeling from a heartbreaking break-up (I mean this is the exact same character from Nick and Norah), but here he's more assured of himself, an almost oddly defined "playa" who can fight and will physically fight for the woman of his dreams. Here is Cera writ large, defined as the modern geek culture hero, a skinny guy with no muscle definition that can kick the butts of Superman and the Human Torch. Preach on Cera, preach on. But that's just Michael Cera's performance, what about the rest of the movie?
If you're a fan of the original graphic novels you won't be disappointed. It changes a lot of the story, the relationships, the battles, but all for the better for an adaption to the silver screen. The movie never let's up once, as the story moves from battle to battle, a hyper-imaginary world where video game fighting in "real" life is all part of the norm, and extra lives exist, where a geek who's pick-up line starts with, "do you know that "Pac-Man was originally called Puck-Man", can get the hottest girl in the room- very true to life- as music video-like cuts edit by at breakneck speed, and rhythm consistently pounds the screen with notes a la "Rock Band", a world where Superman got his superpowers from being a Vegan. Brilliant.
Sure there are some flaws to the movie- since it movies from battle to battle there is very little character development, and sure there's just a little too much going on the screen from time to time, an adrenaline pump for the ADD generation, and yes I get that people hate Michael Cera and this whole movie is Cera being Cera x10- but the jokes come a mile a minute, the comedy never feels forced or flat, playing for both the high-intellectual to the slapstick, and while there is very little character development, the characters are endearing, and unlike in Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist here the soundtrack is absolutely fantastic.
The casting and acting are also pitch-perfect. Michael Cera embodies the spirit of Scott Pilgrim to the T and Mary Elizabeth Winstead really feels as if she was just born from the page to the screen. But the two actors that stole the movie for me were Kieran Culkin as Scott's gay-roommate Wallace Wells and newcomer Ellen Wong as Scott's jail-bait former girlfriend Knives Chau. Kieran Culkin is just brilliant and hilarious and the best of the comedy in the movie comes from his character. Ellen Wong is just the most honest, endearing and heartbreaking character in the movie, and while you may think Scott is an ass and Ramona is at times a mean spirited woman, you only ever want the best for Ellen's Knives Chau. Out of all the characters in the movie, Knives is the most honest and true character in the movie, a girl we all know or knew at one point in our lives, a reminder on what it means to be young.
I must admit that while watching the movie, I never thought it was too "geeky", too niche, as my friends cried out with joy as the music from Final Fantasy, Zelda, Seinfeld and Mario Brothers played in the background of the movie. As the credits rolled and I smiled to myself thinking, "damn that was one amazing movie" and one that while not based on a video game, was the best video-game movie I have ever seen, I turned to my "Ramona" and asked what did she think. She went on to lament that she didn't get a lot of the jokes, and pressed asking "why did the words, 'bam, ring, vroom and zip' keep appearing on the screen", words that I never thought twice about always thinking they belonged. As she continued to reiterate her hatred for Michael Cera, I began to wonder if this movie was too "geeky", too niche for the general mainstream public. And then when the boxoffice results came out and the movie came in 5th, with a measly 10 mil take, I began to come to grips that my love for this movie may not really translate for everyone.
Still with that said, I enjoyed the hell out of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and give it a "bring your lunch from home because you do not want to miss this one." I cannot wait until this hits dvd and blu-ray so I can watch it over and over again and marvel at what the tagline of the movie succinctly puts, "it's epic epicness."
... Chris "I'm in every comic book movie" Evans. The wait is finally over, the speculation has stopped and Chris Evans stands supreme over dozens of would-be actors who were in the running to play America's favorite super-hero, Captain America. Here's a taste: Evans beat out The Office's John Kransinski, Friday Night Light's Scott Porter, Cruel Intention's Ryan Phillippe, Gossip Girl's Chance Crawford, and many more including Step Up's Channing Tatum. Some good choices, some not so good, but in the end I think the best man won. Channing Tatum looks most like a young Captain America, but he can't act his way off of The Streets.
Evans has signed a 9-picture deal which will of course start with the upcoming 2011 The First Avenger: Captain America, and include I'm sure, sequels and many cameo's in other Marvel movies.
So what does everyone think of the news? Frankly, more than any other actor I can think of, Chris Evans can really be called a comic book actor: Johnny Storm in the Fantastic Four (Marvel) movies, Jensen in the upcoming The Losers (Vertig0), Nick Gant in Push (Wildstorm), the voice of Casey Jones in TMNT (Mirage Studios), and of course Lucas Lee in the upcoming Scott Pilgram vs. the World (Oni Press). So yeah, wow, a lot of comic book movies. As it is now, it'll be a shock to watch a comic book adaptation with him not starring in it. He's a fine actor and I really liked him in Danny Boyle's Sunshine, but this may all be too much. From what I've heard, he was hesitant to take on the role Captain America, not only because of the Marvel pay-scale (300,000 a picture) but also because he didn't want to be typecasted, but yeah, too late for that now.
Anyway, this is big news and a coup for Mr. Evans. So congrats. You have huge shoes to fill, and this is one comic character that needs to feel overpowering and patriotic. Let us hope you're up to the job.
There's been a lot of new Captain America news hitting the web this past week. Director Joe Johnston has confirmed that The Invaders a WWII superteam that Cap and Bucky are a part of, will be in the upcoming The First Avenger: Captain America movie. In fact according to Johnson, "they'll be in the entire second half." It was rumored last year that The Invaders might make an appearance but now we know they're officially involved. So what does this all mean and who the hell are The Invaders? Just one of the best damn superhero teams ever!
The Invaders are a group of WWII superheroes that were first brought together in 1969 (Avengers Vol.1 #71) by writer Roy Thomas and artist Sal Buscema . In addition to Cap and Bucky, they're made up of other various characters like the original android Human Torch, the Torch's sidekick Toro, Namor the Sub-Mariner, and many others that were added later on, but it's the original 5 that form the core of The Invaders. Johnson also confirmed that The Invaders will have six members, which means the sixth member could either be Union Jack, Spitfire, or the Silver Scorpion.
I'm glad we're starting to hear more about the upcoming The First Avenger: Captain America movie. Looks like Marvel are staying true to their roots, having the first Captain America story set in WWII and battling Nazi's and the Red Skull, which will then lead into the present day and the upcoming Avengers movie. Captain America has always been my favorite comic book character of all time and I just might have a heart attack when he's first introduced on the silver screen. It's good to be alive.
This 2010 direct-to-dvd animated action film is based on the 2006 Incredible Hulk comicbook storyline of the same name that ran throughThe Incredible Hulk issues 88-95. Basically, all Bruce Banner (human alter-ego of the Hulk) ever wanted was to be left alone, alone with his thoughts and self-pity to what he had become. So a few of his "friends" decide to trick Banner when he's Hulk form and send him to an uninhabited planet where his rage and anger would no longer endanger people. However, when the Hulk discovers their lies, he destroys much of the spaceship he's in, altering it's course and sending him to the planet Sakaar, a type of alien gladiatorial Rome. For the first time in his life, the Hulk is no longer the strongest and is quickly made a slave. Along the way he meets some new warriors that battle alongside him and finally finds a place where he's no longer considered a monster but rather quite possibly, a savior.
Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the Incredible Hulk character first appeared back in 1962 in The Incredible Hulk #1. The character has then appeared in numerous forms of media, from the 1970's television series, to the 1996 animated tv show, to the 2003 Hulk movie to it's 2008 reboot, The Incredible Hulk. However, this new animated movie is new because it's the first time one of Marvel's characters has portrayed in one of the characters modern comic storylines. From Spiderman to Batman, to the Fantastic Four and Superman, all those movies are based on the fundamental iconic comicbook storylines of the characters from the 80's, 70's even 40's. However, the Planet Hulk storyline is relatively new and was used to take the Hulk persona to new heights and character ramifications, an almost reinvention from the slow dumb unhappy Hulk, to the cunning, warrior-king Hulk who has found peace. How he got to that point is the storyline in this dvd.
I'm not a fan of many of the comicbook animated direct-to-dvd movies. They always feel catered to kids (which of course they are), with minimal blood and violence, even if the actual storylines have more mature themes. All that's fine for the target audience, but I've always felt left out from enjoying some of my favorite comicbook character storylines. However, everything changes with this film, which thanfully feels more PG-13 than PG. What I liked so much about the Planet Hulk animated movie is that while great for fans of the comic series, you don't have to have known any previous Hulk backstory to enjoy the movie. It's set up well enough that the movie stands on it's own, and yet it's an almost direct representation of the comic (with naturally, a few things taken out). There's epic battles, action, drama, death, destruction, redemption and did I mention death? Yeah, lots of that. Everything that makes a great comic is all represented here in it's animated glory. The animation is crisp, the dialogue terse yet fitting, everything just feels so fluid that I don't really have anything bad to say about it. It's at a perfect length, 81 minutes, and ends on such a perfect note, hinting at many more stories yet to comel.
While the film may not be for everyone, if you enjoy watching the live-action comicbook films, I do believe you'll really get a kick from watching the Planet Hulk movie. Since this a more modern storyline in the Hulk comicbook, many viewers have never seen a Hulk story like this. I know when I read it back in 2006, I was completly blown away by the new heights they took one of my favorite charcaters. Even better, this is pure Hulk, with his alter ego, Bruce Banner, never making an apperance. While I do enjoy Bruce Banner at times, since he can show some of the human moments (empathy, humanity, etc), what I like best about Hulk is when he smashes things, and damn if he doesn't smash things in Planet Hulk. If like me you thought the other recent animated comic book movies were bland, definitly check this one out because I can promise you, you've never seen Hulk like this before.
On a side note: The director of the film Sam Liu has stated that if this film sells well, there's hope for the Planet Hulk sequels being animated that include World War Hulk and the now ongoing storyline, Fall of the Hulks. Let's hope we can see some more animated Hulk goodness in the near future.
I've said this numerous times, but Captain America is my favorite comicbook character of all-time. I don't know if it's the cheesy overly heart-felt patriotism of the character or the fact that he just loves beating up Nazi's, but I can never get enough, never am more pumped up than when I'm reading a Captain America comic.
Anyway, the directer of the upcoming The Wolfman picture, Joe Johnston, is also directing the upcoming Captain America movie. When the picture was first announced I was a tad fearful because it's very easy for a Captain America movie to devolve into pure American cheese, but after reading a recent interview from Johnston himself, I have to admit, I'm pretty damn pumped. Here's a man that get's the character. Here's what Johnston had to say about his upcoming picture:
"It is influenced by the comic book, but it goes off in a completely different direction. It's the origin story of Captain America. It's mostly period—there are modern, present-day bookends on it—but it's basically the story of how Steve Rogers becomes Captain America. The great thing about Captain America is he's a super hero without any super powers. Which is why this story, among the hundreds of super hero stories, appealed to me the most. He can't fly, he can't see through walls, he can't do any of that stuff. He's an every man who's been given this amazing gift of transformation into the perfect specimen—the pinnacle of human perfection. How does that affect him? What does that mean for him emotionally and psychologically?"
"He was this 98-pound weakling, he was this wimp, and he's transformed instantly into this Adonis. You'd think he got everything he wanted. Well, he didn't get everything he wanted. The rules change at that point and his life gets even more complicated and dire. For me, that's the interesting part of the story. It's got some great action sequences in it and some incredible stuff that we've never seen before. But at the heart of it, it's a story about this kid who all he wants to do is fit in. This thing happens and he still doesn't fit in. And he has to prove himself a hero—essentially go AWOL to save a friend. Eventually at the very end, I don't want to give away to much, but he does fit in. But it's the journey of getting him there that's interesting. And it's a lot of fun."
So yeah, here's a man who clearly gets what Captain America is all about, a character who has never belonged to any time, either when he was fighting Nazi's in WW2 and was the icon of the nation, to waking up in our modern day, where his past ideals and beliefs have become outdated. Captain America has always been the story of a man who fights for the world even when he feels detached, alone, left behind by it. I for one can not wait for the movie. However, even a great story can be bogged down by casting and costume. It really all depends on who they choose to done the red, white and blue. Look for the film to hit theaters 2011.
With Watchmen on it's way, and after having so much fun relieving past comic book movie glory with the first X-Men movie, I decided to continue with the super heroic nostalgia and watch X2: X-Men United. Released in 2003, X2 picks up exactly where the first X-Men movie leaves off, except now it adds in my favorite mutant from the comic book, Nightcrawler. In this movie, General William Stryker, played by newcomer Bryan Cox, kidnaps Captain Picard so he can use him to kill all the mutants. It's up to the X-Men & Gandalf to stop him. I'd like to believe that since Bryan Singer, back to direct once again, had already shown us that story telling & character development are more important than special effects, he decided to go all out with everything, because X2 is one of those sequels which improves upon the first movie, in pretty much every way possible. Watching this again, I had almost forgotten how incredible the opening sequence with Nightcrawler is. In this one sequence, X2 shows how much they've improved on the special effects in the movie. Even the soundtrack to the movie is improved as well. The story telling & character development are still there even with the younger, not quite X-Men yet in Rogue, Iceman, and Pyro. Overall, this movie is better than the first, and easily one of Marvel's best comic book movies to come out. Enjoy it too, because the next two X-Men movies are not even close to being this good.
With the upcoming Watchmen: Directors Cut DVD/Blu-Ray coming out shortly, I decided to take a look back at the comic book movie that essentially started it all. Some will say that the first Blade movie started the comic book movie fad, but I believe that if it weren't for the popularity of this movie, we might not have some of the great...and terrible comic book movies of today. Released in 2000, under the directorial helm of Bryan Singer, I wanted to see if the first X-Men still held up after 9 years. Thankfully, it does indeed. X-Men focuses on the story & character development, more than the special effects, and has such terrific casting as Patrick "I was born to play Professor X" Stewart as Professor X, Ian McKellan as Magneto, and Hugh Jackman who gives a great performance in his breakout role as Wolverine. The only thing I didn't like about the movie was the soundtrack, as it really doesn't go anywhere at all. I guess it would've been too much to ask for them to use the 90's X-Men Cartoon theme for the movie. Needless to say, 9 years later, X-Men is still up there with Marvel's best comic book movies and is still recommended for movie fans & comic book fans alike. Especially if you want to know what happens to a Toad that gets struck by lightning.
This 2009 superhero film is directed Zack Snyder (he of the Dawn of the Dead remake and 300 fame) and is adapted from the legendary 1986 comic book series, Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. And by legendary I mean godly. Set in an alternate 1985, Watchmen tells the story of a group of former vigilantes who come together after one of their own, The Comedian, is killed at his home. Thinking someone is killing off former superheros, the group searches for the killer as tensions reach a boiling point between the United States and the Soviet Union. However, behind the glossy venire of the superheroes lies an even darker truth than what the public sees. Can they come together after years of retirement and stand shoulder to shoulder, united for one last time, or is the world fated to be destroyed as the hostilities between the US and Soviet Union become too much?
It has long been thought that the Watchmen comic book series was unfilmable, since Moore created it to convey a story that film and literature could not, a tale that could only be told in comic book form. Was he right, or did director Zach Snyder film the unfilmable?
I imagine childbirth would be similar to my experience with Watchmen: worried, nervous and the happiest I’ve ever been, as a whole new world I’ve always dreamed of opens anew before me. So going into the film, I had many reservations, not the least that production of a film adapted from the Watchmen has begun and ended literally 6 other times. So as Penny and I sat back, as a wide world opened up for me on the Imax screen, I was a bit nervous. So after years of waiting, what did I think of the film?
I’m not a religious man, I do not believe in God, I’ve never had to. Bad things have happened to me before, but to me, all that’s a part of life. So with that said, I’ve never had a deeply religious experience… until now. I was so moved by this film, a culmination of my fondest dream, that if there is a god I deeply thank him or her for this film. The joke between me and my friends is that if Watchmen wasn’t the best movie I had ever seen, I would give it a sneak out/I want my money back rating. My expectations were that high. Is it the greatest movie of all time? Sadly I don’t think so, but is it the greatest thing I have ever seen in my life? Yes.
When I heard the line from Rorschach at the beginning of the film, “The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout 'Save us!' And I'll look down, and whisper 'No”, I seriously thought I had died and gone to heaven.
The movie opens with a fantastic montage not in the comic, of how the Watchmen world took a slightly different turn then ours, Nixon has been President for 3 terms, no Watergate causing him to resign, Andy Warhol painted the Nite Owl instead of Marilyn Monroe. Che arm in arm with the Soviet Union. The Comedian assassinating John F. Kennedy. These scenes fly by played to the Bob Dylan song, The Times They Are a Changin’, and add a real air, a real authenticity to this parallel world that I absolutely loved.
And also, the one thing I was worried about, the non-linear nature of the story, was handled adeptly by Snyder, jumping from flashback to present to flashback with no real feeling of displacement. I just wish they were able to fully express Dr. Manhattan’s character living in both the past and the future at the same time, but I understand how this would be impossible to show on film. Also, I really liked how Snyder added some extra scenes, like scenes that happened between the panels of the comic that we originally weren’t able to see, so it was nice to see some of the scenes from the comic fleshed out a bit more.
However, the reason why I don’t say this is the best film ever made is because I don’t think Watchmen is entirely successful as a movie. Being a fan of the comic I can’t really say this for sure, but I believe if you have no knowledge of the existing series, you wouldn’t get much out of this movie. It’s more like a series of vignettes, chapters in a comic, because that’s how the comic was told, but for a narrative story, I don’t think it succeeds particularly well. It moves from drama, to comedy, to high violence at a drop of a hat, again fine for a comic but jarring for a movie. Also it glosses over a lot of relationships, so much so that certain scenes have little meaning unless you’ve read the comic. So yeah, viewing it from a movie perspective, I don’t think it was wholly successful, but you know what? I don’t care because the film is fantastic; the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen and is the closest adaptation of Watchmen that I think could have possibly been made.
The original comic book title refers to the idea of the government, police or superheroes who would assume the tenant of protecting people from themselves. That being said, the title Watchmen does not refer to any of the vigilantes themselves, in fact their group is never even named. However, in the movie the group of vigilantes is called the Watchmen. Does this bother me? A little, but I can see that it was necessary for those that have not seen the movie to have something they could understand, relate with rather than a faceless group with no name.
In his comic, Moore wanted to show a different perception of the general public image people have for superheroes, a grittier and more realistic view of things, how superheroes are all really just fascists by nature, and on the whole I think this movie succeeds at that. The comic is designed to only be fully understood after several readings, and I believe the same is true for this movie. A lot goes on during the 2 hour 40 minute run time, so much so that hidden symbolism and half-truths are hidden within the backdrop of the movie. Since I did catch a few, I believe there are more hidden in the movie, and it will take a few viewings to fully understand and experience the true depth and scope of the world that Zack Snyder created.
I think the ultimate message of Moore’s and in essence Snyder’s fatalism is with a line Rorschach uses, "Not even in the face of Armageddon. Never compromise.” I think that gung-ho attitude is more apt now in this ever-changing, and not mostly for the better, world. When Rorschach said that line, I went crazy, because that is my favorite line in the series.
Now let’s talk a little about the acting. The Comedian played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan was f’n amazing. He embodies the character, lives the character, and it is amazing how he could make an unlikeable buff tough guy seem cool even with a smiley face button pinned to his chest. Great performance. Matthew Goode as Ozymandias was fine, his acting was great, although I think he was way too skinny to play the character. Ozymandias is supposed to be this really strong, jock looking guy, but Goode just looked geeky rather than both. Billy Crudup as Dr. Manhattan was remarkable. He looked incredible and was able to convey an emotionless god-like being with emotion. I know how absurd that sounds but he really did it and his blue shlong is the stuff of legend. Patrick Wilson as Nite Owl 2 was also really good and he looked pretty damn cool. He played the shy and naïve superhero so well. However my favorite was Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach. This was the one I was most worried about since Rorschach is my favorite character, but my god, Haley is just, I can’t imagine anyone else as Rorschach. He looks perfect, you can feel his bottomless anger ready to explode at any moment and his voice is just, only maybe Clint Eastwood could do a better job at the gravelly voice. Seriously, this is what Batman should have sound like. However, I want to point out Malin Akerman who plays Silk Spectre 2. I pointed out to Penny that this actress gets naked in every one of her films, and she doesn’t disappoint here, looking great as usual, but my god, she cannot act. She torpedoes every scene she’s in and that’s saying a lot since she’s nearly in every scene. She just has no range and playing a young woman trying to find her place in the world, I mean damn, you don’t buy it for a second. I get that they wanted to cast someone who looks like Silk Spectre 2 from the comic, but yeah, I’d rather anyone than her. Damn she’s awful.
One of the major contentious points in the film, is that it changes the ending from the comic making it more, well, let’s just say, plausible. Fans of the comic may think I’m crazy, but I really liked the ending. I think it adds a whole new dimension to the story, and sounds and looks a lot better. Although the denouement, with scenes cut out, makes little sense for those unfamiliar with the comic.
Like I said before I simply and wholly love this film. If I could give this a score out a 100 it would be 100/100. While not the greatest movie ever made, it still mostly works and is the greatest single thing these geeky eyes have ever seen. I make no apologies concerning how much I love this movie. With movies being expensive, I never see a movie more than once in the theater, always waiting to watch it over and over on dvd, but for this movie, I’d watch it over and over until they kicked me out of the theater. So I give this a, “bring your lunch from home, rob, steal, do whatever you have to do, punch the person next to you in line for the ticket as long as it’s not Penny or I, but watch this movie” rating. The film cost 150 million to make and you see every penny of it on screen. In July they will release the director’s cut of Watchmen theatrically which will be 30 minutes longer. I already have it marked on my calendar and can’t wait to revisit Moore’s, Gibbons and now Snyder’s world of Watchmen.
