FranksFilms

This week’s movie:
WATCHMEN

I’m breaking my own rule – twice.

Firstly, since this is a ‘video recommendation’ site, I shouldn’t recommending a movie that’s not yet been released on video ………..but I am. If it helps, you can think of it as a video that you have to go over to your “friend’s house” to watch. You know that friend who’s house is that big building in the center of town, with the big marquee,  and he always has lots of your neighbors over, and treats you with enormous buckets of popcorn and soda ……except that you have to pay him.

Secondly, I usually try to stay away from recommending the highly publicized big budget films – but I occassionally make an exception. I figure that, by now you’ve all heard about WATCHMEN, and if you’ve not read the novel, are trying to decide what the hell this is all about. The question you need to answer is “Will I like this movie?”  The answer is, although it helps, you don’t necessarily have to be a comic book geek like me.  But if you are, and are a fan of the novel, well it’s, as my friend Amanda puts it, “…an all out nerd-gasm in awesome town.”

The novel was written and the story takes place in 1985.  The material was considered very ’subversive for the time, ……mostly because it dealt with the cold war and nuclear war politics and stuff.  Some critics of the film (idiot bastards!) claim that times have changed and the material is not as subversive today and has lost some of it’s edge.  These people just don’t understand what the story is about.  The movie is called WATCHMEN for goodness sake, not COLD WAR.

The reason why this film is subversive, why it’s unlike any other super hero movie, can be summed up in one sentence:  Batman will never, ever kill The Joker!

Batman will never kill The Joker, not in 60 years of the comic books, not in the next million years.  He won’t, even though not doing so will lead to the death of many many innocent people, and also to several of the main characters.  Why can’t he do it?  It’s the code – the damn superhero code!  Batman is the hero.  He’s the good guy.  He can’t behave like the bad guys or he loses his identity.  Batman may operate outside the law, but he does obey it, and so he won’t kill The Joker, Spiderman won’t kill Venom, and Superman won’t kill Lex Luthor – even when he knows he’ll always come back and cause great destruction and cost many lives.  They’re heroes and refrain from going down that dark path where killing your enemies gets easier and easier, and soon your enemies are anyone that riles you just a little.

However, real heroes aren’t like that.  Real heroes are imperfect.   Real heroes also take the responsibility of making the hard decisions.   Imagine real people putting on costumes to fight crime (they’re called ‘policemen’) – some with morals, and some without.  Imagine a Batman who decides that it’s his responsibility to make sure the Joker never kills again.  It would be so easy to do it ….if you decided that ridding the world of a dangerous menace was worth a run-in with the law.  Now, imagine Superman, a guy with actual super powers – he’s all-powerful and indestructible.  How is it possible for him to actually relate empathically to humans.  It’s not that hard to imagine that after a while he becomes detached to the point that he no longer cares for humanity (humans, animals, insects – they’re all the same to Him) – or worse, that He should rule the Earth and woe to anyone who defies Him.  If you can imagine all this, then you might be prepared for WATCHMEN.

One of the best sequences occurs near the beginning of the film which shows a montage of historical images.  Most of these images are recognizable because they have become iconic, but all are slightly different because of the existence of costumed superheroes.  This lets the viewer “get up to speed” on the history of superheroes in America.  Oh, and by the way, they’re not really super.  They all, except one, don’t have powers – they’re just ordinary Joe’s ,dressed up in a costumes, that know how to fight and sometimes carry a gun (You know ………like policemen.).

A couple of facts.  Most people consider a graphic novel just an over-sized comic book.  Nevertheless,  the graphic novel on which this movie is based, appears on Time Magazine’s list of the 100 best books of all time.  Similarly, it is the only graphic novel to appear in the BBC’s “Big Read”, an equivalent list of 100 all time best books.  As of this writing, WATCHMEN appears at #239 in the IMDB top 250 and climbing.

So, my recommendation:  SEE IT!  ….but before you rush out to the theater, heed the following warnings!

1. Not for the squeamish!  ….or the Amish!
2. It’s a visually breath-taking film.  Take extra oxygen when you go to the theater.  Concession stand oxygen is highway robbery!
3. It’s big, it’s blue.  If it bothers you ……hahahahahahaha……that rhymes.
4. If you have a chance to see it in IMAX, spend the extra few dollars.  It’ll be well worth it.  It’s bigger in IMAX.
5. It’s very very violent.  Then again, so are Saturday morning cartoons.
6. There are no pirates!   …………ARRRRRRGGGGG!
7. The movie is long, almost three hours.  Who’s going to feed your cat while you’re out?
8. There’s nudity.  Yeah ………super hero nudity is the BEST nudity.
9. Why are there no pirates???!!!!
10. The original graphic novel did NOT carry the Comics Book Code approval.  My God!!  what manner of gruesome depravity are we talking about here?

I just found out that the pirates are getting their own short film, to be released soon on DVD, called Tales of the Black Freighter …………..and you thought I was kidding about the pirates.

Who watches the Watchmen?  It should be you.

Enjoy.

watch trailer

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 19th, 2009 at 11:29 pm and is filed under action, comic book, drama. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.