DVD Review: Watchmen (Director’s Cut) (Two-Disc Special Edition + Amazon Digital Bundle + Digital Copy): Jackie Earle Haley, Patrick Wilson, Carla Gugino, Malin Akerman, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Matt Frewer, Stephen McHattie, Laura Mennell, Rob LaBelle, Gary Houston, Zack Snyder, Deborah Snyder, Herb Gains, Lawrence Gordon, Alan Moore, Alex Tse, Dave Gibbons, David Hayter: Movies & TVASIN=B001QTXM5Y&
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Everybody’s favorite graphic novel comes to the screen (after years of rumors and false starts), less a roaring work of adaptation than a respectful and faithful take on a radical original. Watchmen is set in the mid-1980s, a time of increased nuclear tension between the United States and the Soviet Union, as Richard Nixon is enjoying his fifth term as president and the world’s superheroes have been forcibly retired. (As you can probably tell, the mix of authentic history and alternate reality is heady.) Things begin with a bang: the mysterious high-rise murder of the Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), a masked hero with a checkered past, puts the rest of the retired superhero community on alert. The credits sequence, a series of tableaux that wittily catches us up on crime-fighting backstory, actually turns out to be the high point of the movie. Thereafter we meet the other caped and hooded avengers: the furious Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley), the inexplicably naked Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup, amidst much blue-skinned, genital-swinging digital work), Silk Spectre II (Malin Akerman), Nite Owl II (Patrick Wilson), and Ozymandias (Matthew Goode). The corkscrewing storytelling, which worked well in the comic book, gives the movie the strange sense of never quite getting in gear, even as some of the episodes are arresting. Director Zack Snyder (300) doesn’t try to approximate the electric impact of the original (written by Alan Moore–who declined to be credited on the movie–and illustrated by Dave Gibbons) but retains careful fidelity to his source material. That doesn’t feel right, even with the generally enjoyable roll-out of anecdotes. Even less forgivable is the blah acting, excepting Jeffrey Dean Morgan (lusty) and Patrick Wilson (mellow). Watchmen certainly fills the eyes, although less so the ears: the song choices are regrettable, especially during an embarrassing mid-air coupling between Nite Owl II and Silk Spectre II as they unite their–ah–Roman numerals. In the end it feels as though a huge work of transcription has been successfully completed, which isn’t the same as making a full-blooded movie experience. –Robert Horton
Also on the disc
The extended director’s cut restores 24 minutes of connective tissue to the 162-minute film, most significantly the last scene of Hollis Mason, the first Nite Owl. Other elements help restore and fill in details that had been in the graphic novel. Fans of the film will be glad for the extra footage but there’s nothing momentous that will change anyone’s basic like or dislike of the film.
The second disc has the documentary “The Phenomenon: The Comic That Changed Comics,” 29 min.), which looks at the original graphic novel and its themes, and interviews artist Dave Gibbons, DC Comics executives Jenette Kahn and Paul Levitz, and cast and crew, illustrating its points with scenes from the movie, panels from the graphic novel, and parts of the motion comic. There’s also My Chemical Romance’s “Desolation Row” music video, the 11 video journals that helped stir up excitement leading up to the theatrical run, and a Digital Copy of the film (compatible with both iTunes and Windows Media; download code expires July 21, 2010), and BD-Live offers even more making-of material. –David Horiuchi
Product Description
Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 07/21/2009 Rating: R
See all Editorial Reviews
Additional changes for Director’s Cut,
By S. Chi (Washington D.C.) -
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)
The director’s cut runs about 25 minutes longer, and incorporates more elements from the comics, adds more violence, as well as more shots of Dr. Manhatten’s schlong. Some of the previous scenes are reworked with additional dialogue. Information has been supported by sites such as AICN etc.
Overall, the storyline and conversations are better fleshed out, and this version is truer to the comics. The largest additional addition is that of Hollis Mason’s death, which is spectacularly directed to the score of the Intermezzo from the opera Cavalleria Rusticana (think Godfather III).
(1) Rorschach gets additional dialogue, some straight from the comics.
(2) When Rorschach searches the Comedian’s apartment shortly after the opening scene, he encounters two cops still stationed there. He fights briefly with them before jumping back out the window.
(3) Conversation between Dan and Rorschach (beans scene) is extended.
(4) All flashbacks extended, with the exception of Sally’s.
(5) Dr. Manhatten discussing the symbol on his forehead. Additional questions in the face to face with Dr. Manhatten. Dan and Hollis watch Dr. Manhatten go crazy on their TV set.
(6) Laurie getting interrogated by the military as they try to determine Dr. M’s whereabouts (on Mars). Alessandro Juliani’s (Lt. Gaeta from Battlestar Galactica) scene has been reinserted. He plays one of the scientists who bursts in during the interrogation of Laurie to tell the military that they’ve located Dr. M on Mars.
(7) Probably the biggest addition is the depiction of Hollis Mason’s death at the hands of the knot heads. Interestingly, the death is done from poor Hollis’ POV, where he imagines himself fighting the gangsters of the 1940s. He delivers left and right hooks to Captain Evil, before being done in by “Moloch”. The score for the death scene is very fitting.
(8) Dan taking revenge on an isolated knot head at a bar, post Hollis’ death. It’s a brutal revenge.
(9) The shootout by hired hitman Roy Chess is much more brutal- e.g. more blood and gore, fingers blown off.
(10) Conversation between Dr. Long and Rorschach is extended.
(11) Longer jail-break scene with arguments between Rorschach and Laurie. Prison guards open fire on Dan’s ship.
(12) Longer conversation between Dr. M and L on Mars.
(13) Riot scene is longer with more conversation between the Comedian and the rioters.
(14) Agent Forbes (Fulvio Cecere) has a larger role as the government agent in charge of handling all the Watchmen.
This is THE version to get. It feels complete.
This Is The Masterpiece We Never Thought Would Ever Happen,
By The Great Rocky Hill (Pittsburgh, PA USA) -
This review is from: Watchmen [Theatrical Release] (Theatrical Release)
*SPOILER WARNING*
Let me be blunt.
Alan Moore should eat crow and be proud of this movie. “Unfilmable” it most certainly wasn’t.
And the fanboys all need to take a laxative. This was in at least some ways better than the maxi-series/graphic novel, which will never be demoted from its status as a classic of its medium.
Aside from the overly graphic violence, a gratuituous sex scene, and Dr. Manhattan’s needless nudity (he needed to wear pants, and seeing his genitalia added nothing to the plot)I really have nothing negative to say about Watchmen.
Let’s diffuse some of the criticisms I’ve come across.
Yes, Matthew Goode was foppish as Ozymandias. He’s supposed to be that way. He’s not intended to exude menace. That’s his style. A villian as sublime as Ozymandias is subtle. Coming across as overtly malevolent would have caused his plans to fail. His slender, Aryan appearance and slight German accent made him the perfect choice to play the type of foe who believes that the murder of millions is the only way to save the world.
Which brings me to the casting. There was not one actor who didn’t fit their respective character like Rorschach’s inkblot mask. The decisions made concerning who should play who were more accurate than any comic book movie I can think of.
Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Comedian was Burt Reynolds as a misogynist sociopath. It was as if the character himself was directly lifted from the pages of the graphic novel and given life. It was uncanny how Morgan captured this character’s all too easy violence, his nonchalant, happy penchant for brutality.
I said in a review of Batman:The Dark Knight that Heath Ledger’s portrayal of the Joker was unfathomably good, especially considering Ledger’s teen idol pedigree.
Jackie Earle Haley’s Rorschach dethrones Ledger’s Joker in that regard. From out of some forgotten void, a former heart throb returns to play a madman akin to Robert DeNiro’s Travis Bickle or Michael Douglas’ William Foster. My money would be on Haley’s Rorschach as Steve Ditko’s right-wing Objectivist Mr. A, the analogue for Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ character, is channeled with such a chilling and disturbed beauty. His guilt is blended with an intolerance as he claims that the dead heroine Silhouette met her fate due to being a lesbian. When Haley takes off the mask, things become even more unnverving as you see how “fascinatingly ugly” Walter Kovacs, Rorschach’s alter ego is, inside and out. Again, having a former Tiger Beat hero play such a character was just remarkable to me. 20 years from now, people will never believe that Haley was once a Bad News Bear, and for that alone he deserves an Oscar. Seriously. His performance is more than enough to recommend this film to anyone.
None of the other performances disappoint. Patrick Wilson’s Nite Owl also deserves mention as he nails down the David Brinkley (from Robert Mayer’s obscure but very influential 1977 novel ‘Superfolks’) as Batman that Moore and Gibbons intended Nite Owl to be. He’s awkward, stuffy, insecure, and rusty in crimefighting and life in general, and Wilson flawlessly gets that across.
As an aside, and us comics fans need to face this fact, the film versions of Silk Spectre, Nite Owl, and Ozymandias absolutely trump the comics versions in terms of design. Silk Spectre is sexier, Nite Owl is fierce, sleek, and punches his wonky-looking comics counterpart back to DC’s Silver Age, and here Ozymandias is a Greek god compared to Gibbons’ take.
Some people are complaining that Malin Akerman’s Silk Spectre was dry, but I thought she was fine. In fact, she was just the right mixture of innocent and sultry and thusly kept with the spirit of not only Silk Spectre herself but also of the characters that inspired Moore and Gibbons to create her. Akerman was one mod version of Phantom Lady or Nightshade.
Remember, they’re all analogues because if they weren’t, we wouldn’t have had any Blue Beetle or Question tales in the 80’s.
Carla Gugino is quite the aging diva here. Her makeup job as a senior (The Silk Spectre’s mother and predecessor) is so astonishing you’d think she was an unknown. In the flashback sequences she is the epitome of retro eroticism.
She sees herself in an underground porn comic and is flattered. Wow.
And speaking of unknowns, can anyone honestly think of any famous actors who would have done as well or better in these roles? Yet another reason why Watchmen is such a success. John Cusack as Nite Owl? Please.
So the casting was faithful as was the entire movie for the most part, thereby squashing another gripe the fans had. I’ll even go as far as to say that Watchmen works so well because it is very faithful to its source material.
Yes, the ending is somewhat different, yet is pretty much the same. Ozymandias stages nuclear attacks instead of an alien invasion to unite mankind, “killing millions to save billions” as he himself would put it.
You know, when I read the Watchmen chapter in David Hughes’ book “The Greatest Sci-Fi Movies Never Made,” and saw that Sam Hamm didn’t feel that the ending of the original comics story “worked” for him, I knew then and there that the makers of Watchmen the film weren’t going to completely stick to Moore and Gibbons’ vision. And that slight difference (it’s just a parallel path to the same destination) only made for a better movie.
Alien invasions are not timely in any period, let alone this alternate Nixon-led 1985 or 2009. The threat of mutually assured nuclear holocaust is. If humanity is to be dealt a serious blow, it will be by humanity’s own hand, not something from beyond our solar system.
What we have with the cinematic Watchmen, is what I believe we had with the original tale. It’s a treatise on those who rule the world, masked as a superhero yarn, which in turn is masked as a murder mystery. It makes you think, and at the same time is mindful of that needed sense of wonder. It’s scary, nihilistic, exciting, provocative, and its ending is as hopeful as it is troubling.
The tale of the Watchmen is like a railroad track that is built with the best of aims yet leads to nowhere but perdition. What will our elites do, or what are they above or not above doing to improve the human condition? Who in power can we trust? In the movie, we see Nixon, Kissinger, and other real-life malefactors who did what they did for personal gain. What of Ozymandias? What did he stand to gain? Did he really love humankind or have nothing but detached contempt for it? We see this with Billy Crudup’s Dr. Manhattan as well, although Manhattan suffers from disappointment and heartbroken selfishness, whereas Ozymandias has this sense of birthright to save the world from itself by way of genocide.
I may need to dig out my copy of Watchmen the graphic novel as it has admittedly been a few years since I last perused it, but as a comics fan of 30 years, as someone who holds the highest respect and a deep love for comics as an artform and recognizes the Moore/Gibbons masterwork as deserving of its status, I will state that Watchmen was more that worth the wait. One could even make a case that it’s a better movie because it took so long to happen, that development hell aided in making it what it is.
And it bears repeating, Watchmen, with some minor and essential tweaking, is reverent of the comic book, and that reverence is another component that makes the movie so engrossing.
There was a time when I didn’t think that a Watchmen film should be made. However, upon seeing the final product, I am left with some questions.
Why isn’t Alan Moore rejoicing?
And why isn’t comics fandom rejoicing along with him?
Even if you’ve never read a comic book in your life, I strongly recommend Watchmen. If it doesn’t make you a fan of the comic book or of comics in general, then you didn’t enjoy the film, and if you didn’t enjoy the film, I have nothing to say to you. If you think that your unfamiliarity with the characters, the fact that they aren’t icons like Batman and Spider-Man, will hinder your enjoyment, remind yourself of the Hellboy phenomenon. Hellboy was a mid-level character that has never had an ongoing series and was published by a company that was not Marvel or DC. He has since been the subject of a pair of moviehouse blockbusters. Also be mindful of the the popular Men In Black franchise and its origin as an obscure independent comic book. From the looks of it, the heroes/villians (are they one and the same?) of Watchmen are about to join that club.
If you are a comics fan and haven’t seen it yet, leave the nitpicker in you at home, allow yourself to be surprised in the best way possible, and go ahead and be a little smug as the closing credits roll. You deserve it for being so far ahead of the curve.
A monument of comics finally has a cinematic counterpart. Hold your head high.
“You don’t understand… I’M not locked in here with you… YOU’RE locked in here with ME.”,
By S. Wik “postalmeister” (AZ) -
This review is from: Watchmen (Director’s Cut) (Amazon Digital Bundle + Digital Copy and BD-Live) [Blu-ray] (Blu-ray)
Destined to become a classic, Watchmen is like no superhero movie you’ve ever seen. It reveals in an incredibly believeable way, how anyone who would choose to run around in a costume beating people up must be some sort of zealot/fetishist/psychopath. remember that nobody save for Dr. Manhattan has any superpowers, and you’ll understand what I mean.
It also shows how the existence of people like this would have altered the course of history in obvious and subtle ways. Nixon campaigning for a fourth term? Awesome. And now we know who was behind JFK’s assassination (and who carried it out!) Don’t miss the cameo by “Lee Iacocca”! LOL
As for the fanboy whining (and to be honest, I haven’t seen very much of that, but I’ll address it anyway because it’s fun) I’ve been a huge fan of Watchmen since it was originally published in the mid-80’s and I have to say EVERY change they made for this film was an improvement! Trust me, I’m shocked that I’m saying that, but it’s true.
Rorscach’s “origin” retains the coolness of him “becoming” Rorschach years after he misguidedly thought he already was, but is FAR more powerful as portrayed in the film. It makes more sense than the scene in the comic and brilliantly does away with the Mad Max ripoff with the handcuffs and the hacksaw.
The new ending is more poignant, makes far, far more sense, and even ties together strands from the original comic’s plot (especially those involving Ozy and Dr. Manhattan) in ways so much more clever than the original, that Moore should be kicking himself for not having come up with it himself.
Can’t wait to see the Director’s Cut!
ASIN=B001QTXM5Y&Search Watchmen (Director’s Cut) (Two-Disc Special Edition + Amazon Digital Bundle + Digital Copy): Jackie Earle Haley, Patrick Wilson, Carla Gugino, Malin Akerman, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Matt Frewer, Stephen McHattie, Laura Mennell, Rob LaBelle, Gary Houston, Zack Snyder, Deborah Snyder, Herb Gains, Lawrence Gordon, Alan Moore, Alex Tse, Dave Gibbons, David Hayter: Movies & TV from AmAzon
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