I was singularly unimpressed with The Watchmen.
REALLY unimpressed. Disappointed even. After all, these guys did V for Vendetta, an awesome flick.
For one thing, I'm a BIG alternate history fanatic. I've been a fan of the genre since I read Harry Turtledove's Videssos novels (a fantasy / alternate Byzantine Empire, circa 1071 ce, when a cohort of one of Caesar's Gallic legions winds up in this semi-parallel universe on the eve of a parallel of the great Byzantine military disaster of the late 11th century: Manzikert) and of course, Guns of the South (the Army of Northern Virginia get Automat Kalashnikov rifles -- yes, AK-47s -- in early 1863 from a time traveler who is trying to stop the destruction of apartheid in an alternate 21st century South Africa by ensuring that the Union is permanently broken . . . the Army of Northern Virginia is not defeated at Gettysburg, the Union army is compelled to surrender and the CSA survives . . . then the fun begins). All good stuff for a history geek like me.
You see, there is a right way and a wrong way to do alternate history. The basic rule is that you get one change, as the pivot point. For instance, in Eric Flint's 1812: River of War the change was subtle: a young ensign named Samuel Houston, fighting under General Zachery Taylor against British-armed Native Americans, was not wounded as seriously in that battle as he was in our own timeline. What does this lead to? An Irquois Confederacy that gets the time to organize and prepare for the western expansion of the US, not to mention time to bring at least some US leaders around to the point of view that exterminating the Native American population is an expedient with a terrible long-term price (the one that this nation has been paying for over a century . . .). Too bad this series was not picked up by the publisher
In The Watchmen, that point is unclear to me. Really. While the first five minutes did a great job of filling in the gaps (like who really shot JFK . . .), there was no single point of divergance. Maybe this is because I am thinking of this as alt.history, not as pure sf where the rules are a bit looser. Cramming in a lot of "origin story" stuff -- much of the origin story stuff was more interesting than most of the action. Anyway, alt.history aside -- just taken as a action flick -- The Watchmen was at best OK. A bloody violent one that. Typical movie-fu hand to hand fights. Special effects were quite nice. The acting was OK, nothing to write home about. Again, meh.
There were some funny bits at the end. Music was pretty good.
On balance, though, this movie was . . . just . . . meh.
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Now playing: OutKast - Hey Ya!
Sunday, March 8, 2009
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3 comments:
Did you read the comic books / graphic novel back in the 1980's? I haven't seen the movie yet, but from what I can gather from the reviews, it is very faithful to the tone and look of the original story. I have even read that it as a slavish adaptation rather than a reimagining. A lot of the cold-war stuff just doesn't have the same punch today as it did in the late 80's.
I have deliberately NOT re-read the book in several years as I heard the movie was coming out and wanted to evaluate the movie on its own merits rather that sitting through the movie going "that's wrong" at every turn. I'll dig out the book after I've seen the movie so I can compare properly.
No, this was my first exposure. I think that my non-exposure to the original is coloring my opinion. However, taken just as a movie, it simply did not "wow" me.
Well, then. As soon as I see the movie (hopefully soon), I will excavate my copy and let you read them. I look forward to discussing the book and the movie with you.
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