Asides

Sorry, this will probably be the most cliched and posted blog title this weekend, but I couldn’t resist. I just got back from a 12:30 PM showing. My brother and I were two of maybe eight people there. I’m just going to be up front and say this contains one spoiler. It’ll be marked.

First, some personal info:

• I’ve read the novel, but I am an odd man out. I don’t think it’s the “greatest graphic novel of all time.” I actually think its barely good. Maybe average. However, I do understand it’s role in the medium.

Movie thoughts:

1. The average person will not get this movie. It goes many layers deep. I also think that they will be expecting a superhero movie. I believe disappointment may come up after people leave their screening—if they don’t walk out first. (I’ll explain later). Purist I think will love it, except…
2. It is almost a frame-by-frame movie version of the novel—more than Sin City and more than 300. I think this hurts it a little. It’s really a visual cliff-notes. Don’t want to spend 10 hours on the book? Watch the film.
3. Take out the slow-mo and you cut an hour from the film.
4. Some of the music choices were, at first impression, weird.
5. It is visceral and graphic. A lot more “blueness” than I was expecting. It’s so rare in mainstream cinema it was distracting. Plus, there is no explanation why he is nude. (Point #1 may be another result). The novel is graphic, but something about seeing it in moving form was alarming. Over the top violence and certainly the most graphic sex scenes I’ve seen in a mainstream film. (Some may differ, but…). In some ways I felt squeamish watching some scenes. (Of course I did reading them too.)
6. Rorschach was great.
7. SPOILERS: The outcome from the book is the same but the ending is fundamentally changed. Basically Ozymandias makes Dr. Manhattan out to be the doomsday event. I actually think this works better than the book. I imagine the purists will be pissed.
8. I probably won’t go out of my way to see this movie again.