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In this week’s Trailer Scaler, I’m checking out the first official peek at Watchmen, a movie whose opening date some people have no doubt circled in their calendars as a day to take off from work.
(Let’s get scalin’… after the jump)
The Movie: Watchmen (opening March 9, 2009)
The Buzz: The guy that directed 300 is now directing an adaptation of the most popular graphic novel of all time. (At least, that’s what the press department is calling it.) After footage screened at Comic-Con, people went bonkers. Theories, encomiums, and accusations flew left and right. Will comic book fans stage a riot on opening night? Will people who don’t read comics even care?
The Trailer:
The Review: I feel like I’m a pretty interesting test case for this preview. I have read exactly zero graphic novels, and I’m not really interested in any of the things–video games, bukkake porn, whatever–that this movie’s ostensible fan base is supposed to love.
However, I will certainly go see a comic book movie. Despite my mixed feelings about this year’s crop, I loved the X-Men movies enough to buy them, and I thought Spider Man 1 ruled.
So I watch the Watchmen preview with no expectations, but a willingness to care. The movie has to sell me on its own merits, but I’m open to being sold.
And that said, this preview makes the movie look pretty good. It certainly seems sleeker, darker, and more complex than 300, whose preview convinced me there wasn’t going to be much story underneath the special effects.
This trailer introduces me to characters who seem to have interesting powers and be violently at odds with the rest of the world. That line about refusing to help the people when they call out in pain? Damn.
The use of a Smashing Pumpkins remix is a nice touch, since they were always a gothic, intelligent band that still knew how to craft a killer hook. Maybe this movie can blend the freaky and the popular in the same way.
Of course, I’m also wary of comic nook noir. Sin City? Just not for me. But it seems like Watchmen may be less interested in fetishizing violence. Possibly.
So for now, I’ll give it chance.
What are your thoughts? Anyone else new to this stuff like me? Are there any Watchmen fans who want to weigh in?
The Rating: 4 of the Greatest Graphic Novels of all Time
4 responses so far ↓
1 Andrew // Aug 4, 2008 at 7:48 am
Bukkake? Really? Kinda harsh, maybe?
You ought to read Watchmen, though. It’s good enough that it deserves it’s own media category. Like “literary graphic novel.” Or “serialized literary fiction with pictures.” Something like that.
2 Russ Jackson // Aug 4, 2008 at 8:20 am
Go on iTunes and download Watchmen, the first chapter of a series of “motion comics” made from the graphic novel. It used to be a free download, but it looks like it’s $1.99 now. Here’s a direct link: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewTVSeason?i=284992617&id=284790710&s=143441
They’re basically narrating the story panel by panel, and animating key bits and adding sound effects. The voice acting isn’t the greatest, but it’ll give you an idea of the tone and pacing of the story as told in graphic novel form.
3 Katy // Aug 4, 2008 at 10:24 am
You know, after reading that EW cover story about The Watchmen, yet ANOTHER comic movie that is supposed to be different from all other comic book movies, supposed to bust open the genre forever (aren’t they all billed exactly this way?) — and then reading in that same issue about ALL the other comic book movies due to be released this year, which are of course making similar claims — I realized I’m just not interested.
It’s not that I have a problem with the genre per se. Like you, Mark, I actually really love some comic book movies. They’re among my favorite films. Hey, if you consider all female moviegoers as a demographic, I’m probably warmer to the Comic Book Movie than 85% of my peers. (I yield that 15% for those ladies who dress up in all that spandex and metal warrior gear at Comic Con or whatever it’s called. Y’all are harder core than me.)
I’m just tired of them right now. Surely I’m not the only one, right? There are too many. I need a break. I want to watch something else, even just another kind of big blockbuster action film. After all, when they are good, they are very, very good, and when they are bad they are horrid … and let’s face it, the latter is much more common. Frankly, I’m starting to get tired even of the good ones, Iron Man or not.
I know conventional wisdom says that we are in a grim era, and that’s why comic book films are turning dark and biting (which, by the way, is exactly what they said in 1989 when Tim Burton’s Batman came out) and now they have more substance, more grit. That they dig deeper into real issues and reflect on real problems. You know, now we should take them SERIOUSLY, because these are SERIOUS times.
Setting aside the question of whether this is just a way to make fun films as long, ponderous and depressing as possible (short answer: boy howdy, yes, it is), I can’t help but observe that the Serious Comic Book Movie is now a decades-old genre in its own right. Honestly, I can think of countless films offhand from the past twenty years that were billed this way — both the pretty good (Burton’s Batman films, X-Men, the second Spider Man film, V for Vendetta, Batman Begins, Iron Man, Hancock) — and the pretty ugly / bad (Ang Lee’s Hulk, the third Spider Man film, The Crow).
So this whole party line that the Serious Comic Book Movie is original and fresh and a Product of Our Complicated Times is pretty weak. I would instead submit to you that the Serious Comic Book Movie is in fact A Well-Worn Hollywood Marketing Cliche, right up there with The Horror Movie That Really, Really Pushes The Envelope, The Whimsical Tragicomedy That Serves As A Vehicle for A Comedian To Break Into Serious Drama, and The Movie Oriented Towards Female Audiences That Shocks Everybody Yet Again By Doing Well At the Box Office.
But that’s just me. I’m cranky.
4 Collin H // Aug 4, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Lots of comic fans like to say that they can be considered literature. Despite being a second generation comic geek, I don’t much cotton to that idea. I just don’t think that comics are on the same plane of writing as Chaucer or Shakespeare.
However, if you were to pick one comic to try and justify comics as literature, there is no choice other than Watchmen. It’s a great story bolstered by a number of philosophical quandaries and a storytelling style that doesn’t clue you in on how to feel about the characters and events portrayed.
Personally, I’m very excited to see the movie, as it looks like it’s going to tell the story well enough to my liking. I don’t see the movie being a megablockbuster though. The mainstream crowd rarely goes apeshit for comic movies starring characters they didn’t watch cartoon shows of as a kid.
Ten dollars says that when Watchmen does come out it’s going to be unfavorably (and unfairly) compared to The Dark Knight.
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