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First off, shouts out to David Hayter and Alex Tse (and apparently an uncredited Orci and Kurtzman) for adapting this book. You know, one of the toughest things to do when writing is putting in character backstory... if you do it wrong, it comes off as clunky and slows the pacing of the film down. If you do it right, it can still come off as clunky and slow the pacing of the film down. I thought it was done relatively well here... more on that in a second.
I didn't mind the pacing of the flick at all, mainly because I knew that the flashbacks were going to take up most of the first hour or so of the film's running time. Though, if *I* were making the movie, I would have made almost all of the pre-1985 stuff pre-opening credits... especially the near-rape of Sally... THEN I would have cut to the Comedian's death, then went to the opening credits, which were FANTASTIC... the problem is, like with Sin City, there was too much reverence to the graphic novel here... the graphic novel is great because it seamlessly incorporates backstories, flashbacks, and added materials that add texture to the story being told... here, I think Snyder and the writers (it took 4 of them to basically cut-paste the graphic novel's core story?) should have not been afraid to open up the playbook, and tell the most effective story without regard to how closely everything remained to the novel...
I missed the Tales of the Black Freighter and resent having to pay separately in order to see that story (well, that and Under the Hood also). But there was just no way to incorporate that side narrative into the framework of this story at all. And yeah, the narrative loses a little juice by not including it in the story (you lose some of the texture of the storytelling from the graphic novel), but I ultimately rolled with it. I skimmed the graphic novel last night, and made a mental note of what were the important beats of the main story (fuck off, I've been in writing mode lately), and for the most part, they got the basic, most important beats in.
I'm convinced that if there were no shows like Lost or Damages on the air, this film would still not have been made. Because I think those shows (and others before it that I'm drawing blanks on) made it acceptable for storytellers to jump back and forth in time and embed character backstories within the narrative. And yeah, I know, "but The Watchmen was first, it came out in 1986," thanks. But what I'm saying is that those shows made it acceptable *visually* to play with time and space and shoehorn in character backstory...
Ultimately, I wasn't upset with the decision to stick with the main murder mystery narrative of the book. It's fairly straightforward (even at 2:38, which is how long the IMAX cut I saw was) and simple to follow, if you don't let yourself get confused by the flashbacks and backstories... perhaps year title cards would have helped clear up any confusion?
The film as a whole was shot beautifully, and very faithful to the graphic novel... but again, as was the case with Sin City, it was almost TOO faithful... there were a few iconic shots that you needed (such as the bloody smiley face, The Comedian flying through the window, the reveal of Dr. Manhattan's big crystal Mars crib, etc), but it would have been nice if Snyder and Larry Fong had a little more fun with the shots, and thus put more of their stamp on the film... I know it would have pissed off the devoted readers of the book (I'm done using the word "fanboy"), but fuck that, Zack, this is YOUR movie, give us something that's YOUR signature, not Dave Gibbons'...
Performance-wise, I thought Jackie Earle Haley (aka Kelly Leak) was the star of the show. And I also thought Jeffrey Dean Morgan was very good as well, as long as he stuck around. They both seemed to understand that they were the rotten-cored souls of the story and had fun with the roles. I liked Patrick Wilson as Nite Owl II and Malin Akerman as Silk Spectre II, but they felt like cyphers, empty, vapid symbols of what superheroes were supposed to be. I had no problem with Matthew Goode as Ozy at all. I always thought the character was a smug prick. I mean, cmon, the guy quit the game and started whoring himself out, hawking action figures of himself. And while I liked Billy Crudup's reading of Dr. Manhattan, I really didn't need to see his blue junk or ass in just about every shot he was in. I mean, cmon, fam.
I was glad we didn't hear many of the "futuristic" songs in the film that the advertising relied on... I didn't really need to hear "Angel," "The Beginning is the End is the Beginning," "The Day the World Went Away," etc. Because that would have made it a different movie, this isn't a futuristic thriller, it's more of a historical mystery...
I enjoyed it quite a bit, and am pretty sure that I'll enjoy the longer cut, which supposedly will incorporate Tales of the Black Freighter into the main narrative... good luck with that...
Also, I don't recall seeing any IMAX-exclusive sequences... the IMAX cut I saw was the "letterboxed" version of the film... ________________________________________________________________________ Steffy says if you don't like the post, the Back button is that way...
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