Monday musing

I have been mostly absent here of late and for that I'm sorry. Life intervened in such a way that I wasn't able to devote much if any time to this site during the last couple of weeks, but a corner has been turned and with it a more regular service will resume.

It seems that some of you have been waiting on my thoughts regarding Watchmen. 

In lieu of a proper review, I offer you these thoughts to be getting on with. 

Watchmen is a superior film to 300 in every way and while it's not without flaws, it's probably the closest, most slavishly faithful approximation of Moore and Gibbons' work that we were ever likely to see on screen. 

Director Zack Snyder deserves credit for just putting it up there. It's bold, it's dazzling at times, and it doesn't pander to the mainstream in anyway. 

And there are moments in it that are quite simply breathtaking. The Dr Manhattan back story, for instance, which almost completely, frame for frame, adheres to the book, works best of all. Effects wise, emotion wise,and  dramatically.

Will people unfamiliar with the source material find it confusing? Probably.

Would I have preferred it had been adapted more, and not so rigidly followed the comic book? Perhaps. But considering the fuss made over the squid (or lack thereof) can you imagine the reaction.

Do I wish it had been longer? Definitely. 

Talking to Snyder and Gibbons at the premiere party last week about the scenes they'd had to snip to make the theatrical cut, and therefore the scenes that will be included in the Director's Cut, I wish I'd seen that version. 

That said, for sheer ambition it can't be faulted.