Who Watches My Stupid Car Break Down

I'm this close to planting a bomb in my own car and putting both of us out of our mutual misery at the same time. Of course, the car probably wouldn't start, so the bomb wouldn't go off, and I'd just sit there crying.

So, Watchmen. Yes, we went to see it, as did every single other geek on the Internet. If you want a lot of in-depth discussion on the movie you won't have any trouble finding it, so we're gonna keep this short and sweet. In Watchmen : The Movie, Dr. Manhattan does indeed walk around in the nude quite often, and his penis is huge. This really tells you everything you need to know about the movie. Zack Snyder stayed quite true to the actual surface content of the book while completely missing the point and infusing almost every scene with a Jager bottle's worth of fratboy testosterone. Nite Owl is impotent and out of shape, until he puts on his costume and kicks the shit up out like twenty dudes with his badass kung-fu and bangs a chick so hard she gets religion. Everything's over the top, everybody's borderline-superhuman...it's like Michael Bay's Citizen Kane. It's like that fake advertisement in Last Action Hero where Arnold Schwarzenegger plays Hamlet.

It's a pretty good summer action flick, and we would've loved it if it just came out of nowhere. Our friends will love it. It's just not a very good Watchmen movie. The lame costumes in Watchmen aren't dated, they're supposed to look ridiculous. Especially Nite Owl, who look downright cool and inspiring in the movie. Watchmen has always read, to me at least, as a very quiet book. There's not a lot of sound effects in it, there's very few splash pages. In my mind Rorschach, Dr. Manhattan, and Ozymandias all have very calm, monotonous, almost robotic voices. In contrast, the movie is a spectacle of sight and sound, full of music and action. Rorschach copies Bale's Batman voice, Ozymandias sounds like he's actually trying to be convincing instead of stating everything matter-of-factly, and even Dr. Manhattan sounds downright emotional at times. The movie's a lot more fun to watch than the book is to read, it's just not nearly as good. The book is about provoking thought and tearing down preconceptions, the movie is about kickin' ass and titties. It's possible to enjoy both... just don't go to the theater expecting the former and you won't be disappointed.


The best performance was Jeffrey Dean Morgan as The Comedian. The worst was Malin Ackerman as Silk Spectre II. Matthew Goode was also pretty lame as Ozymandias, but I think he was more miscast than actually bad, whereas Ackerman is just a lousy actress. Bubastis looked fake (and blue?), but at least she was in it, so I was psyched about that. Matt Frewer as pointy-eared Moloch was sweet. Weird prosthetic-face Nixon was terrible and unnecessary.

Two things :

1. The fighting in Watchmen is more over the top and extreme than what I've seen of the new Dragonball and Street Fighter movies, which is just wrong. Maybe Zack Snyder should've directed those instead.

2. One comic book movie Snyder would be perfect for is The Authority. That could be great, since it's an adult, R-rated story that's actually is all about ultraviolent superheroes killing things in slow-motion and fucking. Don't get me wrong, I love The Authority, but subtle it is not. He just better not have Midnighter and Apollo banging chicks and high fiving each other or I'll be pissed.