Has anyone else seen it yet? I went Friday night (recorded the race and watched it Saturday!). I was pretty impressed. It's an odd flick for a superhero movie, but I guess it was supposed to be.
I liked it, but couldn't really absorb it immediately.
It is EPIC. Large scale. Almost "chewy".
Nearly every character, like each of us, carried both their own yellow sun and their kryptonite, their strength and their weakness.
I like both the Comedian and Rorschach the best.
I identified with the Comedian's hope for humanity as well as his bitter disappointment at the futility of any of his actions making a difference.
Pretty much he summed it up:
"What happened to the American dream? It came true. THIS is it!"
I felt as though his need for justice had become a desire to punish mankind for it's failure.
I also REALLY liked Rorschach. His purity of vision. He saw black and white, right and wrong. No gray. His justice was swift, sure, and absolute. He simply COULDN'T leave an injustice uncorrected.
The effects were cool. The scale was HUMONGOUS.
One thing, I REALLY didn't need to see ALL of Dr. Manhattan.
The graphic novel is definitely not for kids or early teens, and all accounts are that the movie adheres to it pretty religiously. I haven't seen it yet, but I will sooner or later.
I'd never read it until I saw previews for the movie last year, then went and bought the graphic novel. It's very good - AFAIK, the only graphic novel on the NYT Top 100 Novels list. The greatest thing about the 'superheroes', as others have alluded to, is that they really aren't super at all. They've got some pretty serious 'human' problems.
...and yes, Rorschacht is my favorite as well. As stated, black and white, and basically anything or anyone that he doesn't agree with is black. I can sympathize with that.
deffinitely liked it also and rorschach was the best of them all. really liked the prison scene. "i'm not locked up in here with you, your locked up in here with me." to bad it ended like it did though.
I laughed way too hard in the flashback where the Comedian is doing crowd control during a riot, and pops a guy in the ass with a smoke canister.
Rorschach was definitely the coolest. He makes the new Batman stuff look cuddly. I though he looked just like the Shermanator, but older!
Overall I like it, and I find myself thinking back on it, but I couldn't sit through it again. Godamighty is was slow and drawn out. I enjoyed all the backstory, but the pace was dismal.
...the novel was like that too...tons of backstory. It's the chief complaint of most critics (yeah, I read more reviews that I should, but I also ignore pretty much everything they say and watch what seems interesting to me regardless).
That line from Rorschacht is straight out of the book, and it is indeed great - glad to see they kept it!
Ordinarily I hate when a movie departs from the source material, but I thought the writer/director team did the right thing omitting the squid. To leave it in would have required way more backstory than most peoples' bladders allow, and (without giving too much away here) what/who they swapped in place of the squid was quite tidy and true to the spirit of the book.
My mom has a casual attitude about these things and reminded me on the phone yesterday of all the times she bought tickets so that I could see R-rated flicks as a kid. I replied that there's a BIG difference between "Altered States" and this movie. Not For Kids. Not mine, in any case. Rape, murder, suicide, nuclear annihalation--too heavy for my girls right now. I plan on buying the DVD, so maybe in a few years they can watch it at home.
Rorschach was brilliant. Perfectly cast, very well acted. He was the highlight of the movie.
Interesting blurb on the guy who played Rorschach from wikipedia:
"Jackie Earle Haley as Walter Kovacs/Rorschach: A masked vigilante who continues his vigilante activities after they are outlawed.[3] Unlike the other five principal actors, Haley had read the comic and was keen to pursue the role when he heard he had become a favorite candidate among fans.[5] He and fourteen friends put together his audition, where he performed scenes from the comic.[8] Haley "almost went nuts" trying to reconcile his understanding of complex human behavior with Rorschach's moral absolutism, stating the character made him wonder if people generally just make excuses for their bad actions.[9] Rorschach wears a mask with ink blots: motion capture markers were put on the contours of Haley's blank mask, for animators to create his ever-changing expressions.[10] Haley found the mask "incredibly motivating for the character" because of its confining design, which heated up quickly.[11] Small holes were made in the mask for him to see.[10] Haley has a black belt in Kenpo, but described Rorshach's attack patterns as sloppier and more aggressive due to the character's boxing background.[7]
(numbers refer to footnotes in the wikipedia entry)
I thought the pace was quite good. In fact, I wasn't even aware of how long I'd been sitting until it was over and I looked at my watch.
I never read the book, but I'm glad they DIDN'T use the giant space squid. After all of the gritty realism (save Dr. Manhattan, of course), that MIGHT have been a bit much.
I like the altered ending, and it achieved the same conclusion.
Of the four of us who saw it last night, only my friend's girlfriend didn't like it. But then, she isn't a comic book geek so what do you expect?
hahahaha, you are right, excuse me....DR. MANHATTAN! He is quite a man! Funny how the girl was able with one hit to his structure on Mars, make it come falling down.....what was with that? Sub meaning?