March 08, 2009

Watching The Watchmen Reviews

The Watchmen comic is among my favorite works of fiction, so obviously I've been watching the development with alternating joy and horror. This is a comic that has gone through at least four attempts at being adapted for film that ended up collapsing under either legal or creative difficulties. It's a dense, complex work that has defied simplification into a two hour story by just about everyone that's touched it.

Now that it *has* been adapted, and now finally *has* been released, the question is, did they succeed? I haven't seen it yet, and the reviews are almost as tough to parse as the film itself. There's not universal support or condemnation, which raises all kinds of questions. Did the reviewer read the comic, or did they see the film fresh? Did the reviewer expect light super-hero fair and therefore didn't like what is supposedly still a pretty complex narrative in the film? Watchmen looks to be almost as difficult to review as it was to get made, and in these situations you can either go with people whose opinion you trust or just take the plunge and see it, reviews be damned.

3 comments:

Royce said...

Is this post a review of a review?

Well, please allow me to review your reviewal of The Watchmen reviews:

Though it raises interesting questions and is worded well, it fails to site it's sources. Some quotes would be nice.

Overall, I like it. It's fitting that the review of the review of The Watchmen be a string of questions since you haven't seen the movie yet. If reviewing The Watchmen is difficult then reviewing the reviews of The Watchmen must have been as well (kudos), and if you think that's not hard enough, then try reviewing the reviewal of the reviews of The Watchmen.

MY HEAD A' SPLODE!

sarah said...

I'm trying to get a copy of the movie for this friday.

Royce said...

Were those links there before? If so, then I retract my statement about sources and quotes.