ericjcant-1

A good movie, but not a great movie, for peculiar reasons. I put this about on the same level as most of the Lord of the Rings movies, and with somewhat similar types of detractions. The concept and the script are solid, and it generally looks well done, but where I start to stall out is that most of the male actors struck me as either so-so depictions, or just misinterpreted. If you are going to attempt to interpret such a well known and widely read graphic novel, you have to get these strongly defined characters right on the money. Forget director's vision, because if you don't nail these personalities, or at least make them stronger rather than weaker than the source material, viewers are going to be keyed right into this right off the bat. So here is what came immediately to mind as I watched this: Having Rorschach sounding exactly like Nolan's Batman was an unfortunate distraction that was impossible for me to ignore. Next, Doctor Manhattan as being somewhat melancholy would have been ok if it was clear that he is too advanced to feel attachment to normal life, but in this movie he crosses the line into seeming sort of dumpy, with a "poor me" demeanor. He completely loses his appeal, and yet apparently committed to his weightlifting routine. Comedian wasn't nearly as coldly psychopathic as he needed to be as the initial driving force behind the movie. And finally Ozymandias, who was just merely there. On the other hand, I would say that Carla Gugino as Sally Jupiter and Patrick Wilson as Nite Owl were both excellent.

I think the changes in the script were ok. Normally this is something that I hate in movies, but here I think the story actually needed to simplify the script a bit at the end. Audiences aren't brilliant, and Moore's original story has a relatively complex idea behind its finale. As such, this more straight forward and obvious ending was probably a good idea, but I completely understand why Moore probably hated it.

The other key problem for me was with the prominence of the soundtrack. It's too rich. Iconic, generation defining songs being used in any movie is a gamble as to whether your audience buys into this, and Watchmen uses a LOT of very historic, culture shaping songs. This can only work -sometimes- in movies, but it opens up a strong possibility of creating a polemic in the viewers mind. Everyone has heard these songs, and everyone is going to have a very specific association of whether these songs are good, bad, or whether they really fit the scene. For the most part, I think this movie bit off more than it could chew. Ultimately it breaks the suspension of belief. The Watchmen jumping right in trying to harness Bob Dylan's The Times They Are A-Changin' was a completely ill-fitted choice, as was The Sound of Silence, and Hallelujah. At best these songs jerk the viewer out of the movie, and at worst it makes your audience dislike the scenes they are shoehorned into because the context is all wrong.

So let's movie on and point out the positives of this finely crafted piece of horribleness.

1- Mark Singer does his best to channel the pirate Long John Silver as was played in the movie with Robert Newton, except that Mark's character is not a pirate, so that's pretty nifty.

2- Daniel Bonjour shifts from an American to a British accent and back again in every sing sentence he speaks.

3- The props appear to be the best stuff one might buy off the shelf at somewhere like Hot Topic. The jewelry... just wow.

4- Russel Reynolds looks like Spock!

5- They didn't waste money on expensive 3D graphics, and this is a movie that is better left as cheap as possible.

6- All the outfits look really clean and new, almost as if they had never been worn before, ever. It's a very clean world in this movie.

So what is bad about this movie? Nothing. This has everything you could possibly hope for. Film, this is.

I applaud the LGBTQ+ elements, wholeheartedly. But still... this is heartfelt-ish and also predictable. The brilliant indie shine of the original Nimona story was wacky and full of wry sarcastic humor, but here we have lots of drawn out feelings circling around tragic relationships, sorrows of being outcast and the issues that are stereotypical tropes of every single animated feature that has been made since the dawn of time... and to be on the level, this is unfortunate when considering what the punk-rock independence of the fabulously fun Nimona graphic novel could have been if it had been transferred to animation correctly. This show has almost none of the cheeky wink that Stevenson put into their brilliant graphic novel. This animated feature is 100% packaged predictability, and the characters follow right in line. Such a disappointment when you know what could have been... but out-of-the-box thinking is not what film seems to be about these days. Nimona is a form fitted script to appeal to a mediocre tween mentality, but where is the surprise, where is the unexpected? Yes there is enough visual appeal to keep you hoping it might do something more, but unfortunately it never comes to fruition. It's not bad, but... Why the "creative" powers behind this film didn't incorporate some of the key off-the-cuff moments of the silver medal Eisner winning graphic novel seems almost perplexing. Nimona as a movie is fine, but anyone over the age of twenty is going to know the story from beginning to end. Just telling it like it is.