It’s been a frantic pace for the last few days around these here Internets. Sites have been rife with trying to out-do each other when typing words about the latest film from The Visionary Director of 300 Zach Snyder™. Variety dryly states that it is merely film bloggers who are in said “frenzy” after allowing two paragraphs prior to a kicker with Devin Faraci from CHUD for his assessment that Watchmen is “a movie that flirts with honest to God greatness.” Over at AICN, Fat Harry uttered the same misgivings about the glut of reviews appearing online while he himself was “gagged”only to respond hours later with his own review along with Quint’s and Moriarty McWeeny’s.
It takes nearly 14 clunky paragraphs before Harry begins delving into the film, switching and mis-matching memories of the comic series with the result from The Visionary Director of 300 Zach Snyder™. Yet he finds it essential to include this missive:
” If for some reason you hate Zack Snyder’s filmic style – I’m betting right now you’ll despise this film and overlook everything else that is so incredibly dead on. ”
So if you don’t enjoy the director, you clearly won’t enjoy the movie. Of course. It makes perfect sense.
Ultimately, Harry’s mentality boils down to this:
“I WATCHED THE FUCKING WATCHMEN AND FUCKING LOVED IT! It isn’t the perfect 5 hour wet dream that I always dreamt of, but I love it. I can’t wait to see the dialogue you all have with this film, with each other and with us here at AICN.”
Which seems odd when compared to Kirk Honeycutt’s review at THR. Here, we are not in the realm of an utter geek. This is a guy who actively says he didn’t enjoy Hancock or The Dark Knight. He accepts the weekend box offices will be decent, but expects a drastic slide following that. But also, Honeycutt declares “[i]t looks like we have the first real flop of 2009.” At the same time, Honeycutt confuses the “Watchmen” name the group of heroes give themselves for “Masks.” So it is highly possible he’s unable to put simple thought processes together.
The second onslaught of “comic geek reviews” vs. “critical reviews” seems on the cusp of happening once again after the initial bru-ha-ha during The Dark Knight where negative critics were routinely threatened and scorned. Yet this race to break reviews pandering to built-in fanbases is embaressing above all other things. Reading the hordes of fanboy criticism that they’ve been waiting their entire lives for adaptations of this comic clearly don’t remember having the other attempts at Moore’s writing be shit on and stuffed down their greedy throats.
The point that these characters–aside from Dr. Manhattan–are mainly people in Halloween costumes is intriguing. But Snyder can’t have a normal story where his actors don’t move in slow-motion, Matrix-esque finesse and whose strength is capable of smashing walls and shattering bone as if they were UFC fighters. This will crawl out into an extended brawl between the two critical factions and that never ends well.
Fanboy critics claim ‘mainstream’ critics just don’t understand. And it is true. Why should they? Comic films have always been a niche property, from Superman to Howard the Duck and The Phantom. They’re made for kids and those emmersed in the culture. Mike Ragonga worries that critics will compare this to TDK and Iron Man as if they are somehow lower or less intelligent than this seemingly apocalyptic grimdark flick should be. To say that it is unfair since “this kind of film hasn’t been done before” reeks of the stupidity and self-appointment that comic nerds feel entitled to due to it being “one of theirs.” Watchmen has been done countless times before.
It’s been called Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, Apocalypse Now, any number of war and horror films, any number of action films, The Once and Future King, and god knows what else. Moore drove the piece on archetypes and brought it to a grim reality to coincide with his own dystopian views of the eighties, a culture in which V for Vendetta would arise and parody it with Judge Dredd.
Fanboys let their eyes be shrouded by a simple “hurm” muttered in-between sentences or seeing a massive CGI-blue dick in 3-D.
Sure, when we see the film, we’ll have an opinion. But man, will everyone just shut up already and let me have some peace and quiet till next Friday?
