Logan (MMXVII A.D.)

There has been a number of enjoy, good and great comic book based movies and some not so great. I have no idea why anyone would feel the need to put Logan on top and declare it the first of anything. It’s will be enjoyable for a lot of people for a number of reasons… leave it at a that.

If I wasn’t flying, i’d see Guardians 2 opening weekend which is as real as it gets for me.

Wow, that was better than the trailers indicated and definitely among my pantheon of best comic book movies, right next to Dark Knight, Kick Ass, Deadpool and Watchmen. How the same director could do Wolverine and now this I have no idea. Logan made me feel all melancholic. I honestly cannot think of anything to fault in this film. It was just… perfect ?

People actually like watchmen the movie?

People, yes. Me, no.

I liked it quite a bit, though I didn’t read the graphic novel until afterwards, so that could have been a factor.

Well that doesn’t matter. I read the graphic novel before the movie and still enjoyed it, but others were less receptive. I found that they were overly critical of the movie because it was too much like the comic. WTF?

I liked Watchmen because it feels otherworldly somehow. It’s just so different from any other movie I’ve seen.

Let me explain. When I’m watching movies, even if I’m deeply involved in the movie, a part of my mind is still aware that these are human actors. And if the movie is good, I can empathize with the characters and maybe imagine myself in their shoes.

Watchmen was not like that. It felt so alien to me, it didn’t feel like it had human actors playing roles. Or characters who I could imagine being or empathizing with. It was just … the closest analog I can think of is maybe how an animated movie or pixar movie feels, it was different like that, but with real life actors somehow.

I loved Watchmen… The characters in it were cool, and Jackie Earle Haley was awesome as Rorshach.

Put me in the camp that Watchman is fantastic. It took me to a completely new world that I really enjoyed learning about. I read the comic afterward and felt the movie really held up extremely well compared to it.

@Timex great scene!

I’ve just learned the actress playing Laura is English/Spanish. Would never have guessed it…

I think Watchmen had problems, but it was redeemed by how well Rorshach and Dr. Manhattan were done. Seeing the Mars scene and the jail scene brought to life gave the game and auto-pass.

I’m pretty much with you @Desslock. For what flaws it had, they brought an otherworldly spectacle appropriate to the scene, and did tremendous jobs with several characters.

Never read the comics. It seems like the individuals who liked it a lot or hated it were comic book readers. I thought it didn’t connect too well with those without that connection, including yours truly. I didn’t walk away really caring about most those characters.

Yeah, that does largely seem to be the case. I don’t think I would be as positive about the movie if I couldn’t “read in” additional character depth and history, and got the sheer joy of seeing a few of my favorite comic scenes recreated so well in a movie.

I can understand why some of the diehard fans of the book didn’t like the changes, but none of the narrative changes bothered me at all. My main problems with the movie are probably that it was so focused on re-creating that, at times, it lost the spirit of the books (by increasing the level of graphic violence in weird spots, for instance - the books could be violent, but for different reasons, in more appropriate scenes), and while some of the cast were great, there were also some really weak performances.

Yeah, I loved Watchmen, it wasn’t perfect, Zach Snydered all over it, but it didn’t ruin the end product. Jackie Earl Haley is SO good in this movie, as was the portrayal of Dr. Manhattan, and the Comedian. That title credits scene too.

Haley’s depiction of Rorshach really captures the whole character, but it may not be totally obvious if you don’t know what you’re looking at.

He’s basically super hard core when it comes to his own code of morality and justice. He absolutely will never compromise on those things, in even the smallest way. Even at the end, when he totally realizes the logic of why Ozymandias’ plot must be kept a secret, he can’t abide by it. Ozymandias killed millions. He must be punished.

He doesn’t believe in any kind of fluff, or pretense, or politeness. He’s super blunt, to the extent that he often doesn’t even use complete sentences, instead just saying short phrases of a few words.

You see this a number of times in the movie, like when he’s waiting for Night Owl in his kitchen, and he’s just sitting there eating beans out of a can.

R:Hello, Daniel.

N.O.: Rorschach.

R: Helped myself to some beans. Hope you don’t mind.

N.O. No, no. Course not. You want me to heat those up for you?

R: Fine like this.

“Fine like this” is what Rorshach’s all about. Eating cold beans out of a can, because who the fuck cares. And Haley totally nails this aspect of him.

I could certainly do without that Hallelujah love scene, however.

Dear God, yes. So tone-deaf, it calls into question the rest of the movie.

Yeah, that was the Snydering I talked about.

I’m going to get worked up if I think about it too much, but the whole damn movie was snydered. All of it was tone deaf. Whatever worked, worked because he was unable to fully stifle the brilliance of the material.

Ultra-violence in the fights, because of Snyder, but clinical dryness at the NY event, when it actually called for shock. I didn’t mind the exclusion of the psychic monster, but they did a piss poor job with the replacement.

The aforementioned sex scene. Ugh.

Haley was great as Rorschach, but leave it to Hollywood to turn another Moore antihero into a straight up hero. No mention of Kitty Genovese (though out of consideration to the family perhaps?) or the screwed up reasoning behind him choosing his mask. Nope, just a badass driven by the murder of a child. Moore has admitted that he missed the mark (gave him too many good lines/scenes) but Snyder missed the point.

The ending. Argh. Dreiberg punching Veidt for “excitement” and “sort of good ending” when there should be stillness. Not giving Dr. Manhattan his final line. Not giving Dreiberg his final spiel. They hit most of the plot points (many of them unnecessary IMHO, considering time constraints) but skips over virtually every nuance in the book.

Finally, the Dr. Manhattan origin. It’s still one of the better parts in the movie, but only because the original comic is so goddamned fantastic. Again, misses out on the helplessness of being Dr. Manhattan, throws in the “Always too late” speech when it did very little to set it up.

So while it might not be kosher to link this here, I see it as good advertising. If you haven’t read the comic, you owe it to yourself to read at least this issue. I really think they should have just filmed it scene by scene from the comic.

http://readcomiconline.to/Comic/Watchmen/Issue-4?id=14883

(also, this deals with some of the themes form The Arrival, but better.)

I’m not usually such a fanboy about anything (I rather enjoyed Man of Steel! BvS was passable) but Watchman holds a special place in my heart.