I posted my full review earlier, but I wanted to take a moment to comment on things posted in other places that you may have read or heard about the film. First, a timeline of events thus far (sure to be added to once WonderCon attendees in San Francisco see the film in the next 24 hours or so).
Yesterday morning, Variety and The Hollywood Reporter posted their reviews. The day before yesterday Variety reported on the embargo-breaking that has already gone on, where Matt Selman posted something on his TIME-hosted blog in the middle of February, then some random guy no one has heard of posted an unreadable mess on Huffington Post, and then CHUD's Devin Faraci went live with his.
I should point out here that Variety needs to get its facts straight on that last item. CHUD did not break embargo. Devin had express consent from WB before he posted anything. The only place I've seen that information printed is on Twitter, and I thought it bore mentioning here since the Variety writer has refused to correct or retract the implication against Devin. An accusation of unprofessionalism is almost as bad as the repeated instances of Variety doing copy/paste jobs on online articles they claim as their own "exclusives."
The reason Devin got the go-ahead early is that Paramount, who are distributing the movie in the UK, gave /Film permission to run a video review, effectively lifting the embargo in one fell swoop without much WB could do about it.
Hot on CHUD's heels were Drew McWeeny at HitFix and then Harry & Quint at AICN.
In the middle of all these things happening, Jeff posted a half dozen anonymous reviews here on Hollywood Elsewhere that have all bothered me in some respect, some more than others. It felt like most of the reviewers had ulterior motives hidden in their anonymity.
I can understand a reviewer not liking the movie, but what puzzles me is when they go on a takedown crusade when it seems like they may not have paid much attention to the movie in the first place or watched nothing but the trailer, as seems to be the case with Kirk Honeycutt. I'm not calling him a bad guy or anything, but his review reads like he walked into it finding a reason to shit on it more than watch the movie and be open to it.
In his review, he refers multiple times to a superhero team called The Masks...this is never mentioned as a proper name in the film (in fact both "teams" do have specific names that are nothing like that). The character of Rorschach mentions something along the lines of "someone's killing masks," using it as slang for masked superheroes. I just think this movie is not his kind of thing, he knew it going in, and he shut off at a certain point.
He gets into what I think has become all the rage of the fanboy fears in the lead-up to release, questioning the pea-brained, cromagnon general audience's ability to make sense of the damn thing.
Yes, the masses like shutting their brains off when they go see the Mall Cop flavor of movie, that's true, but that does not mean they exclusively want to show up to the theater and shut their brains off every time.
Variety's Justin Chang flat-out calls the movie a whodunnit, and I have to disagree. To read the movie as just some superhero murder mystery would require you to nap throughout. If that's all it were, it'd be boring indeed. It starts out with that procedural vibe to it, but Watchmen blossoms out into something much more philosophical. The "big reveal" of the killer is nothing of the kind.
To use my wife as an example (not of a shut off brain, but of someone unfamiliar with the source book), after we got in the car, she said she was glad it didn't continue as it started out, because we watch enough Law and Order already.
The movie is much more philosophical than that, addressing the concept of humanity and the meaning of existence, and how the most complex sociopolitical systems can be in place and not really matter at the end of the day. Whether you think it's well-done or not, the focus of most of Justin's writing is in telegraphing the plot and giving most of the characters' exposition away rather than talking about why it's so complex. Unlike the movie, I finished his review thinking "that's it?"
I don't think it's fair to assume he has no vested history with the material either, as I think some have. His review, in fact, reads like one of my friends talking about how none of the "morons" who don't read comics or haven't read Watchmen won't "get it" and there's no way it'll make any money after its first weekend.
Harry and Quint have a very deep appreciation for the source material and a very protective emotional reaction going on that I think will cover most of geekdom. The in-pre-production (as I understand it) screenwriter Quint and former producer Harry confirm what is abundantly clear to anyone who goes in without an agenda: it works. Would they make changes had they the magic words, yes.
Drew, formerly Moriarty at AICN, offers an interesting perspective comparing how the comic book elevated its medium and how the movie did the same for him. Devin's review is best read with the spoilers after you've seen the movie, because it's an honest to god cinematic literary analysis, and I think he's dead-on. The problem the last four guys run in to is that they fall into the "geek" category and their a lot of their perspectives honestly may not mean much to anyone outside the source material's fanbase. That's a fair if limp assessment, but it's the Hatfield vs. McCoy argument that plenty of people will be yelling at the internet about over the next week.
The thing that I find most interesting in the mix of all these reviews that have come through is that it seems the harshest potential critics, the fans, are admitting their misgivings about the film but evaluating it on its merits, whereas the other end of the equation is with a wave of its arm declaring the movie something of or a complete fiasco and that only nerds will get it.
At this point, the second weekend to third weekend dropoffs are the only thing you can trust as to Watchmen's success.
Here just as I'm ready to post this article, I find that the esteemed Anne Thompson dropped some comments over on her blog that I find interesting as well, as she comments on the female demographic response based on her viewing a couple days ago.
The thing I'm curious about is if she is inferring the violence and blood (which my wife said she "knew when to close [her] eyes for) will turn women off a repeat go because it's to the same degree as the violence in Saw and Hostel -type films. It's nowhere near that bad, but that does bear mentioning. What The Dark Knight cut away from, Watchmen shows.
More as the reviews flood the internet over the next few days.