Puck’s Blog

Me!  And lots of other people, probably!

This trailer has been out for quite a while but I haven’t posted it.  Why?  I don’t know, because it looks incredible!

For those who aren’t familiar with Watchmen, it’s a comic book by Alan Moore spanning 12 issues.  It came out out in the mid-80s and is seen as a turning point in the comic book industry.  It’s set in an alternate-1985, where costumed heroes have changed the course of history.  These heroes are based on existing archetypes, so yes, that guy does look like Batman, but he’s called “Nite Owl” and is a cross between DC’s Batman and then-Charlton Comics’ “Blue Beetle”.  (The new Blue Beetle comic from DC is excellent!)

The comic contains many flashbacks to the different ages of superheroes, side-stories, subtext, the psychology of being a costumed hero — it’s a complete deconstruction of the superhero genre and it’s brilliant.

I first read Watchmen back in the early 90s, after being loaned the collected graphic novel by Brad Stewart.  Back then I was a power-fantasy superhero fan, and I have to admit that I didn’t really “get” Watchmen on my first read.  It was just too different from what I expected in a superhero comic book, and I didn’t understand that the art style was purposefully old-fashioned.  I told Brad “it was ok” and he looked at me like I was crazy.  Back then I wanted awesome art and straightforward stories, I admit.

Years later after my comic tastes had expanded — and I had grown up a bit – I read it again and was blown away.  It’s so information-dense that I’ve read it several times since and pick up more on each reading.

So here comes the movie, which Watchmen’s Alan Moore has washed his hands of because of bad experiences with movie studios in the past, and a belief that movies simply can’t tell stories like comic books.  But director Zack Snyder, who directed the super-faithful ‘300′ has been doing the sme for Watchmen, and from the looks of that trailer he’s pulled it off.

Recently he let Kevin Smith watch it.  His reaction?  “It’s fucking astounding!”

“I saw Watchmen. It’s fucking astounding. The Non-Disclosure Agreement I signed prevents me from saying much, but I can spout the following with complete joygasmic enthusiasm: Snyder and Co. have pulled it off. Remember that feeling of watching Sin City on the big screen and being blown away by what a faithful translation of the source material it was, in terms of both content and visuals? Triple that, and you’ll come close to watching Watchmen. Even Alan Moore might be surprised at how close the movie is to the book. March can’t come soon enough.”

Mel and I saw Hellboy II: The Golden Army on Friday.  Reviews were good and our hopes were high and we were not dissappointed!

I liked the first Hellboy movie, but didn’t feel that it lived up to the promise of the excellent comic series.  Hellboy II, however, I loved!  From the opening bedtime story a young Hellboy is being told which is shown like an old stop-motion Christmas tale to the true depictions of those same characters and the weird and wonderful hidden world of the Troll Market and the last of the elementals and more… WOW. Guillermo Del Toro uses what he learned making Pan’s Labyrinth and expands on it.

Prince Nuada and his fight scenes give me hope for the live action World of Warcaft movie that’s in the making. This is the first live action movie I’ve seen that has capturing the “cool” of anime fight scenes without snapping my suspenders of disbelief. His movements are sharp and super fast but never never look sped up by camera trickery, and the little touches like his spear stopping *perfectly* at the end of a stroke rather than wavering just emphasizes what a perfectionist badass this character is. I bought him, his motivations and actions 100%. 

The only better movie so far this year has been Wall-E!  5/5.

Thanks to Toren’s heads-up Mel & I found out about a Transformers advance screening at the Rio last night.  We headed out and caught the 8pm show, and thanked Toren for saving us a spot in line.  It wasn’t necessary as the theatre didn’t seem to totally sell out, despite the long line when we arrived.

So I’m sure you’ve seen the trailers and those of you who have a warm spot in your heart for the old Transformers cartoon and animated movie were worried when you heard Michael “Explosions-And-Stupid-Plot” Bay was picked to direct.  I was terrified that my fond teen memories were going to be shit all over by Hollywood.

They weren’t.  Transformers is great fun and really honors the source material!  Optimus Prime *is* Optimus Prime thanks to their re-casting of Peter Cullen as his voice.

Of course, the CGI fight scenes are excellent, and there wasn’t a moment when my “suspenders of disbelief” were snapped because something was obviously phony looking.

The real surprise is the human factor and humour in this movie.  There are several honest laugh-out-loud moments here, and the performances of the main cast is bang-on.  Shia LaBeouf is perfect as “Sam”, the teen whose first car turns out to be Bumblebee.  Spielberg’s influence really shows in molding that part of the story into a touching “a boy and his car” theme.  The coming-of-age that car ownership in America represents is a great touch.

I knew Megan Fox would be hot – I don’t know if it’s possible for her to not be.  But she’s also in the moment in every scene, and never felt like a tacked-on love interest.

The movie isn’t perfect though.  The overly complicated redesign of the Transformers makes it often difficult to distinguish which is which, especially with the quick-edit action.  The slow-motion parts of the fight scenes were much appreciated so I could recognize “Oh ok, that’s Ironhide there spinning and firing missiles…”

The “secret government agency” subplot could’ve been taken out, and colour me surprised that John Turturro was the most dissappointing actor in the film.  A few of his scenes made me cringe with the cheesiness of his delivery.  It was almost like he thought he was acting in the terrible movie we all expected this to be, and not the one it was.

And if product placement bothers you, you’ll be annoyed by this.  The original Transformers was really just a commercial for toys.  This movie is a long, cool commercial for cars.  And eBay, though they exploit the humour in that to great effect.

But overall this is a top-notch summer popcorn blockbuster, and a truly pleasant surprise.  I give it 4/5 stars.

I came out of the movie pretty dissappointed.  But after a few days of digesting, I like it even less.

It’s too long, full of too much silly unimportant stuff, too much “telling” rather than “showing”, and once the big action sequences finally arrive I’d stopped caring.

Unlike other reviewers, I didn’t hate Mary-Jane in the previous movies, but hoo-boy did I hate her in this one.  They should have cut just about every scene she was in, saved me half an hour (and two songs!) and tightened up the movie enough so it might have been enjoyable.

I give it a 5/10, and that’s generous.  There’s a good movie in there somewhere, but it’s surrounded by silliness, a double-chinned Peter Parker, bad songs and a load of extra garbage.