Topic: The Movie Thread

Jake Gyllenhaal looks a bit dorky to me. I don't think he'll look good as Batman. Not sure if he can pull off the role but what about Armie Hammer?

@RogerRoger Urgh... Ditching Flashpoint for an origin film is so very dumb.
I read the Matt Reeves thing. I remain sceptical.

Gyllenahaal would make a great Batman I think. He can get in to wicked shape without complaining and he's a great actor.

@WanderingBullet Hammer was cast as Batman for the cancelled JL movie. Wouldn't object to him.

@RogerRoger I was always happy with the Batfleck casting. He's good at it and looks the part and despite the popular revisionist rhetoric, DareDevil is a good flick, and he's great in it.

Keaton was good for Burton's style over substance and action averse direction. I still think Alec Baldwin would've been the better choice (as proved very much in the Shadow). Post Keaton was just the standard Hollywood 'star in the lead' deal really.

Hammer is a good actor - as I said, he was cast as Bats and did a fair amount of preproduction (all the way up to costuming) on George Miller's canned Justice League movie.

As for his roles - he saves The Social Network from being little but an exercise in watching lots of awful people be awful, he's good in Free Fire, he (with Cavill) save The Man From Uncle from its boorish Guy Ritchy-ness and he absolutely saves The Lone Ranger from it's abhorrently long run-time too.

@KALofKRYPTON

Hammer was cast as Batman for the cancelled JL movie.

Yeah, I know. To be honest, I thought DC would cast him for BvS after George Miller's Justice League movie was cancelled.

@WanderingBullet too young looking for what they were going for I guess.

Totes Gyllenhaal:

My entire problem with the Watchmen movie. It's a perfectly competent production, but the writing is completely lacking in nuance compared to the original GN, and the transgressive moral issues it tackles are dumbed down in favor of explicit sex and violence (SO edgy rolls eyes).

I was particularly annoyed with how they removed the atheistic existentialism almost entirely from Rorscach's thinking and backstory. His worldview extends beyond just being misanthropic, and it's a major motivating aspect of his character.

@RogerRoger Honestly - it's not a good film. I watched it again not long ago as it showed up on Netflix. Performances are generally good though, Hammer and Cavill are given very little to do. I recommend The Lone Ranger. It is way too long. Depp's casting and direction is a misstep (Jack Sparrow, but Native American) but Hammer is very good.

Actually - you could just watch the last half hour and be suitably entertained.

@Ralizah I actually prefer much of the Watchmen movie to the comic. It's a well streamlined, beautifully presented adaptation.

I partially agree with you on Rorschach - though I find much of what Moore writes to be page filler.

@KALofKRYPTON I really didn't appreciate most of the changes. And it's "stylish" in that obnoxious, slo-mo, overly glitzy way only Zack Snyder films are (this aspect of his films are VERY love it or hate it, I find).

And, this might just be me, but the fact that pretty much every piece of music in the movie was licensed music really grated on me.

One thing I did like in the movie is the changes they made to Ozy's plans at the end. The "space monster" is a bit goofy these days, and it would have conflicted with the tone of the movie. I think the alternative they found made a lot of sense.

@Ralizah
Watchmen is an inherently violent story - in depiction and tone; the film is only as gratuitous as the comic.
I agree a lot of extensive slow motion effects can grate in some instances. I felt with Watchmen it served to frame the scene as a panel - just in a slightly less literal way as Ang Lee's Hulk, but with something so closely framed, scene by scene to what was on the page, it works rather well.

I think the music was an important part of dating the period. The comic is littered with cultural references for the same ends. I don't mind it - but it's a nice contrast to the reverent 80s settings of many current projects.

Regarding the writing - well, if some things aren't condensed or omitted, you risk becoming verbose or at the very least a slave to exposition. OK in a book, not so much a film of this type.

@KALofKRYPTON Untrue. Read the GN again: it's not filled with gore and bones snapping through flesh. The violence in the original is very understated, which makes sections like Rorshach's backstory all the more shocking. The movie is so brutal throughout that that scene barely even stands out. And I believe this would have been Moore's deliberate choice even if he hadn't needed to worry about censorship, because the violence in ordinary life is usually under-the-surface as well. Same with the sex in the GN: it was there, but the movie amps up the graphic nature of it in an almost juvenile fashion. It's Watchmen as directed by a 12 year old boy.

Some licensed music is fine, but music (and the sound design as a whole) is an important aspect of a film's feel and identity. It's also uniquely connected to human memory. The lack of a unique soundtrack for this movie robs it at least partially of its identity.

And, with regard to writing, it's all about learning what is crucial and what can and should be omitted. Zack Snyder could have devoted less time to his ridiculous slo-mo acton and sex scenes and used some of that time to add back in some of the foreshadowing he removed, or to not remove themes that were crucial to the story and helped inform the direction it went.

@Ralizah It's been a while (since the film I reckon), and no bone break I think - but understated it isn't.

Avoiding a memorable score in a very unheroic film was a good call I think.

For a two hour runtime, I think he handled the story very well.

@KALofKRYPTON The violence is incredibly over-the-top, and it's problematic in the context of the themes in the wider narrative. Here's a decent write-up on the problem: http://reel3.com/violence-as-fetish-in-zach-snyders-watchmen/

I don't see how not having original music for the film helps it at all. A good score doesn't inherently glorify the characters or what they're doing. And, if anything, the director is already doing that by lingering on the overly-stylized scenes on-screen.

It's not a mess, for sure, but I do think there are ways it could have been improved without massively increasing the runtime.

@Ralizah

I really quite like Snyder's thinking as put across in that article. Alan Moore is punishing us!

I'm a big fan of music in film. It's a character all it's own or only serves to punctuate. In such an ensemble piece, punctuation is really all that is needed from a score. The addition of the licensed music calls to mind the importance of the setting.

@KALofKRYPTON Part of what Alan Moore was deconstructing was the inherent violence of superhero comics, indeed, although I don't see how that extends to Snyder's logic regarding his depiction of violence in the film. The violence was glorified. If anything, it's rewarding the sadism of the audience. I don't mind the idea of "punishing" viewers by making things so gruesome and unpleasant that it makes the audience question why they're watching the film in the first place (Haneke's 1997 film "Funny Games" and Hideaki Anno's "The End of Evangelion" do something similar to great effect). But I don't think that's what Snyder does in his films.

I'll give him this, though: at least his Watchmen is a serviceable version of the story. His remake of Dawn of the Dead, on the other hand, was a complete disaster.

300 wasn't great, either, but I don't like Frank Miller or his fascist narratives anyway, so I don't mind what happened to that story.

@Ralizah Yeah DotD is a stinker. But it was always going to be.
Quite like 300 for what it is.

@KALofKRYPTON You wouldn't believe how many people still say that the remake of Dawn is better than the original. It almost physically hurts to hear people say that.

On its own, as a ridiculous live-action cartoon dripping in maschismo, 300 is OK, but I'm very biased against it, considering I like neither Snyder nor Miller! I don't mind the objectification of muscular male bodies, though. If I enjoy it in the same way most men enjoy porn, I can watch it fine.

@Ralizah It's a terrible film. Barely even popcorn fodder.

The 300 sequel is a far worse affair! 😂
Mind the odd fat bloke who gets kissed in the CGI pass and you'll be fine

I like Snyder's Dawn of the Dead, I would say it is probably his best film (good James Gunn screenplay). Of course it isn't as good as the original, but this was one of the first films to bring back Zombies in a big way and it does work as a thriller and black comedy.

Watchmen is, to me, a very mechanical adaptation. It is so literal, except the ending change, that the narrative suffers as it follows the narrative of the graphic novel which works in the book but not necessarily in the film. The violence is not a problem to me, clearly an attempt to inject some commercial viability into such a big film. Oh and the intro montage, is honestly great.

@KALofKRYPTON Haha, he looks okay in that image, I guess. But I think that the guy who made it should've chosen a more serious look. I can see a slight smile there.