A lot of bloggers will write posts whenever they see a movie, just providing a general review of the film and stuff. This is because bloggers have difficulty thinking of new things to write about. I should know. I imagine that pro-internets people would say that this will eventually make critics redundant, but there’s one obstacle to this idea; the ENORMOUS NUMBER OF IDIOTS ON THE INTERNETS. It is a really huge one. And anyway, if we didn’t have film critics, we wouldn’t have Margaret Pomeranz looking like an elf. (She is an elf you know. If a prosthetics artist for Lord of the Rings made ears like Margaret Pomeranz’ for Legolas, then Peter Jackson would take one look at them and say “those ears look too elfy!” I can’t get any free images of Margaret Pomeranz, but here’s an expensive one. You will notice; ELF!)
So, your resident idiot (moi) has decided to review Watchmen. Yes, it came out about two weeks ago, but it’s not my fault. Anyway, I’ve been trying to think that I can do with this review to differentiate it from the millions of Watchmen reviews on the Internets. Eventually it hit me; I would rate the film based on things that nobody actually cares about, in case you couldn’t tell from the annoyingly long title of this post. However, in order to make these reviews (and yes there WILL be more) actually reflect what I think about the movie, I’ve added a numerical tweak to the scoring system. The final score of every film is made up of the sum of every score, multiplied by the last score on the list. What is it? <evil accent> You’ll have to vait and see, ha ha ha… </evil accent>
Music: 1.5/5
Let’s start with music, a filmic device which most people don’t care about until it’s gone. I notice the music in films, being as I am a muso, and I’m afraid that Watchmen’s music is nicht so gut. There’s very little original music in the film, a crime in itself. There’s some quite good use of 1980′s and pre-1980′s music in the film, which is set in an alternate 1980′s in case you didn’t know. However, there is also some godotawful use of modern music, including a frankly offensive version of Hallelujah by whatshisname, the one that was in Shrek, you know the song? Well this cover of it is TERRIBLE. There were a few decent moments music-wise, but NOT MANY.
Credits: 3.5/5
Here I will be taking into account both opening and closing credits. The opening credits of Watchmen are quite good, showing snapshots from the history of the film-world’s superheroes. It’s very well done, as we pass from slightly strange brightly-coloured posing-pouch superheroes to modern black-leather-wearing badasses, parallelling and parodying the progression of our world’s fictional superheroes. However, the closing credits are nothing but scrolls, with not even highlighted names to accentuate them.
Hats and Headgear: 4/5
Some might say that the hat design is a subset of the costume design. I BEG TO DIFFER. I cannot in fact differ, which is why I beg to do so, but I will disagree with these imbeciles to the last. The most important hat in Watchmen is Rorschach’s hat, a battered fedora which serves to further the film’s re-invention of the noir genre. Or something. The love that Rorschach shows for this hat, repeatedly stopping fight scenes to pick it up, is truly inspiring. Otherwise, we don’t have too much by way of hats. The masks worn by most of the superheroes are fairly generic, but Ozymandias’ golden torc, displaying his delusions of grandeur while complementing his costume and character perfectly, is very nice. However, he doesn’t strike me as the type to be dedicated to said hat. If he lost it, he’d probably just buy a new one.
Extras/bit parts: 3/5
Here, I define “bit parts” as actors who have a few distinct lines on screen, whereas “extras” are backgroundees who say no distinct lines. The bit parts in Watchmen are very good, with particularly good performances put in by Richard Nixon (not the real one) and several prisoners (possibly real ones). However, they are let down by the extras, who are more often than not quite clearly faking it. Take note especially of the civilians trapped in the fire (poor-quality banging on windows and shouting) and the generic victims in the en-masse fight scenes (lumber towards superheroes, get punched, fall over).
Product placement (lower numbers indicate more): 5/5
No evident product placement in this film. Good work!
Popcorn quality: 2/5
While the first few handfuls of popcorn were quite tasty, the popcorn got less and less tasty and more and more salty the closer I got the the bottom. It was a slightly odd phenomenon. I was glad that we (me and Dad) had gotten a large drink.
Amount of Summer Glau: 0.
THIS IS INSUFFICIENT!!!
Overall score; 0
Damn good film, but needs more Summer Glau.
