9.05.2009

The Hurt Locker

by MoviePrick

Two of the things I hate most are when movie makers combine weak stories with confusing messages. It's almost like filmmakers these days focus more on the craft of film making and less on story or thinking about the message they are sending. THL is an impressive movie on a lot of levels, but what the fuck are they trying to say? Is it a pro-war film? Is it an anti-war film? I'm not a fan of being spoon fed what the message of a movie is - which the film tries to do in it's very intro - but then the rest of the movie breaks down in delivery of that primary premise and then dives deeply into "What the Fuck" territory faster than a french nihilist on ecstasy.


The movie begins with Guy Pierce in Iraq getting blown up by a roadside bomb he's trying to disarm. It's an impressing and disturbing scene where great care is taken to present a sense of realism that sets the stage for the nervousness and anxiety of every scene thereafter. You can almost see the eyeballs in the red squishy goo that fills Pierce's helmet as he makes a futile attempt to run away from an exploding bomb. After Pierce's untimely demise, an opening is left on the bomb disposal team. A role that Jeremy Renner soon fills.

The next few sequences build on the bomb disposal theme. You create a bond with these characters as they survive more and more anxiety laden situations, with an increasing array of difficult and complex traps thrown at them. Given the intro sequence, you're convinced that one of them is going to be splattered all over the desert by one of these monstrous bombs, if they don't kill each other first. There's a great deal of drama, and some huge highs of tension and release - and Bigelow does a great job of pulling every ounce of stress out of the performances through the camera work and direction.

It's only once you've gotten past all of the bomb disposal scenes, and as the team begins to gel, the movie itself starts to fall apart. Renner's character, after carrying his team through some precarious missions, starts to detach from reality. The switch is so sudden it makes you wonder if somehow you weren't slipped a roofie and woke up in someone else's apartment watching a different movie. And then it becomes painfully apparent. The main theme of the movie has been suspiciously missing for the past hour. You're not watching a superhero movie at all, you're watching a movie about the human psyche - like the writers were all of the sudden guilty of enjoying the sense of bravado and daring they'd created just a bit too deeply and had to castrate themselves for being overly self-satisfied with the explosive bomb sequences. The clues come early as the exciting scenes are tied together with characters having random drunken bouts of homoerotic self flagellation, but largely go ignored because we're all too busy wondering who's going to be atomized into a fine meat spray. But then you land in the third act of the film which tries to tell you what sick bastards everyone is and how they are all war mongering adrenaline junkies who can plunder, murder, and kill with impunity. So pardon me if I'm a little confused.

The main theme of the movie is "War is a drug." They had to say it right up front or else you'd be wondering what the fuck you spent two hours of your life doing. But the theme is never visited in the first two acts, and by the time it comes back around, you've already forgotten that tiny bit you've read at the beginning and what you really want is a Superman movie. As you watch these characters descend into the madness of the war-drug, you wonder - am I supposed to like war? or hate war? or hate war and like warriors? or like war and hate warriors? or hate warriors warring? or hate warriors not warring? The signals are just not clear enough to decide that any of the dozen or so messages this movie is trying to send are actually the right one. Bigelow becomes a big cock tease promising action and adventure but ultimately telling us "No, you can't enjoy that. Now, go feel guilty by watching some really fucked up personal drama."

It's apparently not enough that you work your way through this much of the movie sitting on the edge of your seat to see which of the gruesome bombs is going blow everything to smithereens, but then to spend all that time building sympathy and interest in characters just to have it all taken away as they regress into sniveling mounds of blubbery flesh who can no longer make remotely good decisions about life - in a warzone or not. The problem is, any criticism I give of the movie and it's story or characters comes close to sounding like criticism of the men and women for whom this movie is a snippet of representation. It's obvious that war is troubling, and there are hundreds of movies who depict that with great clarity, the effect it has on the individuals that endure it has been subject of every war film since the Viet Nam era. It's also obvious war is material and backdrop for life and death drama. But The Hurt Locker doesn't do any of this. It doesn't chose a side. Should it be titilating and draw you into the life and death drama? If it does that, then it's just glorifying war and comes off as a propaganda film. Should it be gut wrenching and personal? If it does that, it winds up belittling the heroic effort of the men and women who's duty it is to be fighting. In the end it tries to walk the line between John Wayne in "Sands of Iwo Jima" and Jack Nicholson in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and instead of doing either particularly well, it just winds up feeling stilted and irritating - like finding out the actress you've just taken home and been snogging for the past hour is really a confused man in a dress who feels guilty that he may have ruined his marriage by sleeping with you.

Instead of trying to give our moral compasses a jump start, if it had only focused on telling a good story, The Hurt Locker would have been a better film. The drama was raw, and compelling. The characters and performances were great. Even the shaky camera was okay, since it never got in the way of the action, and always portrayed a sense of realism that really takes this movie to another level. Unfortunately The Hurt Locker does not live up to that promise, and falls flat through it's inability to be something more than a morality play without a clear message. Which is just fucking annoying.

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8.23.2009

Inglourious Basterds

by MoviePrick

This week I have to start off by saying, reviewing Inglourious Basterds is kind of like reviewing a an exquisite blow job. There's a lot going on and surely there are things to criticize, but I can't think of what they are now that it's finished. Quentin Tarantino has pulled off a masterpiece, and for the love of God I wish the rest of Hollywood and movie critics everywhere would sit up and take notice. So instead of referencing what Inglourious Basterds did right and sounding like a yob wanking over a bunch of nudie pictures, I'll do a quick review other movies...

Insomnia

For the three of you that remember Insomnia, this was was Christopher Nolan's followup to Momento and a remake of a Norwegian film of the same name. Al Pachino plays a detective who is willing to bend the law to gain convictions of known criminals. Alaska comes alive as a character in the film, and as such, overshadows the rest of the performances. The crime and punishment aspect is ripe with squandered attempts at suspense. This film could have been left behind by a fleet of geriatric overweight turtles, it moved along so slowly - and the flat performances were somewhat reminiscent of a corpses heart monitor which produced a feeling more aligned to dreary and sad than actual suspense. Yes, it's a good film, and yes, it won awards, but take note - too much of a breath between beats and your audience goes to sleep. Even if your protagonist doesn't.

Defiance

Defiance, another good story that had the potential of greatness, but couldn't decide if it was going to be an action film, a drama, or a romance. And through its own lack of focus wound up defeating itself. We were clearly supposed to feel some sense of suspense and concern about any of the thousands of conflicts going on - brother against brother, jews against nazis, man against man, forest dwellers against army, people against nature, man against woman, to name just a few. The broad scope and variety of conflicts eventually left the viewer feeling lost and confused, like a lumberjack in a camp of mostly transvestite prostitutes. Sure, it was oddly arousing, but there was an overwhelming sense that you would be disappointed by whatever was uncovered next. As soon as you started to care about one conflict, you were forced to confront another, and another, and another. Not only was I not on the edge of my seat, but I resigned myself to a horribly confusing swirling mess that made me feel like a acne-ridden teenager with attention deficit disorder in a room full of candy and swimsuit models. With math problems scrawled on the walls.

The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight could have easily been the worst movie ending ever, since it singlehandedly ruined the end of the movie as well as the sequel which will inevitably be produced. Not that any of that matters. The fanboys and critics all shat themselves in excitement of this steaming piece of crap and tore into anyone who said otherwise. Here - Nolan again - seemingly leveraged the tragic death and stellar performance of Heath Ledger into an excuse to ignore the advice of a good editor. The last forty minutes should have been completely removed. Not only would this have made for a shorter, tighter, and ultimately better film, but the scrapped material could have been the foundation of the plot for the sequel. Weighing in at two and a half hours, The Dark Knight was long enough to be considered it's own brand of torture in many countries, and the ending was far enough removed from the main theme to stay well away from any charges if ever brought to justice. It was like Dick Cheney to most critics, who were afraid if they mentioned any of these inherent weaknesses, the terrorists would win.

Mystic River

Mystic River has bothered me for a long time - maybe it was the critical maniacal raving, or the fact that it actually won awards, but it's simply the most concrete example of how to cock up a movie ending, taking an otherwise good story and driving it to the point of raw hatred in the last ten minutes, simply because the director just doesn't know when to cut it the fuck off. That whole ten minute sequence at the end of the film should have been cut, stomped on, and burned. If it had ended with Sean Penn walking up the street after leaving the parade, the story would have been resolved and the movie would have had a perfect counterpart to the opening sequence of three kids playing in that same street. Instead of ending on a powerful and imaginative high point that doesn't belittle it's audiences ability to figure out what's going on, it ends in a whiney quivering mess that made me want to simultaneously scratch my eyes out and hurl heavy objects at the screen. Yes, it won awards. Yes, Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, and Kevin Bacon all had amazing performances. But I was able to set all of that aside because the ending was so horribly fucked.

--

The Bastards - as I've come to call it, since saying "inglourious" all the time is a bit like having your tongue stuck in a blender - suffers from none of these problems. This was the first time I've been able to watch Brad Pitt in a starring role that didn't make me want to chew my own leg off in an attempt to escape - it was a great character, and a good performance. This is probably the first time in history I've seen a multilingual movie make use of subtitles and the characters language so effectively, it was completely immersive. The timing of dramatic and action sequences create a strong sense of suspense. Tarantino deftly withdraws his cock and delays the obligatory orgasm of action for two and a half solid hours while maintaining a perfect pace. I found myself on the edge of my seat through most of the movie, and more importantly I never looked at my watch to see how much longer I would have to suffer. He finally brings a better refined sense of humor to a film that balances comedy and gore without either being overpowering, or awkward. The audience is allowed to laugh and squirm from time to time - on occasion at the same time. All in all, despite the fact that the entire history of World War II is turned on it's head, I didn't care because the bad guy gets it in the end. The Bastards was like riding shotgun through a dark revenge fantasy with a killer clown, it's funny, maniacal, bloody, and one hell of an exciting ride.

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8.14.2009

District 9

by MoviePrick

Now that we don't have a short retarded dictator setting the standard for culture in America, we can now have a platform where filmmakers tell us exactly how awful we really are. After all, it's poignant and ironic to recognize the foibles of your own species.

So being one of these self aware, occasionally self loathing humans who is prone to feeling some liberal guilt from time to time, I walked into "District 9" not really knowing what to expect. Sure the trailer is great, the hype is interesting and provocative, but we all know not to trust these things when it comes to choosing what you're going to be seeing in a theater. They might influence budget DVD purchases or Netflix rentals, but not the Theater - the $10 a seat golden ticket - the holy grail of movie viewing. It's like the commercials where Audrina Patridge seducingly consumes hot meat sticking out between a pair of buns, but you know when you go buy it, you're only going to get a crappy fast food burger rather than a blow job from a bikini model.

Initially you're greeted with yet another documentary style movie, and I'll admit a certain fondness for the shaky camera and interviews, even though it's a bit played out now that every new filmmaker with a camcorder uses it as an excuse for not being able to buy a fucking tripod and use it effectively and/or creatively. The cinematography is great, conveying the story effectively, and even the documentary format works at getting the story across. The performances are compelling. The special effects overall pretty amazing with the exception of a couple of spots. There are a few cheap tricks with some cliche gimmicky gore at first, but once you've squirmed through that, the movie transforms into a compelling action flick. The violence is at worst cartoonish, and at best - a bit like fragging someone in Quake 3 - sudden, and completely beyond extreme to the point of being almost laughable. District 9 is surprisingly well done in a genre that is surprisingly characterized for it's lack of originality and story telling ability. I'd expect nothing less of Peter Jackson though, and this is a bit of a throwback to his earlier work from the days of "Bad Taste" only this time with real investors spending real money for real production value. It's original, exciting, and interesting.

So the movie is definitely worth the price of admission, in fact, it's better than every other movie on the play list this weekend. It's amazingly difficult to poke holes in the story without changing the world in which the movie is set. This is the sign that they've carefully constructed a well crafted story on top of all the aliens and explosions that normally distract viewers from actually paying attention to what the filmmakers are saying. But before I devolve into a quivering mass of gooey love spooge, what exactly is it the filmmakers are saying?

There's a subtle beauty in the way the writers divulge what is supposed to be decades of bigotry and prejudice against the fictional alien population, in South Africa, a land that is still suffering and healing from the decades long battle against its own oppressive racist regime. If we solely take the filmmakers at their word, all humans - even the ones who have been shit on in the recent past - are bigoted dickheads. They've basically spoon fed us the ability to draw parallels with real life events of racism and cultural conflict. If you know anything about history at all, you can pick several occasions where this story has played itself out. At it's core the story is built on the principle that "They" are not like "Us" - "They" are wrong, "We" are right.

The protagonist is just a little too oblivious to the prejudice he espouses despite having a direct role in carrying out the oppression of the aliens. His blind acceptance of the laws and policies, regardless of how biased, and overreactive, shows a lack of critical thought and morality that makes it difficult to accept his eventual transformation. In fact, as the "good guy", the filmmakers depend a bit heavily on his alien counterparts coercion to get him from point A - a prejudice bureaucrat, to point B - an alien sympathizing hybrid superhero fighting the evil human suppressors. The problem is, I've already accepted him as an idiot droid of a bureaucrat, who is basically an automaton of a human being, and in the end I have to accept that this drooling idiot - who easily accepts his role as pawn in the Evil Master Plan - somehow snaps out of his brain-dead daze just long enough to pull off a Batman-like smack down on the forces of evil. To say it's a stretch is similar to asking a geriatric gymnast to put her legs behind her head. She might be able to do it, but someone is going to get hurt. Sure, I buy him as the idiot at the beginning because we've established what a dickhead he is when he laughs at killing alien babies, comparing the popping sounds of their little pods to the sound of popcorn. But it's a leap I'm not ready to make - to forgive him for popcorning little alien babies - so he can eventually go on to kick evil armed force asses. Although the thought does come back later to fortify you against the visual of watching alien weaponry dispatch human soldiers so quickly and efficiently that it reminded me of watching water balloons pop.

There were a few more scenes where my willingness to disbelieve wavered, but mostly in relation to the ability for the heros to deliver on their daring feats. I'm sorry, but I have little doubt that an entire battalion of trained and armed military could kill an unarmed civilian -with only a piece of scrap metal as a shield- in fewer that a million bullets. Simply through overwhelming numbers, if not by actual gunfire. And the whole Mech-Warrior thing, while being amazingly fun to watch, is -in one scene- capable of suspending hundreds of shots by force field, while later not even being able to shield from a single pistol shot.

In the end, the underdog story of little weenie bureaucrat turned fantastic super alien sucks you in like a Paris Hilton sex tape. You forgive the minor character development and continuity issues because you know that if the only thing you have to pick on are a few small "willing suspension of disbelief" problems, you simply don't have a lot of negative material to work with. Being critical of District 9 is a bit like watching a porn and saying, "The lighting on that vagina closeup is slightly off." District 9's cold, jaded heart is in the right place. It's film making the way it should be. It takes us away from the world we're used to, makes it exciting and interesting, and portrays a compelling story in a way that draws you in and makes you think. It's easily one of the finest films this year.

Now pardon me - after that coital mess - I need a towel, a cigarette, and a nap.

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8.07.2009

Funny People

by MoviePrick

RIP John Hughes :-(

I went into this film wanting to hate it because for the most part I've seen Seth Rogan in everything for the past year, and I have a real problem with people who can't act showing up in the movies I watch so fucking frequently. The only thing that sets Seth Rogan apart from Julia Roberts is he's actually sort of fun to watch in the same way that my old college roommate was fun to watch as he stumbled toward the window -stoned out of his gourd- and whizzed out the second floor window. I swear that never got old.

So consider my suprise upon discovering the thing I hate least about Funny People is Seth Rogan. It also was not Adam Sandler, who I haven't been able to watch in a film without vomitting since Punch Drunk Love, and had written off completely after that nauseating nightmare about the Zohan. Here he played a deadpan asshole of a character somewhat like his Punch Drunk performance, but this time with the emotional depth and range of an autistic donkey on sedatives. But to be fair, this is really his strength.

The joke sequences are funny enough though and you build some sympathy for Sandlers character early on as a nice guy who stumbles on hard times. Yes it's cliche, but Apatow isn't about stuningly original stories. He's about shit, dick, and fuck jokes, with some sprinkling of balls, usually while the characters are high. This is all incredibly funny stuff when you're stoned. And here he delivers in spades. So if it's not the acting, and it's not the comedy bits, what's keeping me from turning this into an all out Funny People love fest?

Well, what I hated most about Funny People was all of the bits in between. What does Apatow want this story to be? Where are the characters going and what lesson are they learning during the journey? I don't fucking know, and I sat through this whole thing to find out! Funny people is a movie within a movie within a movie and none of them have a conclusion worth giving a shit about. Maybe Apatow was trying to give the audience more value for their overstretched recession dollar, but ultimately it was just overwhelming and annoying. In the interest of completeness and brevity, here is a quick rundown of my impressions for each of the movies within this movie...

Number 1, Sandler gets sick, realizes his life is worthless, tries to buy friends, and gets better. Okay, that's a reasonably good plot for a movie, but he turns from nice guy to immense asshole. What the fuck?

Number 2, Seth Rogan is a strugling comedian who is begging for his big break and will screw over his friends to get it. But be careful of what you wish for Seth, fame and fortune have a dark side. Yet another good plot line for a movie, but at the end, Rogan is back to working the deli counter. He'd gone nowhere and learned nothing except how to give a performance that no longer includes female repelant fart jokes. Again, What the fuck?

Number 3, Sandlers long lost love learns of his illness and they reconnect, but she's married and needs to learn where her heart really lies. Oh fucking hell... I give up, what do you want Apatow? To bludgeon me with cliche plot lines and skull fuck my eye sockets with your twists and convergences as you weave these tales into a heaping pile of shit? It felt a bit like being lubed and ready to play naked twister but none of the hot girls you've invited over ever show up and you're left with nothing more than playing with yourself. Oww, watchout there, I think I got some Apatow spooge in my eye.

I don't feel like I'm delivering spoilers by saying the whiney apology at the end does not mean I'm going to forgive this film for stealing 2 hours and 15 minutes of my life. He even made fun of this concept about 200 pages earlier in the script! As soon as one plot element is introduced, and we get lured into caring, a twist or a convergent plot line destroy it. It's a lot like you're getting a hand job from the hot maid of honor at a wedding, and right after she tells you how she's never met anyone like you and how huge your mediocre cock is in her hand, she tells you she's a man. Assuming you're not into that kind of thing, that is. And if you are, then it's probably a lot like the twister thing, with less of a climax.

Anyway, I'm sure it was difficult and artistic to weave these wonderful stories in only the way Aptow could, but all it left me was frustrated and confused. In the end I just wanted all the characters to fuck off. Eminem was right, what Aptow should have done was let Sandlers character die. It would have cut the movie down by 45 minutes, cleaned up the rambling plots, and allowed us to enjoy the standup bits before forgetting them. It's a shame that some editor somewhere in the procession from written script to movie in the can, didn't say the same thing.

Overall, if you're the kind of person who likes movies about standup comedians, you could blow your money on this and probably walk out mildly ammused. But if you're the type to stop for a moment and think about the story, then do yourself a favor. Go out and get popcorn, or give the girlfriend who'd talked you into seeing Funny People a good snogging, but don't bother actually watching the screen for anything interesting or coherant after the first hour.

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7.31.2009

Bruno

by MoviePrick

I'm going to get this out of the way quickly because after an hour and a half of feeling like scratching my own eyeballs out, I have a little more compassion for the viewing public than this film had. Let me put it simply, this rubbish was not worth the price of admission and you'd do yourself a favor to just rewatch Borat. Lets think for a moment about the things you could have bought for $10 that are more fun... there's the skank-weed dime bag, or 100 mL of Absinthe, or there's always a handjob from a crack whore if you're so desperate for entertainment that you might actually consider seeing this film. It's not even like this is a sequal as much as it is a remake, in fact I found myself calling it Borat when talking with friends after watching it. The conversation usually went like this,

"How was Bruno?", to which I would say something to the effect of...
"Utter crap. The only time I really laughed was when Borat was getting beaten with a belt by a dominatrix."

I laughed because I was cheering for the dominatrix.

I'm not saying this was the worst waste of film ever, and to be fair it had a couple of funny moments, but it was easily one of the most redundant films I've ever seen. To say they used Borat as a formula and then adapted Bruno to that formula is like saying this mornings shit is both different in content and form than yesterdays shit. They're both cylindrical, brown, and mostly composed of shit, what exactly was the difference? Bruno is little more than a corn side dish compared to the steak dinner that was Borat.

But since we're getting into the realm of obvious comparisons, Borat was funnier than "Borat version 1.1: Gayer Borat", for all the same reasons that big fat bloated pigs like Andrew Dice Clay are no longer funny. WE'VE ALREADY SEEN IT! Back in 1989, it was fresh, interesting, and for a few people who hadn't yet experienced oral sex, even slightly titillating to hear the Diceman spew misogynistic vitriol. But in 2009, after 20 years of desensitization, the jokes are only mildly offensive, and have less punch than an octogenarian leather daddy. With a broken arm.

The shock and awe aspect of luring unsuspecting participants into an array of ass, fart, and fuck jokes was pretty funny 3 years ago, but I don't care anymore. It's not that the ass, fart, and fuck jokes aren't funny, if Borat had taken queue from Borat and given us something fresh and interesting when placing Borat into various Borat situations. Borat would have Boratted the Borat and Borat Borat.

The main point here is, it's impossible to not draw the obvious comparision, and by comparison, Bruno fails miserably. In one sequence, Bruno is acting shocking and appauling in front of a live audience, and out of anger at the display, they start to walk out. I found myself sympathizing with that audience, and wishing I could walk out as well. It's tired, old, and did I say Tired? the movie gives the impression that halfway though, even Sasha Baron Cohen decided the character was no longer interesting and gave up to shock yet another on screen audience with a different character. Isn't it a little masturbatory for the director to only play to audiences contained in the film?


What's really amazing is the potential this film had. It *is* funny to point out the bigotry and hypocrisy of Americans. Something that's relatively easy to do since there's so fucking much of it. There was a moment which was relatively funny and original where Bruno interviews the parents of children to see how far they will go to be in a photoshoot. He gets parents to let their kids dress as Nazi's and undergo torture to be a part of the gig. The same parents are probably putting the movie on their poor childrens reel and resume, and while these people might suckle off the disgusting underbelly of America normally, here they get called out for being the gigantic insane DOUCHBAGS they are. The issue of gay rights in america is rife with bigotry and homophobia which could have been called out as well, but instead of making you identify with Bruno, and care about the issues of a gay single parent, you get a character that is so shallow and obnoxious its impossible to care at all about the issues he's trying to expose. The scene trying to present the military as a big ironic homophobic den of bigotry failed completely despite it being exactly that, because the other recruits are just trying to help Bruno usually by simply trying to help him stand up, where he just appears to be deliberately flailing on the ground, fucking things up for the poor bastards.

Sure, it's possible Bruno suffered from Sophmoritis. They had as long as they wanted to develop, make, edit, and refine, the first film. And the second film had to be shot, edited and in the can in less less time than it took some distribution exec to wank off. But like the other awkward little shits of the sophomore class, its impossible to take this underdeveloped, zit ridden and pus dripping, foul mouthed idiot seriously.

In the end, I was relieved when Bruno was over. I was starting to feel guilty that I cared more about the violent, homophobic rednecks, and other Bruno victims than I did about the title character. I could have watched "Milk" again for a better commentary on gay rights, and I could have watched "Revenge of the Anal Fuck Beast - the Musical" for the few laughs, and shocking anal moments that made up the rest of the film. All in all, it was somewhat less painful than being fisted by your prison cellmate, but more painful that just about every other contrived, redundant piece of shit sequel to ever come out. Ever.

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7.24.2009

Watchmen (DVD Release)

by MoviePrick

Okay now, admittedly, I'm a child of the 80s cold war and am part of the generation that received the comic novel "Watchmen" as a revolutionary leap forward in the depth and drama conveyed through the comic medium. So it was with mad abondon that I ran to theaters to see Zach Snyders adaptation. Yes, I realize with that mad abondon, I'd forgotten everything he'd previously done to "300" or "Dawn of the Dead", but then he did have that Morrissey thing so it's probably safe to assume a fondness for vegetarianism and sodomy. Its with this history the producers, who really should have known better, decided that Snyder was the right person to take on the insurmountable task of the "unmakeable" Watchmen.

The intro does a respectable job setting up the alternative 80s world of the main story. This is done through a series of what appear to be still photographs until you realize there's some slow motion effect that gives the whole thing a very modern feel. Aside from a shit brown backdrop, glowing-bright primary colors come dangerously close to a four year olds crayon colored glitter extravaganza helping to develop an oddly Art Deco world of depraved republicanism gone horribly wrong.

Now I could go on and on about the timeline and how it felt more jerked around than a handjob by a 900 pound gorilla, or the deadpan performances that made Julia Roberts look like Sir Lawrence Fucking Olivier. But for christs sake, you know it's an awful sign when Max Headroom shows up as an aging, cancer patient, tights wearing supervillan and out emotes the starring cast.

It's wasn't the acting, or editing, or the big blue danglies that bothered me about Watchmen, in fact all those bits were pretty good. The problem was what it wasn't. The movie version was not the "republican vision of the world gone wrong" that it should have been, and it wasn't the ironic human drama of conservative values versus humanity and redemption that it could have been. It's like if Picasso had a palette of paints and a mass of coke laden naked hookers writhing on a bed in front of his canvas, and instead decided to paint a bowl of cherries. The best parts of the novel which exemplified the irony of conservative utopia versus the real life problems of the people living in it were all cut, or barely given a slight nod on their way to the cutting room floor. The secondary story which ironically foreshadowed the eventual conclusion of the novel was entirely cut, even though it made up half the story and centered around evil pirates! Yes, let me just say that again, to counter a world in which costumed vigilantes ruled the streets, the characters of this world read about Pirates. Yet somehow not a single pirate made it into the final cut. This is not to whine about how the book was sooooo much better than the movie, but if the book was willing to slurp out every ounce of fluid, the movie was barely a lick and a tickle.

Unfortunately by the end of the movie, the extra 24 minutes of film you were supposed to have seen in the theatrical release don't matter except maybe as a big "fuck you" to the nobs who tell directors what they are and aren't allowed to put on the big screen for the sake of pandering to their nobbish audiences in order to maximize the ticket sales of a movie who's only real interest is to the aging bloated almost 40 something readers of comic books who may have actually read the book back when it was still culturally relevant, or even worse, still think it is. That's about 3 people at last count. No, the real problem is that you miss out entirely on what made the novel so special to begin with. Yes, by paring down the novel, Snyder managed to take what was a deep and compelling story and made it almost impossible to care.

The intricate interplay between idealism and reality, between human and sublime, and between cynical nihilism and hope for humanity to overcome even during the deepest political quagmire through heart and spirit - all lost! Instead, all you're left with is a bunch of crazy people playing dress up chasing after a blue glowing schlong -who's apparently too ashamed to be naked and wears some flying V underwear that looks like it was designed by whoever made the clothes for the people of "Dune"- while too distracted by the "crazy russians" to know that their real enemy was among them the whole time. Wait, even that makes it sound more interesting than it was.

What it really needed was the shock the book gave you when you realized the crazy antagonist was breeding a giant psyonic octopi that would explode and take humanity along with it in a screaming brain hemorrhaging mess. But instead all you get is a nuclear explosion which came across with all the power of a wet fart, and did nothing to convey the true depth of crazy that had taken hold of the mad genius antagonist. It's like the writers - who had so many good ideas and compelling plot points earlier on - had just given up at this point, thrown up in a bag, and used the spewage as inspiration of how to end it all. Its disheartening to think the director decided to bow down the the producer nobs because the idea of exploding psyonic octopi was too challenging for the middle american nobs. Apparently he's lost faith in his audience. The same audience who had gotten over the idea that crazy people running around in their underwear and tights is a viable form of entertainment and bought the bloody tickets already anyway - but somehow they just can't be trusted to accept the shocking leap that helped make the novel interesting through to the end.

All in all, it could have been worse. Which puts it somewhere on the scale between getting a rub and tug from a Scandinavian hand model, or having a feather shoved up your ass by a bearded fat man in a leopard costume.

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