vrillsharpe

I swear I must have been in a black hole of comic fandom in 1985! After the movie was announced last year, I sheepishly avoided questions about having read the book. (I had not!) Then all copies of the graphic novel that I had missed sold out or skyrocketed in price! As soon as a reprint came out I picked one up and read through it. So the book and movie is quite fresh with me. I thought both were excellent. Watchmen doesn't pull any punches and is largely faithful to the book. Zack Snyder and Dave Gibbons did a fantastic job bringing Watchmen to the screen. Like Rorschach, the movie does not compromise.

But that could be a detriment for some. It's a movie by fans for fans. While fans will love Watchmen, it may be a mystery for the initiated. People who don't like comics may not get it. The good news is that those people are now in the minority! In 1985, when Watchmen was published, the first mainstream comic movies, Superman and Batman had just been made.

Watchmen is a deliriously complicated puzzle of a story. Tough to do in a film! Watchmen succeeds brilliantly without taking itself seriously. Rorschach, Dr. Manhattan and The Comedian are easily the most complex characters in any graphic novel and could have fallen out of the pages of a Dostoevsky novel. The brilliant acting treatment given to them by Jackie Earle Haley, Billy Crudup, Jeffrey Dean Morgan is really top notch and certainly carried the film. The film is well worth watching for Jackie Earle Haley alone. The look is glorious as well. The Artist Dave Gibbons was very involved with the film and in most places it follows the book panel by panel. Sure there were a few changes, but nothing untrue to the spirit of the novel.

My 14 year old son passed on this, so I went by myself. I should have heeded his warning, "Dad, it IS a kid's movie." It is in fact.

But desirous of a Star Wars fix, I had to go.

And I am sorry I did. What a waste of time! I probably would have gotten more out of playing Battlefront II on my Xbox. Replaying Knights of the Old Republic would definitely have been better.

There wasn't really a story here, and what story there was pretty much an affront to any decent writing in any of the novels or comics in the last 30 years. There are many fan movies that are a whole heck of a lot better. Many fine things have been said that lay out the failings of this movie, so there's no need to repeat them. Most of the characters are as much cardboard as the vaunted breakthrough animation techniques. That's enough to tank any movie.

Couldn't we have had a movie that didn't pander to five year olds? This thing should have come with a Warning. "Warning! Watching this fetid pile of ripe manure, will cause you to develop a severe allergic reaction toward the Star Wars franchise."

This is one of Jack Black's best movies, probably his best next to "School of Rock".

This movie is a bit slow at first and takes awhile for the premise to gel, but once the premise locks in, the movie takes off running with an unremitting barrage of some of the most original film making I've ever witnessed.

It plays on the premise, that everyone has a filmmaker lurking deep inside them wanting to get out.

If you ever made home movies as a kid, aspiring to recreate classic films then you can probably relate to the film.

The energy is really catchy and the homemade movies so original, and funny in their funkiness, that it's very hard not to like.

Mia Farrow hasn't been this good since she was in Woody Allen's films in the 80's. The film definitely pays homage to Allen's comic genius, in many ways, and Michael Gondry could be a contender to carry the torch of quirky comic genius forward to a new generation.

This is an ensemble, film and Jack Black carves out some new territory for himself, in his ability to blend into the cast. As much as anyone as extroverted Jack Black could be said to "blend". Still he manages to be a team player quite nicely.

Taken separately, Clive Owen, Cate Blanchett and Geoffrey Rush were all brilliant. Clive is certainly convincing as Walter Raleigh, and Cate is brilliant but this film did not flow at all.

I blame the direction, editing and script as being all very very weak.

The resultant mess is a colossal waste of talent! I love the story, and have read and re-read the historical facts pertinent to the film. The premise main was not entirely flawed, although it does gloss over and leave out a lot. (where are you Sir Francis?)

Actually if they had left out Raleigh and had Clive play Drake this might have worked! ) coulda ... shoulda ... woulda .... oh well !!!! Drake was the bigger player than Raleigh and burned the Spanish fleet at Cadiz the year before.

It's possible that Mary Queen of Scots may have been setup by Phillip the Second, although, no one can really say whether that's true, it seems highly unlikely.

Also I doubt that Elizabeth was as uncertain of herself and conflicted as portrayed by the film. By then she was a survivor's survivor and new all the in's and out's of Renaissance Europe's Machiavellian politics. I did give Cate a great opportunity however. Unfortunately the movie just did not carry the story of England and Elizabeth's triumph over the Spanish as well as it could, actually it doesn't carry the story at all.

I took my 13 year old son to see it, personally I liked it much better than the latest Potter movie. The Potter series is now fully adrift without a rudder.

I'm a big fan of the Dark is Rising series. They overdid it with special effects in the way only Hollywood can do. When one special effect is good, then 100 must be better??? I could just see the producer saying, "we really need to spice that bit up a bit, throw in some more Hitchcockian Crows!" Not really in this case no, is the answer and too much is really just too much. Still they did manage to capture some of the quiet majesty, and a bit of fun. I thought the movie as a movie for the pre-teen set was actually not bad, for an action fantasy flick. Not the greatest but then not terrible either.

Then again perhaps Susan Cooper's fine work deserves better. I don't think you will see anymore of these made into movies, as the books are fun, but they follow a linear sequence in same way the Harry Potter series does. More like a series of somewhat disconnect adventures.

Although JK obviously borrowed more than a little from this series. Or perhaps it served as her inspiration.

In terms of personal satisfaction, the books just keep getting better and better but the movies keep getting worse and worse. This one wasn't awful, but the Harry Potter magic did not translate well to the screen.

If the title here is "the Order of the Phoenix" (right?) then why is so little energy spent on defining the characters of the order itself.

I don't like to compare the movie to the book.

Insofar as the translation from book to movie went, that was OK.

What I fault the movie for was poor editing, even poorer direction. The timing felt off in just about every scene. The whole thing did not gel.

Scratching my head, asking why it felt disappointing, I went to see Transformers the next day, and loved it! Perhaps another viewing will be more forgiving though.

I thought this movie was a complete waste of an excellent cast.

The jokes tended to fall flat.

The music was hackneyed and uninspired, and the sound cues actually worked against the comedic timing.

I wasn't made to care about the characters mid-life crisis as none of them was fleshed out enough for me to be interested in their plight.

All in all, this was one of the most boring films I've seen in quite awhile and some of it was so bad I felt like walking out.

Actor Ray Liotta was scary, not good scary, just really creepy as an outlaw biker. Given that he has a hardcore persona in real life I think he was well cast, but didn't do a lot for the film than perhaps bring a single moment of freshness, into this limp dishrag of a movie.

I felt William J. Macy was miscast. He seemed very uncomfortable in his role as an inept and gullible loser, who wouldn't be? Although I could relate to him as well as any of the characters.

The cameo appearance in the end by biker screen legend Peter Fonda was probably the best 30 secs of the film.

Well this was not a bad film at all. I went with three other people and everyone liked it immensely.

One could call it inoffensive, since the subject matter has potentially explosive content.

But, that's what Ron Howard tends to do with what he's given, take a message and make it palpable for a wide audience without getting everyone angry. He's too nice perhaps.

Still, the film got me right away, and I was pretty much glued to it the entire length.

I had not read the book, although I am very familiar with the subject. Yes! Dan Brown, should pay the people who wrote Holy Blood, Holy Grail, because that is all their idea! Dan Brown, did however write a marvelous story, that is entirely his own. Brilliant stuff. So borrowing ideas is not a crime, but perhaps he should have included footnotes. I liked how the historical flashbacks were done as well, as washed out black and white.

Silas, (Paul Bettany) pretty much carries the movie. Some of the scenes were just skin crawling creepy. Perhaps there was a great film lurking in there, had the film sustained the intensity of the Silas scenes, it could have been a masterwork.

Still it's an important film, as the subject matter raises questions about the origin of a faith that was in fact, taken in a completely other direction 3 centuries after it's inception.