The Watchmen Backlash Has Begun

Posted by on February 19th, 2009   Filed under: Books/Comics, Fandom, Sci-fi

We’re now two weeks out from the release of Zack Snyder’s Watchmen, and bits and pieces of reviews are starting to roll in. As expected, there is a lot of early praise, but amidst all the fanboy hysteria, viral marketing and free condoms, it looks like there is also some negative buzz starting to build. First of all, there are some non-fanboy reviews indicating that the movie is both campy and melodramatic. That, in itself is not always a bad thing in my eyes, but the word “campy” is typically not pleasing to the ears of most geeks.

Secondly, and more importantly, a few actual clips from the movie have been released online, and while they are fairly short and taken out of context, they certainly lend credence to the fact that the movie is a little over the top (particularly Snyder’s infatuation with slow-mo). New York Mag also chimes in with their own predictions on what they believe the nitpickers will hate about the movie. At the top of the list? Malin Ackerman’s acting. It kinda makes sense… fanboys always seem to have it out for the chicks. At any rate, maybe it won’t be the new “best comic book movie ever” after all. I’ll be very interested to see what the general consensus is once the dust settles.



  • Slushie Man

    The people who complain its campy have obviously not read the source material. It’s supposed to be that way if they want to stay faithful to the original comic.

  • To be fair, I didn’t care for the film adaptation of V FOR VENDETTA, another graphic novel by the great Alan Moore.

    I am not sure if I’ll like The Watchmen, but I’m still going to see it.

  • I’ll go, no matter what

  • Goon

    I have absolutely no problem with these clips whatsoever.

    At the length the movie is, yeah, maybe theres a limit to what you can take. I am definitely holding out for the possibility of it sucking, considering I didnt like 300 much at all.

    But I think what we have here is someone doing something a little different than we’re used to in these comic book movies, and it scares people. You combine a different sense of timing and character with the inherent campiness of some of these characters and their outfits, and that’s what happens.

    I don’t see whats so shocking here.

  • Matt

    Totally agree with Slushie Man. From what I can tell from the clips, the movie is incredibly faithful to the source material. The only question is whether or not that material will translate well to the big screen.
    As of right now I’m very excited about the movie.

  • Pr1mal

    The last major trailer for Watchmen has me sold on me watching it opening day. Words like campy & over-the-top aren’t new to the comic book film and is pretty has been a staple to the genre for decades before marvel/dc started to get serious with their franchises.

    Melodramatic? I don’t see how this could be a bad thing. If it’s on the level of Sin City melodrama, then that’s fine with me.

    Seeing clips out of context are usually a turn off for me. Like when they do a 10min of various scenes of a movie after watching smallville or something.

  • 1138

    Interesting. Haven’t seen any of the material yet just the stuff from the trailers. So far it looks cool.

    As for campy, I guess the comic would translate as such, but the comic was far from campy. It reads as rather depressing and dark rather than campy. But I could see how the material could translate as such.

    It’s hard to do translate moore stuff onto the big screen…it’s a fine line between being really bombastic and silly to being really cool and dramatic.

    But I’m still going to see it. It looks cool and it’ one the interesting sci-fi, fantasy movies to start the year off with.

  • Liz

    A friend of mine caught a screening of this a while ago and says that while it’s very faithful to the source material, that’s actually the film’s biggest problem.

  • The acting is a problem? Come on, with the exception of The Dark Knight, comic book movies never have good acting. And in most cases, I’d blame the script before I blame the acting when the word “campy” comes into play.

  • Goon

    ^ Alfred Molina in Spiderman 2 spits on your comment :P

  • TheAllKnowingGod

    “Unfortunately it’s an empty, inert, meandering and, yes, boring”

    Sounds like a pretty faithful adaptation of the comic book then!

  • You want good acting in a comic book movie? Jennifer Connelly in Hulk.

  • the only annoying thing about that clip was the way too obvious attempt to date the scene. other than that it looked like a comic book movie.

  • Sly

    I like campy!

  • swarez

    People are complaining about melodramatic when Spiderman 2 is considered to be one of the best comic book movie evah?

  • Ha! I wrote an article about two months ago on why this movie is going to suck. Any bets that I’m spot on?

  • Goon

    you hate just about every comic book anyways Andrew – even if it ends up 90% on RT (which I bet it wont) I still doubt you’d like it.

  • rus in chicago

    this movie is going to suck trust me. 300 is unwatchable once you get past the slow-mo and Butler’s delivery. ZACK SYNDER is a young Micheal Bay; all fireworks and no storytelling ability!

  • cronenfly

    if there is one thing i have noticed about zack snyder, is that the trailers for his films are always good and contain some good tunes:

    Dawn Of The Dead, Sparklehorse
    300, Nine Inch Nails
    Watchmen, Smashing Pumpkins/Muse/Philip glass

    Dawn of The Dead remake and 300 were alright but i must say that i enjoyed the trailers for those films more than than the films themselves.

  • I was, and really stil am very excited for Watchmen. The trailers blew my mind so hard that I ran to pick up a copy of the original watchmen and read it. Initially I didn’t like the Graphic Novel, you can see this in some very stupid comments i’ve made on film junk, but I read it a couple more times and I grew to love it. I have to say though, these clips have brought my excitment down a notch. The extent to which Zack Snyder is using Slo-mo is ridiculous, it’s in 2 out of 4 clips and in both cases it dosen’t need to be there. I mean seriously, can’t the guy let it go for 2 seconds? Another thing that bothered me was the use of the seventies song in the comedian clip. I admit it’s nitpicking, but it just bugged me for some reason. The acting was a little over the top but that didn’t really bug me as much. I think it might be the direction that could potentially kill this movie for me in the end.

  • I think the negative backlash is mostly coming from the fanboys who follow every Watchmen viral campaign, marketing gimmick and trailer release on the Internet. 99% of the movie going public don’t and probably have never heard of The Watchmen. They will determine the success of this movie not a guy posting on a Watchmen bulletin board.
    I read Watchmen in the original 12 issue release in the mid 80’s and thought it was brilliant. I even bought the companion coffee table book “Watching the Watchmen” last year. I’m looking forward to the movie.

  • Barkley

    I want it 2 be good but the more faithful it is to the comic the less likely i think it will be a good movie. no win situation, if its 2 close its campy and weird if its 2 far people are mad

  • Neil M

    That riot clip just reminded me of Superbad.

  • Dan

    I want to see Zach Snyder to direct a porno. When the male pornstar blows his load in the end, Snyder is gonna spend 5 minds following the guy’s cum in slow motion as it lands on the floor.

  • Floor? What kind of porn do you watch? It’s either gonna be blown into her face with a slow-mo dark-pitched female going “Ooooaaaaaarrrhhhaaaahaaaaaaa” or quickly pulled out in doggy-style and blown onto her back with the male lead in slow-mo roaring.

  • Dan

    Or maybe when the guy is penetrating the girl, Snyder will do an ultra slow-mo of the penis entering the vagina, then he is gonna speed the action up 2x as the guy pumps the ,then all of a sudden a huge slowmo with the camera focusing on the girl’s boobs which are bouncing all over the place in supper slow motion.

    Damn, I’d pay good money to see that porno

  • Theres a scene in Watchmen where the nite owl bangs silk spectre where he could possibly do that.

  • RichPea

    This movie was alot darker than I thought it would be… yes Night Owl did do the deed with Spectre… and it was FANTASTIC… she blew fire in the climax. =b

    Never did I think that f*ck would be used so much, or that there would be so much gore ( and a huge blue shlong that hung lowww… ahem, Mr. Manhattan)… or that boobs would actually make it into the film.

    But low and behold, I was treated with all of it. =)

    This director apparently doesn’t give a shit about parents and what their reaction would be if they took their kids to this NON-KIDDY movie.

    PARENTS: This movie is rated R for a reason…

    So unless you think its ok for your kid to see a pregnant woman shot to death, or a female being raped, I think you might wanna NOT let your kids see it.

    As for myself…. I’m off to see it agaiN! \o/