"Who watches the Watchmen? " ask the concerned citizens of the USA during the film. Anyone who enjoys bringing their brain into the auditorium instead of leaving it by the popcorn counter would be my reply.
If you go to see this film expecting Spiderman teen-angst, Superman heroics or Batman pseudo-Freudian trauma, then this is not the movie for you. However if you want a film that stimulates the mind as well as the senses I recommend it without reservation.
It's pointless giving you a synopsis of the film - you can find this at IMDB or in Total Film or Empire magazines and their sister sites. I can only tell you my personal response and that was to be gripped by an intelligent storyline and not feel that the two and half hours of my life I had invested in this movie had been wasted. Also, I wanted to watch it again.
Whether seeing Watchmen on an IMAX screen contributed to such a positive experience will remain a matter of conjecture until I see it on a standard screen or on Blu-Ray in 6 months time. It is a film that's made for IMAX: epic and bold, visually stunning and riveted together by a savvy, intelligent script. The casting is crucial here: not one real-headlining, big-batter star but highly skilled and accomplished ensemble. Fine actors all. Most of them are familiar but would not instantly spring to mind to be of blockbuster, high budget calibre. Of course whether this is a blockbuster is debatable. The audience is limited in terms of box-office as it received an 18 certificate in the UK. Is this reasonable? Probably.
Arguably it is no more extreme than Zack Snyder's two earlier outings: Dawn of the Dead and the choreographed violence of 300 but where it oversteps the mark in the censors' eyes has to be two graphic scenes involving firstly an attempted rape and one in which a pregnant woman is shot dead. Again this is a film with very adult themes, deeply political and visceral. This is not to say that it is not entertaining - it has a deep sense of irony and dark humour which is refreshing and characters who are not insular, brooding navel searchers which I find so irritating about the glut of Marvel manifestations appearing on our screens.
Special mention to the opening credits which are stunning and a lesson in how to provide the audience with back-story with brevity and without the use of text or the dreaded voice over. For a moment I thought I was watching a Saul Bass sequence such was its refinement and story-telling energy that complemented the narrative moving it forward without one wasted shot.
The theme of anti-hero is timely and it is sobering to remember that this "unfilmable" film has taken nearly twenty years to be realised going through a sway of screen-writers, directors and
actors penciled in for the parts including Arnold Schwarzenegger. The creator of the graphic novel Alan Moore told Terry Gilliam as he (Gilliam) gave up on the project that the "War and Peace" of graphic novels was impossible to film as this art-form was impossible to emulate in terms of film and literature. Even if the film must undoubtedly be Watchmen-Lite, the spirit and the themes within the original novel are realised and all credit to the screenwriters David Hayter and Alex Tse in achieving this.
As for the IMAX. I pity anybody who sits on the first six rows. The cinema announcer welcomed us to the evening's screening and gave advice on what to do if anyone should feel dizziness or nausea or perhaps a combination of the two. I can't see how anybody positioned so close to the front can gain a positive experience of the screen. I think you would need the eyes positioned like a bullfrog or a chameleon to benefit from such proximity.
Ticket prices were £9.00 and £10.00 for the central VIP seats. The seats are comfortable with plenty of leg-room. One issue with The Printworks cinema I attended: the escalators are inadequate for the volume of people exiting the cinema at the end of the performance especially as the screen is housed at the top floor. This leads to a bottle-neck and a delay when leaving and potential crushing if other screens are exiting at the same time.
Special mention to the opening credits which are stunning and a lesson in how to provide the audience with back-story with brevity and without the use of text or the dreaded voice over. For a moment I thought I was watching a Saul Bass sequence such was its refinement and story-telling energy that complemented the narrative moving it forward without one wasted shot.
The theme of anti-hero is timely and it is sobering to remember that this "unfilmable" film has taken nearly twenty years to be realised going through a sway of screen-writers, directors and
actors penciled in for the parts including Arnold Schwarzenegger. The creator of the graphic novel Alan Moore told Terry Gilliam as he (Gilliam) gave up on the project that the "War and Peace" of graphic novels was impossible to film as this art-form was impossible to emulate in terms of film and literature. Even if the film must undoubtedly be Watchmen-Lite, the spirit and the themes within the original novel are realised and all credit to the screenwriters David Hayter and Alex Tse in achieving this.
As for the IMAX. I pity anybody who sits on the first six rows. The cinema announcer welcomed us to the evening's screening and gave advice on what to do if anyone should feel dizziness or nausea or perhaps a combination of the two. I can't see how anybody positioned so close to the front can gain a positive experience of the screen. I think you would need the eyes positioned like a bullfrog or a chameleon to benefit from such proximity.
Ticket prices were £9.00 and £10.00 for the central VIP seats. The seats are comfortable with plenty of leg-room. One issue with The Printworks cinema I attended: the escalators are inadequate for the volume of people exiting the cinema at the end of the performance especially as the screen is housed at the top floor. This leads to a bottle-neck and a delay when leaving and potential crushing if other screens are exiting at the same time.
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