OK, how to explain how I feel about this one isn’t fun.

Awhile ago, Boris and I went to a cheap day Tuesday matinee for this movie. It has taken me awhile to decide if I liked the movie or not.

I didn’t like it.

Why did it take me so long to figure this out? It wasn’t the script, though I felt it could have been trimmed a bit. It was quite long (162 minutes). I have been told by people who have read the graphic novel, that it was fairly faithful, I never read it, so I don’t know for sure. For once I am not belly aching about the script. The writing and story and characters worked for what it was. I just did not like it. The characters are not particularly lovable or enjoyable. They aren’t meant to be, it’s the way the story is, the Heros are not heroic. You will like this or you will not like this. The production values are fine.

What really has made this a movie I dislike is the extreme violence. We are not talking violence, we are talking, EXTREME violence. For the longest time I was not sure if it was that aspect of the story made me unhappy with this film.

It happened to me once before. When I watched “Reservoir Dogs”, I thought I hated the movie. For the longest time I could not think of it without going “Blech, I will never watch that again”. Then it came to me there was a word missing when I said that. I did not say “Blech, I will never watch that PIECE OF SHIT again”. No matter how hard I tried, I could never fit those words into that sentence. It was because I did not think that the movie was a piece of shit, I still won’t ever watch it again. What made me unable to judge it fairly was the layer of gore and violence that permeates almost all the scenes. To me it was over the top, overkill, and gratuitous.

Do people really enjoy that level of violence? Do they really need that level of violence? Could this movie have been made with less blood strewn all over the place? In my case, I say I don’t know, not really and perhaps. Unfortunately what was a well written film will never get another nod from me. I will never watch it again, and yes I agree it had a good script and was well done, I don’t think I would ever recommend it to some one to watch. The violence clouds any merits this film has for me. It took me forever to admit that it might be not bad.

That is the same feeling I get with “Watchmen”, only I don’t think this one is great. The original graphic novel is violent. It is disconcerting to see the type of injuries inflicted on drawn characters translated to real actors. It is far too much, it becomes disgusting and unbearable to watch after awhile.

Why do the film makers feel they need to do this to their audience? It belittles it after awhile, trivializes the violence. To me this makes the movie repugnant. Once again, any merit is totally obscured by this.

Well I have decided, in the future, if I cannot decide if I like a movie due to insane, crazy, unnecessary violence, I will allow myself to say I did not like it and it sucked.

“Watchmen” sucked.

That is all.

kimkac is really late with this review, oh well, it sucked so who cares?