Seitz. Writes.

Well, I promised you two editions as atonement (punishment?) for my laziness, so here you go. I started this one after I finished Milk yesterday, but I only finished it today. Sorry.

Believe it or not, I’ve actually seen Watchmen already, so we’ll see if that has any influence on how hard I rip into Peter Travers’ braindead bastard child of a review.

If anyone’s actually curious about the movie, it’s good, but that’s all I’ll give it. It’s not the great masterpiece that everyone hoped it’ll be. If I were ranking it on a totem pole of other comic book movies (and really, that’s all it is), tt’s probably on par with first two Spiderman movies. There are some big flaws in the filmmaking, but there’s a good chance that if you like the book that you won’t be too dissapointed by the result.

But if you’re like me, you probably don’t want to read the reviews until you’ve seen the movie. In that case, don’t go read Peter Travers’ review here, and don’t continue on past the jump for my comedic stylings:

Listen up, “Watchmen” virgins. I don’t care if you know squat about the orgasmically received 1987 graphic novel written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons: It’s time to bust your cherry.

Look, we all know what he was going for here, but considering that the midnight showing I went to had no fewer than six people dressed as Rorschach, and a guy who literally “blue” himself to look like Dr. Manhattan to do backflips in front of the screen before the movie, “virgins” might not have been the ideal word to describe people who haven’t read the book. Furthermore, implying that the comic book brought people to orgasm is just gross. Besides, having an orgasm while reading a comic book does not mean that you have, in fact, busted your cherry.

Congratulations though. Two sentences in, this review already contains as much awkward, misplaced sexual tension as a junior high dance.

With its alternate universe of vigilante superheroes and power-crazed U.S. politicians heading for nuclear disaster, Watchmen took comic books to the next level as literature.

Fact: I enjoyed Watchmen the comic book. Another fact: the “next level” of literature above comic books is Stephen King.

Even if you don’t see Snyder’s version, which has its problems, it won’t kill you to peek at the comic book that Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof called “the greatest piece of popular fiction ever produced.”

There has to be someone else you could have cited here besides the one of the guys who created one of the most unneccesarily convoluted television series that I’ve never seen. Besides, what are the chances that the kind of person who would be influenced by what the co-creator of “Lost” has to say would not have already read the book?

As for you Watchmen junkies, enough with tearing down the movie before you even see it.

Yes. How dare you pass judgment on an adaptation of something that you love so much that the only rational comparison is to that of a smack addict.

Moore, soured by the Hollywood mangling of From Hell, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and V for Vendetta, has removed his good name from the credits. In the process, he has inadvertently inspired a band of rabid loyalists ready to shoot Snyder on sight.

Nothing like some unnecessary hyperbole to keep a Peter Travers’ review moving right along.

Sheesh. Whether the movie soars or tanks, it won’t make the comic book extinct. Get a grip.

And whether or not a bunch of fanboys love or hate the movie, it won’t make the movie extinct, or your review good.

Caught between the rock of fanboy adulation and the hard place of newbie indifference, the R-rated, nearly-three-hour movie version of Watchmen is a cinematic piñata getting whacked from every side.

Current awkward misplaced sexual tension level: Watching History of Violence with your grandparents.

One look at mutant physicist Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup), standing 200 feet, glowing with blue light and flashing a few yards of giant blue wiener, and you’ll think you’re in for the colossus of campfests.

Correction: Canteen Boy.

Or glom onto Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley), the vigilante in a white mask who shows a face of ever-changing ink blots, and you’ll think a popcorn night at the movies has morphed into a Rorschach test administered by a lethally sadistic shrink.

I’ll leave “glom” alone becuase it’s actually a cool word used correctly, if awkwardly. But don’t you think that comparing a character called Rorschach to an actual Rorschach test is just a little obvious and lazy?

What’s the truth? A little of both, I’m afraid. Moore recalled his four years of toil on the 12-issue DC Comics series as “slam-dancing with a bunch of rhinos.”

What?

That description also fits watching the movie, which stumbles and sometimes falls on its top-heavy ambitions.

No. I don’t think that description fits watching the movie at all. When I watched the movie, I sat in my seat and enjoyed a bucket of popcorn. No Rhinos. But I suppose “slam-dancing with a bunch of rhinos” is still better than “flashing a few yards of giant blue wiener.”

Snyder, a director of TV ads (yikes!) who made his feature debut with a rockin’ 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead

So he gets a “yikes!” becuase he had to work his way up to being a major film director. I might as well start referring to Peter Travers as a “writer of obituaries who made his film reviewing debut with People magazine.”

Snyder sums it up in a yowsa opening that merges Vietnam, moonwalks, you name it, into a visionary time capsule.

Yowsa? YOWSA!

Plot point coming: Since 1977, masked heroes have been banned from doing their thing. Except for Dr. Manhattan, rendered übermensch in a lab accident, they have no superpowers, just a jones to fight in drag.

More strangely sexual writing coming: nobody in the film even remotely dresses in drag, but apparently Peter Travers has a bit of a mask fetish.

Wilson (Angels in America) gained a few pounds but otherwise suggests nothing less than an Adonis in a role that cried out for, say, Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Correction: Peter Travers has a fat guys in masks fetish.

He’s all limp-dick with Silk Spectre II (Malin Akerman), a.k.a. Laurie Jupiter, until cracking heads makes him rock-hard.

If that weren’t an accurate description of what happens in the movie, I’d be much more creeped out. Let see how this goes…

Laurie had been getting it on with Dr. Manhattan, a.k.a. Jon Osterman, but his interests had turned to physics and Mars despite his giant blue penis.

…and we’re now at greco-roman wrestling awkward…

What’s a girl to do, especially one with a mom (Carla Gugino, perfecto!), the original Silk Spectre, who may have been raped by the Comedian?

…clown-rape awkward…

For Laurie, it’s out with the Doc and in with the hottie spandex (hello, Killer Barbie), just the thingie to put new hoot into Nite Owl II.

…and we’re at defcon 1:  Olympic Gymnastics awkward.

Even in the time of a popular new leader, Watchmen tells us to be on guard about our alleged protectors.

No, it really doesn’t, but I assume that people saying things like this is why Alan Moore is completely insane.

Moore worried about winding up with “a big, messy, steaming bowl of semiotic spaghetti.”

Here are some other insane Alan Moore quotes, courtesy of wikiquote.

And if you have to go back to the comic to learn that the freaks in Watchmen are not only for geeks, maybe that’s not so bad. Just sayin’.

It takes balls to write a movie review that basically keeps telling you to go read the book. It’s really just the laziest tactic possible. I shouldn’t be surprised, but that’s just the way it goes for me.

Tags: flashing a few yards of giant blue wiener, I Hate Peter Travers, Movies, Watchmen
Filed under: Commentary, Journalism, Movies