Word: booking
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...From the start of the Watchmen cult, film people knew two things about the comic book: (1) that it simply had to be made into a movie and (2) that it couldn't. An epic superhero saga, spanning 45 years, with six major characters who all sport double identities and crucial, intertwined back-stories, does not lend itself to the narrative turbo-thrust of a standard action film. Indeed, the superest hero of the bunch - Dr. Manhattan, once known as Jon Osterman - is not an action hero; he's a passive one, a contemplative godhead, a sinewy blue nude Buddha...
...with the fan base. He worked from a script written in 2001 by David Hayter, and filigreed by Alex Tse, that was as close to the original as a movie could be. The best and worst thing to say about the Watchmen film is that, if you read the book, the movie you made in your head probably looked a lot like this...
...story's kernel of genius, which Moore kept popping over 12 monthly installments, is that actions have consequences, even in Action Comics. (That early comic book, which in 1938 contained the first adventure of Superman, was published by D.C., which 46 years later ran Watchmen.) The world of fantasy alters the "real" world it parallels. When superheroes do stuff, it changes the history of the America we've lived through. Moore's alternate history went like this...
...David Lynch's Dune. It's just, mostly, inert. (The two self-starters are Haley, who does right by his grizzled role, and Morgan, a Robert Downey Jr. knockoff, who chews the scenery and his stogie with equal aplomb.) And while the climax is unusual in a comic-book movie - bad guy does very bad thing, then escapes his comeuppance by persuading folks that what he's done is really kind of a good thing - it lacks the kick of apocalyptic retribution the mass audience expects and deserves...
...According to The Wall Street Journal, "Amazon.com Inc. plans to release a program Wednesday for reading electronic books on Apple Inc.'s iPhone, extending Amazon's sales of digital books to devices beyond its Kindle e-book reader...