Watchmen

I saw Watchmen yesterday after my aborted gimik right after work at Charlie's on-construction drive-by lodge at Times Beach. I was drinking my second glass of Red Horse and was next in line to sing my favorite "Stitches and Burns" by Fra Lippo Lippi when Jhae called. I forgot to return the keys to the board room so I had to get back ASAP.

As much as I'd like to be a bit productive and do audits, I could't because the 2 glasses got to me already and my head pounded like crazy the moment I put my headset on. After a bit of Excel tutorial online, I got ready to go to Gaisano Mall.

There were lots of good movies at the moment. There was Milk, Confessions of a Shopaholic, Street Fighter and You Changed My Life, which I promised myself I will watch. Hearing a lot of buzz about it though made me watch Watchmen instead.

I've heard about Watchmen before the movie, when one classmate in college boasted he received his copy of the graphic novel. I wasn't able to borrow it, the thing somehow a bit sacred to him. All I knew about it was it was about a group of vigilantes who had their heyday in the 60s, grew old, who for some reason were outlawed and lived their separate lives as their "normal" but very damaged alter-egos.

With the movie, which I heard was a very faithful to the written/drawn form, I was able to see the attraction that my classmate had. The movie was visually spectacular; the slow-mo effects, which are getting outdated by the way, were put in much use to show the hyper-action fight scenes. It was a bit raw and vivid in its depiction of gore and violence: image of broken bones, punctured skin and splattered blood replete with crunching jarring sound. And then there's naked blue Dr. Manhattan, the only hero who has real powers. Albeit his didn't get hard, he was still fun to watch for at least 5 minutes.


That said, there were lots of times when I found myself dozing off. I suppose it was meant to be a cerebral, satirical view of contemporary society. The irony was there: the sociopath Rorschach with the creepy mask who had a twisted sense of morality, in contrast to the world leaders in general, bottled in the brutish The Comedian, who are getting ready for nuclear war. It shows that the human being is fundamentally destructive and that only a sacrifice can save it: the world uniting for peace against Dr. Manhattan. The plot was Ozymandius' brainchild, supposedly the world's smartest man, and he somehow represents idealism; achieving a noble cause at a very steep price. Nite Owl and Silk Spectre are the two most "normal" in the group but they were shown to have problems of their own- the former impotent and the latter, living out the life deigned by a ex-superhero mother who hides a very dark secret in her life.

I was able to see its attempt at a deconstruction of superhero mythology, although the superheroes here are basically broken individuals who hides behinds masks, capers and latex fetish-y jumpsuits. However, I got lost and bored silly somewhere along the way. At almost 3 hours, it tested my patience. I wished they had made it more compact and streamlined.

I was able to finish it, much in deference to the material's history (my classmate loved it so much) and to satisfy my intellectual curiosity (emotionally, I was long far gone from caring for them or the movie in general and was only jolted shock when Rorschach who I was slightly rooting for was reduced to a gooey splatter in the end). Now that I've finished it, I can't wait to watch You Changed My Life.