Watchmen - The Ultimate Cut

Under The Hood

Watchmen - The Ultimate Cut
USA 2009+ Directed by Zack Snyder
Warner Brothers/Paramount Pictures 
UK Blu Ray

Warning: Lots of spoilers, I’m sure

Watchmen was one of three heavily influential comic books of 1986 which kinda changed the face of comic books thereafter. They were DC’s Watchmen, DC’s The Dark Knight Returns and, to a lesser extent although it’s certainly not a lesser comic, Marvel’s Elektra Assassin. It’s said that because of the two DC titles, comic books finally grew up to reach a new adult audience. Which is actually a bit wrong or, as I would say myself, total nonsense. There were always Adult comics around such as the 1960s Underground Comics and even, of course, the Tijuana Bibles prevalent in the 1920s to 1960s (which are referenced in a neat scene in Watchmen). Not to mention stuff like Metal Hurlant (aka Heavy Metal) and Marvel imprints like Epic and the comic book magazine that it was named after.

So, to be a little more accurate, this was when superhero... or rather... costumed hero orientated comics grew up... at least in the mainstream. Now I was a year or two late to the party and so I read collected editions of these titles and a few other important landmarks during 1987 and 1988, generally perceived, as I said, as also being touch points for the maturation of the ‘four coloured funnies’. So I was also reading stuff like Batman - The Killing Joke, Blood - A Tale and Stray Toasters around this time. The comic was written by the great Alan Moore who, as far as I know, has never seen the movie version and has, like all the other movies based on his comics, had his name taken off the credits. He originally wanted to tell his story with the Charlton Comics characters that DC had, relatively recently at the time, bought but, when the company realised just how dark he was going to go with them, Moore was encouraged to create new heroes instead. 

And then Zack Snyder made a Watchmen movie in 2009 and, he did an amazing job with it. 

It wasn’t the first time it had been attempted, most famously by Terry Gilliam who, after a while, declared it unfilmable. I’d have to say that Snyder definitely proved the naysayers wrong. It’s an impressive movie and there are just a few changes, other than things which just build on ideas already present in the original 12 issue mini series. 

It’s basically a whodunnit, where the group of ‘once costumed heroes’ who are retired in this alternative version of history, due to current president Richard Nixon (still president in the 1980s in the story) making costumed vigilantes illegal (and idea which was also used in The Dark Knight Returns comic from the same year as Watchmen), have to solve a murder of one of their own. 

Two generations of costumed heroes are depicted with the main players being... Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley who lobbied for the role and was the only one who’d read the original comic mini series before being cast), Patrick Wilson as the second generation Nite Owl, Carla Gugino as the original Silk Spectre, Malin Akerman as the second generation Silk Spectre, Billy Crudup as Dr. Manhattan, Matthew Goode as Ozymandias, Jeffrey Dean Morgan as The Comedian and Stephen McHattie as the original Nite Owl (who has published a book about the early days of the Minutemen - as the team of first generation heroes was called in the 1940s - called Under The Hood) and a whole host of others. Patrick Wilson is maybe not quite as dumpy as Nite Owl II is supposed to be but, he and all the others do an absolutely terrific job in a film which is absolutely densely packed with details. 

The opening credits montage, after the murder of The Comedian, is a wonderful snapshot of the 1940s through to the 1960s and fills the viewer in on some of the themes which will come up. Almost all the heroes are heavily flawed with, absolutely no doubt that the Comedian... who shot a woman carrying a baby in her womb, tried to rape Silk Spectre (and there’s a nice twist in that later in the story) and killed many innocents in both the Vietnam war (which America won in this version, because the US had Doctor Manhattan, walking in a giant sized version of himself and exploding people with his thoughts while Wagner’s Ride Of The Valkyries plays, in a direct reference to Apocalypse Now) and after, certainly deserving to die... but also the only one perceptive enough to see what is coming before it happens... and is killed for his trouble. Although, of course, Dr. Manhattan probably also knows because he doesn’t perceive time linearly like most people.

Like the comic, the film plays as a mystery in terms of who killed The Comedian and... is someone targetting ex-masked heroes or is something else even more world threatening going on? I won’t reveal who is behind everything but the film has a tragic ending in a way, with one of the heroes who gets obliterated by one of two of his allies having the last laugh in terms of a journal he kept and mailed to a newspaper... although if its taken seriously, it could also mean the end of the world!

It’s about corruption and people selling out and, ultimately, people deciding to do the wrong things for the right reasons. It’s very, very dark and is the second greatest superhero movie ever made (I still count Wonder Woman as the greatest). It’s one of the best things Zack Snyder ever did (certainly much better than his modern DC movies) and the Ultimate Cut, which I’d not seen before, brings it even closer to the comic book. While the Under The Hood text story back ups from each issue are not used, the Ultimate cut, which runs for around three and a half hours, puts in the comic book within a comic book, Tales From The Black Freighter, that the kid from the news stand keeps reading in the original source. I was worried these cartoon segments were going to look silly cut into the live action but the director does a really good job and they don’t stick out like a sore thumb unless the edit makes them do that when they’re supposed to. It’s all integrated very nicely. It also captures the tone of an old EC horror comic book from the 1950s really well, although the actual comic cover the kid is reading in the film marks it out as a DC comic. 

When the movie initially came out, I was angry that the original ending of a fake tentacle monster invading Earth to unite the nations in peace was replaced by an energy bomb which equally kills millions instead of invading aliens. But, reflecting on this, it might have seemed silly to an audience used to more sophisticated effects and plot mechanisms and I can see why they did it. But it’s a brilliant movie and many of the shots from the comic books (plus alternate pop culture incidents) are lovingly crafted in some of the most beautiful colour palettes and transitions rendered in film history...

The opening shot of the comic, which tracks up from The Comedian’s badge with the drop of his blood on the eye so we can see it laying in the blood from his splattered remains, where his body fell from being pushed from the window, doesn’t appear right at the start of the movie like the comic but it is recreated here later (the badge with the blood splash in the comic would be quickly acquired as a symbol of the Acid movement in 1980s and 90s music culture and I always found it amazing that none of the kids I met who wore the badge had any idea it was related to a comic book). 

Like the comic, the film shifts to cross-cutting between various sets of characters, as each issue was used to highlight a character in turn. So you get various characters dealt with in more detail at different points in the movie. My favourite sequence... which was also one of my favourites from the original comic... is where we see the man who became Dr. Manhattan obliterated in a nuclear accident and then gradually, over many months, rebuild himself out of nothing into the being he is now... all set to a couple of needle dropped pieces from the Philip Glass score to Koyaaniqatsi. It’s good stuff. 

It’s a film of wonder and horror and, I think, fully deserves the 18 rating the film got in the UK. It’s also one of the great works of art in cinematic history and I’m surprised people aren’t still talking about it. Like the comic it’s based on, though, it’s a very rich, dense text and probably a lot of stuff is missed in a casual viewing of the material. And that’s about as much as I want to say about Watchmen - The Ultimate Cut, I think. I could probably write a lot more, actually but it would end up like a thesis and I don’t want to go down that route, for sure. However, this will be rediscovered and hailed as the classic it is one day, I’m sure, but in the meantime... Who Watches The Watchmen? 

Silent Night

It’s Beginning To Look
A Lot Like Apocalypse

Silent Night
Written & Directed by Camille Griffin
UK 2021
Marv Films

Warning: Yeah, I think to do this incredible film justice, this one’s going to have all the spoilers in it. So do yourself a favour if you’ve not seen this one... don’t read this, go into the film blind and then, if you feel like it, give it a read after.

Silent Night is a film I think I might have heard recommended on the All The Colours Of The Dark podcast at some point but, I don’t think I knew it was a Christmas movie. When I was looking at festive movies to watch this year I stumbled upon it and, yeah, I do have vague recollections of it being recommended on that show/cast. I have to say, I was absolutely blown away by Silent Night (why it’s yet another film with this title, I don’t know).

It starts off all jolly and fun as a mother and father played by Keira Knightley and Matthew Goode are getting ready for Christmas guests, their college friends, on Christmas Eve. Their children are all being given the usual, ‘get ready and this is not what to do’ talks and these three kids, just like everybody else, are absolutely amazing in this... and they’re also the sons of the writer/director Camille Griffin. A special shout out to the lead son Art, played by Roman Griffin Davis, who really hammers home the social messages of the film. And then all the guests begin to arrive, played by various actors and actresses who are all absolutely brilliant in this movie... including (and this is by no means an exhaustive list of the incredible talent in this) Annabelle Wallis, Lily-Rose Depp, the extraordinary Lucy Punch and the incredible Kirby Howell-Baptiste (Death herself, from The Sandman, reviewed by me here).

And, as the night of the party gets going, little clues which support the premise of what’s really going on here, start to come into play. It’s an incredibly subtle movie (in some ways... some of the characters are, themselves, far from subtle) and it slowly unfolds the truly horrifying concept. So, for instance, everyone, including the various kids in the movie, are all swearing like sailors as their parents are now allowing it. And the chickens who live in the grounds of the beautiful country manor, where the party is being held, are let loose because... and this is the first real hint... it’s kinder to let them get killed by foxes than the alternative. Another sign that things are not quite right... when the parents forgot to get the sticky toffee pudding in for one of the kids... is that one of the guests goes to the shop to get some. Never mind that the shops are all closed now... just smash through one of the windows and take what you want with, apparently, no real consequence.

Then, things really get spelled out, when everybody is eating Christmas dinner and the kids are discussing whether the Queen will be giving a speech on telly this year (yeah, it’s unfortunate but, this really dates the film) or taking shelter in a bunker somewhere. And so, if you hadn’t somehow already figured it out, we get to the main premise of the movie...

And I tell you now this is not just one of the most awesome Christmas movies I’ve ever seen, it’s also by far the grimmest and downright horrifying... although it’s not really a horror film. The quick summary I read had it pegged out as a horror comedy but, although there are a lot of laugh out loud comedic moments in the movie, right through to the bitter end, it’s not really that either. I’d plump nearer to black comedy but, no, it’s premise and the magnificent way the director, cast and crew manage to hold the tone of the idea, puts it far away from the humourous shenanigans which lightly sprinkle and season this festive feast of despair.

Okay, last chance to stop reading before the big spoiler...

So the central premise is... well it’s technically global warming, in a new form. People have been abusing the earth for so long now that the earth has struck back, with mini twisters which are slowly unveiling a poisonous gas, eventually covering the entire planet. And not just any old poison gas either... one which has you choking up your own guts and bleeding to death in spasms of agony. So, in their wisdom, the governments of the world (most of them) have issued painless suicide pills to everyone who they recognise as being citizens of their lands, to take just before the mini, swirly air currents of doom hit their region. Everyone in the house knows this is their final night before they all take their 'exit pill' and, yeah, its grimness incarnate. As Art says at some point, when everybody is opening their Christmas presents... “The batteries are going to last longer than us.”

And it’s a sweetened pill for the audience too with, like I said, some very funny moments and a wonderful Christmassy score by Lorne Balfe which... well, I wish they’d have put it out on CD rather than just some useless electronic download. It also has a very satirical edge to it too. I’m writing this review just a few days after the death of Irene Cara but it’s a tragic irony that there’s a scene in this where all the party guests are dancing to Fame but with none of them noticing that they’re singing “I'm gonna live forever”. Plus some wonderfully healthy side swipes at the current UK government, particularly and quite blatantly the Tory party, who in their infinite wisdom have decided that no homeless people or illegal immigrants will be allowed the painless death of the ‘exit pill’. I find it amazing that this movie actually started filming before the Covid pandemic hit (and picked up filming after the end of the first lockdown, from what I understand) since it’s very much a prophetic parallel of just how the idiots in power respond to something which they can’t stop or monetise.

The only thing I will say is that the end of the movie is pretty easy to predict... in fact, I’d already figured out what the last shot of the movie would surely be so, when the camera started panning on that particular reveal (you’re bound to get there too, I suspect) then I already knew I was watching the final shot of the film and just what would happen. But, honestly, it’s not a let down of a final moment by any means. I’d rate it right up there with the ending of the movie version of Stephen King’s The Mist for all time downbeat endings, although it’s a little more subtle until you start thinking of the implications of the final two seconds of the movie. So, yeah, I wouldn’t have wanted any other ending on this and the director was right to roll the credits exactly when she did, I think.

And that’s me about done with Silent Night and, I can’t stress enough how much of a recommendation I’m going to give this one to my friends and just what a stupendous movie this is... especially since it’s Camille Griffin’s debut in directing a feature length film. Why hasn’t this woman written and directed more movies already? This is amazing stuff and it’s completely criminal that this has been under seen in this country (as far as I can tell) and that if I want a Blu Ray of this one... and I certainly do... then I’m going to have to import one in from Germany (which I certainly will).  So, yeah, can’t endorse this movie enough. Definitely grab this one for your grimmest Christmas viewing ever.... with the caveat that, although the child actors in this are truly wonderful, I wouldn’t necessarily condone watching this with children present in the room. You have been warned.

Stoker

Stoker, Ace

Stoker
UK/USA 2013
Directed by Chan-wook Park
Playing at UK cinemas now.

Warning: Very slight spoilers if anyone knows their movie history.

Right then. Here we have famous Korean auteur Chan-wook Park directing a film co-financed between the UK and the US and shooting it in English.

Okay... I can do that.

I should, right away though, point out that... out of this particular director’s body of work, the only movies I am familiar with by him are his loosely knitted “vengeance trilogy” and out of those three films, the only one I really enjoyed was Lady Vengeance.

That being said, Stoker is a pretty neat film and my only disappointment stems from the lack of twist or sting in the tail of this one... the whole thing being, I’m afraid, fairly cliché ridden and utterly predictable. However, that’s kinda missing the point with a movie like this and there are a fair few things which raise this past the level of the routine meandering of the story and lift it well into the boundary of “necessary viewing”... the most obvious being the very rich and neat visual imagery on show.

There’s just so much going for it in “the look” and the bright green, yellow and red colouration used in a lot of the shots combined with some very leisurely camera movement and an editing style which is used as metaphor to capture the mood and psychology of the characters when required, makes for a very seductive and addictive piece of film-making. Indeed, a lot of the movie plays without the necessity of character dialogue and the visual richness, not just of the overall mise-en-scene but also of the way shots are rubbed together to create intent and foreshadowing, makes for an almost perfect movie.

Except it isn’t perfect, by any means.

The film does tend to broadcast the overall arc of the film quite blatantly, so perhaps the “silent cinema” mode of some of the sequences were perhaps a little over the top. The movie comes from a lineage which quickly switches from Hitchcock’s Shadow Of A Doubt to a less polluted cinematic legacy which includes movies such as Badlands and Natural Born Killers. Indeed, it could well be considered a less obviously humorous version of Heathers than it could be a lot of other things. And the performances by all the central characters are just superb. Everybody is perfectly framed and delivering lines or going through various actions in a cinematic space which is uncluttered, painterly and gives the performances a lot of room to breathe.

And top marks to Park for coming up with such staggering compositions which still somehow manage to look effortless. One particular shot in the movie has the three main characters sitting down together for dinner and even though the distance between each of the characters is only what can be arranged around a fairly standard sized table, the breadth of depth the director manages to get in by having Nicole Kidman and Mia Wasikowska share two separate planes (and therefore sizes) split up between the back of Matthew Goode’s head in the immediate foreground is absolutely astonishing as you see the three occupying completely different kinds of spaces within the same shot... it just blew me away. Ditto to a couple of other shots right at the end of the movie which were a quite beautiful mix of “blood and nature” which I would have thought almost unique... if I hadn’t already seen more or less the same shots done by Tarantino in Django Unchained (reviewed here) a few months prior to this (no, I don’t know who made their movie first... it’s probably all been done before anyway).

Clint Mansell’s score, too, is pretty good... as are some of the needle-drop choices in this movie. I don’t know if the amazingly sexualised piano duet was his invention or not, but it sounds amazingly like the music of Philip Glass (it’s not) and is making me want to rush out and grab the soundtrack CD as I write this.

My conclusion then, for this movie, is that it’s not as good as Lady Vengeance but certainly the next best of this director’s works... as far as I’ve seen, at any rate. Script, performances and visual poetry aside, the film is perhaps not going to blow you away in terms of originality unless you have not seen a lot of other movies in your lifetime. Ultimately, this isn’t quite the rich “visual feast” I had been lead to expect from this director... it is however, at the least, a very tasty “visual buffet with side salad” and certainly doesn’t deserve to be ignored at the cinema in favour of the loud and clunky Hollywood made movies which are currently on offer at UK cinemas. It’s a well made piece of art and you should take a look at it if you get a chance. Very much a recommendation and something which certainly has a lot to offer in terms of finding interesting ways to convey the inner psychology of the main protagonists and antagonists. Please see it before it goes.