So, a couple comments / observations... Jackie Earle Haley is spot on. I actually think he makes a better Rorschach than the one in the book. I never quite bought the baby-faced Walter Kovacs as the single-minded, psychotic antihero. Haley makes him believable.
While agree that Haley's interpretation of Rorschach was excellent and very well done ("WHERE IS MY FACE?!?!?"), I disagree with the baby-faced Kovacs from the novel bit. In all of Moore's (more Dave Gibbons') portrayal of Rorschach-without-his-mask, his face is dead calm, showing no emotion, no fear, no joy, no nothing. Dead. It was that 'deadness', on the babyfaced, freckled redhead that made it so intense. It shows that this kid really got messed up growing up, and it wasn't because he was ugly, or looked funny, or anything like that.
On the coffee cups bit, I was wondering what you guys were laughing about. I didn't get it at all, but there are zillions of subreferences all over the place that I found fascinating - either call outs to the original book, or just sly commentary and images.
Moving along, there's been a lot of griping about casting. I do agree with you that Matthew Goode's portrayal of Adrienne Veidt was 'off'. He was too weak, too subtle. There were parallels between Veidt and Dr. Manhattan ("The smartest man in the world" "The most powerful man in the world") - but I thought Billy Crudup's portrayal of Dr. Manhattan pulled off the "I am not even in the same world as you" far better than Goode did for Veidt, and that's WITH a completely CGI-generated visage.
In casting brilliance, I have to put Patrick Wilson as Dan Dreiberg / Niteowl and Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Edward Blake / Comedian in there as some of the best casting choices I've ever seen. I was worried that Wilson's portrayal of Dreiberg would come off as TOO whiny and too weak. Far too much the middle aged accountant. And while he did start that way, I felt that as the movie went along, his character got better and better. Maybe that's my own middle-agedness identifying with Drapiers'. :)
And Morgan's "Comedian"? Sheer brilliance. The absolute immorality of Blake's personna came through so strongly - but not just that, you could see his 'Comedian' worldview - "It's all a joke". Fantastic.
What would I have changed? Very little. Maybe extended the movie another 40 minutes or so to get more of the subtle interractions working - I'm sure there's a directors' cut coming, we'll see if it improves or clogs up the story.
Oh, and my only real loss in the whole thing - what made Silk Specter, Ozymandias, Niteowl, etc such fantastic fighters? Even in middle age, when Dreiberg and Lori haven't been Silk Spectre and Niteowl in 15 years, they're still able to walk into an alley and beat the snot out of a dozen street thugs. And a few days later, walk into a prison and systematically wipe the floor with another 3dozen heavies, without getting a scratch?
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Jackie Earle Haley is spot on. I actually think he makes a better Rorschach than the one in the book. I never quite bought the baby-faced Walter Kovacs as the single-minded, psychotic antihero. Haley makes him believable.
While agree that Haley's interpretation of Rorschach was excellent and very well done ("WHERE IS MY FACE?!?!?"), I disagree with the baby-faced Kovacs from the novel bit. In all of Moore's (more Dave Gibbons') portrayal of Rorschach-without-his-mask, his face is dead calm, showing no emotion, no fear, no joy, no nothing. Dead. It was that 'deadness', on the babyfaced, freckled redhead that made it so intense. It shows that this kid really got messed up growing up, and it wasn't because he was ugly, or looked funny, or anything like that.
On the coffee cups bit, I was wondering what you guys were laughing about. I didn't get it at all, but there are zillions of subreferences all over the place that I found fascinating - either call outs to the original book, or just sly commentary and images.
Moving along, there's been a lot of griping about casting. I do agree with you that Matthew Goode's portrayal of Adrienne Veidt was 'off'. He was too weak, too subtle. There were parallels between Veidt and Dr. Manhattan ("The smartest man in the world" "The most powerful man in the world") - but I thought Billy Crudup's portrayal of Dr. Manhattan pulled off the "I am not even in the same world as you" far better than Goode did for Veidt, and that's WITH a completely CGI-generated visage.
In casting brilliance, I have to put Patrick Wilson as Dan Dreiberg / Niteowl and Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Edward Blake / Comedian in there as some of the best casting choices I've ever seen. I was worried that Wilson's portrayal of Dreiberg would come off as TOO whiny and too weak. Far too much the middle aged accountant. And while he did start that way, I felt that as the movie went along, his character got better and better. Maybe that's my own middle-agedness identifying with Drapiers'. :)
And Morgan's "Comedian"? Sheer brilliance. The absolute immorality of Blake's personna came through so strongly - but not just that, you could see his 'Comedian' worldview - "It's all a joke". Fantastic.
What would I have changed? Very little. Maybe extended the movie another 40 minutes or so to get more of the subtle interractions working - I'm sure there's a directors' cut coming, we'll see if it improves or clogs up the story.
Oh, and my only real loss in the whole thing - what made Silk Specter, Ozymandias, Niteowl, etc such fantastic fighters? Even in middle age, when Dreiberg and Lori haven't been Silk Spectre and Niteowl in 15 years, they're still able to walk into an alley and beat the snot out of a dozen street thugs. And a few days later, walk into a prison and systematically wipe the floor with another 3dozen heavies, without getting a scratch?
I want some of that!