DVD Review: Watchmen
Robert Butler - Kansas City Star
Jul 23, 2009
'Watchmen' Might be Worth Waiting for
"Watchmen" is my candidate for the smartest, deepest, most intriguing superhero movie ever.
Watching it a second time, it only gets better.
The performances are far more sophisticated than you'd expect from this sort of thing. The great cast includes Billy Crudup, Jackie Earle Haley, Malin Akerman, Matthew Goode, Carla Gugino, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Patrick Wilson.
The ideas raised by the film are haunting. The alternate reality it creates (an America in the mid-1980s where Richard Nixon still rules and costumed vigilantes have been outlawed by Congress) is weirdly convincing.
Plus it has a sex scene that'll give your hair a new part.
So I can heartily recommend the new DVD of the film, to both those who missed Zack Snyder's opus in the theater and to longtime fans of the graphic novel.
Question is, which "Watchmen" DVD release should you get? Because you have choices.
Maybe too many.
If you just want to see the same movie that played at your local multiplex, then you'll be happy with the "Watchmen (Theatrical Cut)." It's available for $16.99 at Amazon.com.
But the wonderful thing about DVDs is that they can expand a movie beyond what we're already familiar with. In the case of "Watchmen (Director's Cut)" -- a two-disc package going for $18.49 at Amazon.com -- Snyder has inserted almost 25 minutes of material left out of the theatrical version.
Most of this new footage, which boosts the running time to 3 hours and 6 minutes, has been so seamlessly woven into the fabric of the convoluted yarn that it's hard to spot. Often it's simply a matter of a conversation going on a few beats longer than it did in the theatrical print.
Or it may be an entirely new sequence, like the murder of one superhero by a gang of street thugs. It's a marvelous action moment -- in his final seconds of life the old fellow imagines himself punching and kicking the supervillains of his youth.
In either case, it makes for a fuller, more satisfying viewing experience.
Plus, on the second disc you get a little more than an hour of making-of documentaries.
My advice if you want your own "Watchmen" is to buy the director's cut.
Except you may want to wait and save your money. I have a sneaky feeling that this isn't the definitive DVD "Watchmen."
For starters, there's no director's commentary -- no commentary tracks at all. Director Snyder is a first-class gabber; how'd he let this opportunity get past him?
And if you're a "Watchmen" fan you're already asking, "What about the Black Freighter?"
I apologize to you "Watchmen" newbies. This gets a bit complicated.
One of the more intriguing elements of the "Watchmen" graphic novel was the comic-book-within-the-comic-book.
Periodically the story would leave the world of costumed crime fighters to follow an African-American teen who hangs out at a newsstand reading his favorite comic, a horrific pirate yarn called "Tales of the Black Freighter."
"The Black Freighter" was absent from the theatrical "Watchmen." Understandably so, since it would have been one more digression in what was already a gnarly narrative.
But to satisfy the faithful, several months ago Snyder and Co. released a DVD with a 20-minute animated "Black Freighter." It's quite good in a lurid Grand Guignol meets Edgar Allan Poe way. Hard-core fans no doubt already have purchased a copy.
But admit it. You were looking forward to seeing the animated comic book integrated into the live-action film to more perfectly duplicate the experience of reading the graphic novel. Weren't you?
Well, you'll just have to wait, because Snyder is pulling a Peter Jackson.
Remember how the three "Lord of the Rings" movies first came out on DVD in fairly routine theatrical versions? And then a bit later expanded cuts became available? And finally director Jackson issued multi-disc boxed sets of each film crammed with bells and whistles?
Of course you remember. Many of you bought all three versions. It's the DVD industry's version of planned obsolescence.
And it's happening again.
What you've got to ask yourself is whether you can stand to wait months or however long it takes for Snyder to release an ultimate "Watchmen" DVD package.
Hey, you can always rent now, buy later.
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"An American Affair"
The cover art got me: a naked Gretchen Mol with a Marilyn Monroe 'do wrapped in an American flag.
I like Mol. Thought she was very good as the '50s pinup girl in 2005's "The Notorious Bettie Page." Liked her in the American version of TV's "Life on Mars."
But she has terrible luck in choosing projects. "An American Affair" is no exception.
Adam (Cameron Bright) is a 13-year-old Catholic schoolboy in Washington, D.C., in the fall of 1963. When he spots the beautiful blonde across the street (Mol) lolling half-naked in her window, he becomes a junior stalker. Her name is Catherine, and she hires the boy to do her yard work.
One night Adam sees a black limo pull up in front of Catherine's, and who should get out but JFK!
At this point the jumpy eroticism of William Olsson's melodrama is jettisoned in favor of paranoid woowoo.
Adam learns that Catherine's former husband (Mark Pellegrino) and his boss (James Rebhorn) are CIA spooks who want to use her to influence and/or get info from the Prez on behalf of disgruntled Cuban exiles. (They're lousy spies if a kid can eavesdrop on their conversations.)
If the Fidel haters don't get satisfaction, they might do anything. Like kill Kennedy.
Weird thing is, Mol is compelling even in the middle of this absurd flapdoodle.
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