Watchmen
Zack Snyder is not the best director ever - a great director knows how to consistently put an amazing story in a watchable, bite-size portion of time, for a vast audience. However, Zack Snyder is a visionary and amazing story teller.
It’s fascinating to me that he has an obsession with these ultimate / director cuts, but it’s because he is so obsessed with telling the story he needs to tell; NEED being the key word. He is compelled to add depth, take rabbit trails, look through all the perspectives, to where his goal isn’t to make the best movie ever, but to share a meaningful and impactful story.
However, this movie is actually an outlier to my foreword criticism. He not only tells an amazing story, but he is able to create an amazing movie to help facilitate this amazing story. Here are some “bleeding heart” thoughts on this movie:
- The opening scene is one of, if not my first, favorite opening scene in a movie.
- Growing up with super heroes in everything I watched, it’s hard to have characters that are unique and distinguishable from the rest, but wow…this universe and team is unlike any other universe.
- Zack’s love for slow motion, deep cut action peaks in this movie, creating some truly memorable sequences.
- Zack’s blend of fictional heroism and gritty realism is apparent in all of his projects, but it really shines here, with the character of the team reflecting this moral dilemma he is obviously faced with: good in a world of evil.
- These are heroes that don’t care about what you think is right, but about what they think should be happening - a genuinely interesting and important idea to ponder in any medium.
I am a Zack Snyder fan, truly, but even above Zack Snyder, I am a fan of The Watchmen.
PS: I just recently bought, the 1980’s 12-issue comic, so I am very excited to read that!!
PSS: The ultimate cut does indeed rock.