Okay, so I lied about that "last solely-Watchmen-related post".....

.....but this one is just too good skip over.

The movie finally came out. Performed really well (if not as astronomically blockbuster-ish as many had hoped) at the box office this past weekend. Will most likely suffer from a large-sized dropoff this upcoming weekend. And has been discussed and dissected so much across the Internet that it'd be pointless for me to add anything more. But, alas, I've seen it twice now, and after seeing Watchmen that second time I realized that the film is even more flawed than I initially thought after the visual-fucking-but-it-felt-so-good I experienced. Still a really impressive, landmark flick, but it really does come off the hinges narratively once the action shifts to Antarctica, with too many connect-the-plot-dots left un-addressed and the emotional impact hitting too softly. [QUICK SPOILER WARNING] Then there's the poorly-delivered "whodunit" plotline, handled much stronger in the comic, while telegraphed within the first 20 minutes in the movie (check the first shot of Adrian Veidt giving the interview---it's clearly the same exact body type as Comedian's wiry assailant) [SPOILER DONE].

And, damn, the over-stylized fight scenes are so wrongly used. I've had to explain to five people already that one of the driving themes behind the comic is that these people, aside from John Osterman/Dr. Manhattan, are everyday Joes who take on crimefighting in costumes without possessing any superpowers or special abilities. In this flick, though, that's totally lost no-thanks to the slo-mo/sped-up fights, with bodies flying across sets, bones snapping, kung fu moves whipping with maximum velocity, and Oldboy sequences being not-so-inconspicuously swiped. Snyder's Watchmen feels too much like a superhero movie at times.

Aspects such as this opening title sequence, however, give the film such a massive presence that its difficult to vehemently complain, showing just how gifted Zack Snyder is visually/creatively. This is also one of the rare times during the film that the choice of using recognizable songs rather than originally-composed music actually works (Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin'" here), opposed to the half-a-dozen times when the flashback tunes instantly yank you out of the flick (Jimi Hendrix's "All Along The Watchtower" especially). As far as jumpoff credit sequences go, though, this one is something else, and since its so special and has nicely landed online, I'd be foolish not to post.

Just watch soon, since I can imagine this will be taken down sooner than later.

***As expected, Warner Bros. has pulled the clip from every embeddable source. I'm sure it'll creep back online at some point, but here's a pic from it, for now:



LATEST UPDATE: The clip is alive and well (for now) over here, so give it a go ASAP: DaveandThomas.net