The periodic trailers and behind-the-scenes looks released for the Princess and the Frog all looked amazing. The character designs felt like they would have fit in well with the Disney movies of the early 90′s and the animation was similarly nostalgic. In addition to being a throwback to the animated features I grew up with, I was happy to see another film focused on a slice of American history and culture, in this case, the French Quarter of New Orleans before and after World War I. The music and musical style were less of a concern for me since movies like Tarzan, Lilo & Stitch and the Emperor’s New Groove worked perfectly fine without much, if any, bursting into song. Still, the last Disney musical was Mulan, and Mulan was all kinds of amazing, so anticipation remained extremely high for this film. I finally got to see it yesterday.

STORY - Walking into the movie, I knew I was going to be in it more for the technical aspects than anything else. The princess movies had never been amongst my favorites of what Disney had to offer and I wasn’t expecting to be wowed by the story in Princess and the Frog. As such, it was no surprise that the movie’s plot was basic, cliche and a bit predictable: girl has dream, girl works hard to achieve dream but it’s just out of reach, girl then gets caught up in some crazy nonsense, falls in love with boy and somehow this results in the dream also getting realized. It’s a typical, romanticized children’s tale storyline. But despite that that was pretty much what I had expected, I was still a little disappointed.

Part of it was because the villian(s) aren’t nearly as prominent and the obstacles the protagonists faced weren’t nearly as dangerous or thrilling as they could have been. Tiana and Prince Naveen spend very little time actually facing the bad guys. The main, immediate problem the protagonists struggle with is the fact that they’ve been cursed into frogs. Sure, there is the Shadow Man that put the curse in place, but neither protagonists spends all that long with him. Instead of fighting him directly, they journey through the Louisiana swamp looking for another voodoo capable person to help them. Almost all the characters they meet along the way are friendly and work to help them along. And there is no build up to an epic final fight because there really isn’t a final fight. Compare this with the various hurdles Jafar sets for Aladdin. And their final fight. Pretty disappointing.

It wasn’t all bad though. I was very impressed at how the classic tale was reworked to fit the setting and characters. 1920′s New Orleans isn’t the first place you’d think to set an adaptation of a princess story, just like 1980′s New York isn’t the first place you’d think to set an adaptation of Oliver Twist, but damn if Disney didn’t make it work. Obviously, there were no real princesses in that time and place, but the Princess and the Frog played around and made it work in an almost tongue-in-cheek fashion; I was especially pleased at how the traditional princess and curse-breaking tropes were toyed with at the end. It made me smile.

CHARACTERS - The movie’s main protagonist, Tiana, is very much the archetypal strong-willed woman. She knows what she wants and is hyperfocused, working single-mindedly towards her goal. She isn’t easily threatened, but can be distracted by the intensity of her own dreams. She is quick-witted and adaptable, as well as sympathetic and a good role-model: the ideal character to lead a movie like this, but really not that interesting to an older viewer like myself, especially since she doesn’t really change during the course of the movie. She just falls in love. (In like, two days.)

Prince Naveen is similarly stale, though he’s also accompanied by some unfortunate logical flaws. Growing up as royalty, he was spoiled and never had to do anything for himself. For some reason though, he desired “freedom” (from what?) and for some other reason, he was disowned by his family (why? Wikipedia has some reasons, but I don’t think the movie ever said anything specific), so he ends up in New Orleans penniless and intending to marry a wealthy girl for money (and thereby grounding his own freedom again? what?). Predictably, Naveen learns a bit of humility and gains a little usefulness during the course of the movie. Predictably.

Dr. Facilier, also known as the Shadow Man, had the potential to be the most interesting character in the movie, but this is hindered by not quite enough screen time or backstory. He has a few lines of complaint here and there, but there doesn’t seem to be a point in his past where he was morally offended by something or someone that spurred him to want domination of New Orleans. His interesting relationship with people “on the other side” is also never fully explained, which was supremely disappointing considering their awesome musical number together. There were so many things that could have spiced up both Dr. Facilier and his collaborators’ roles, such as giving some of the shadows (aside from Dr. Facilier’s own) personalities and giving Lawrence, Naveen’s backstabbing servant, some ulterior goals.

The secondary cast was not particularly notable; they were there, occasionally humorous, but too simple to be called good or bad. I saw the movie with several people though, including a New Orleans native who was apparently upset at some of the stereotypical characters portrayed in the movie. Personally, I don’t think the portrayals were necessarily unfair since all regions have their stereotypes and most of them are grounded in some sort of reality, including the bumbling backwater hicks. I doubt anyone will really come away with a negative impression of the area, in any case. I mean, I wasn’t offended by the hilariously stereotypical gender roles presented in Mulan since you know, they’re kind of true.

ART & ANIMATION – Everything was gorgeous, just like I thought it would be. Seriously, you don’t realize just how different 2D animated characters look until you go a while without seeing them and are suddenly sent back. Disney was amazingly successful at recapturing a number of styles it had left behind, and Princess and the Frog included several short sequences animated in a simpler, blocky color, storybook style, such as for the song “Almost There.” But while all the characters were animated traditionally throughout the movie, most of the backgrounds had been painted digitally and there were some digital special effects. This was really fine though, especially since it allowed for some really visually interesting scenes involving Shadow Man’s shadow and shadowy minions. The digital backgrounds complimented the characters fine and didn’t detract from the film in any way.

The character designs were pretty standard. Tiana is pretty much what anyone might have thought of given the prompts “African-American” and “Disney princess.” Prince Naveen is just the next in a long line of Disney princes, though his frog form reminded me a lot of Warner Brother’s Michigan J. Frog. In contrast, Dr. Facilier actually has a pretty fun design and reminds me vaguely of a cross between Jafar and Jack Skellington. This compliments the uniqueness of his character, but while his personality and backstory aren’t really given the attention they could had have, Facilier’s design is bold and has many clever little elements, such as his skull mask. Like their personalities, the secondary characters didn’t leave a big impression visually either, but despite that, I was very pleased with both the art and animation in this movie.

MUSIC - As with the animation, the Princess and the Frog attempts to capture the musical success of its 90′s predecessors with music by Randy Newman and lyrics by Glenn Slater. Maybe I’m just a little out of touch with musicals, but some of the film’s songs felt a little awkward and forced. As a sort of opening song, “Down in New Orleans” wasn’t too bad, but the beginning of Tiana’s first solo, “Almost There” didn’t seem to mesh very well with the scene it was placed in. Thankfully, as the song progressed, the tune became catchier and more attractive and the end of the song seemed to suit the scene much better. Dr. Facilier’s solo, “Friends on the Other Side” was probably the best song in the movie; it was a lot of fun both lyrically and visually and is one of the main reasons I wish the character had gotten more attention than he received. “When We’re Human” seemed like a pretty typical Disney song. “Gonna Take You There” and “Ma Belle Evangeline” were both fairly decent and more nostalgic feeling in mood and style. “Dig a Little Deeper” reminded me somewhat of the “Morning Report” song Disney inserted into some DVD re-release of the Lion King… which is not a compliment.

I really don’t feel like Princess and the Frog benefited from being a musical, but I guess it really didn’t detract from it that much. Either way, Anika Rose’s “Almost There” won’t be the next Elton John’s “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” or Christina Aguilera’s “Reflection.” Newman’s general score for the movie was pretty okay, but come on, Alan Menken would have been a much better choice of composer.

OVERALL - If an older someone were to watch the Princess and the Frog after all the Disney feature films of the 90′s, they might be dismissive and unimpressed. As a simple movie aimed at children, it’s very solid, but even then, compared to the previous decade’s most popular hits — Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, the Lion King, and Mulan — and Disney’s beloved classics, the Princess and the Frog is really nothing spectacular, especially in terms of story and character. The cultural aspects are fun though, and animation is surely on par. I actually really like that they still included digitally painted backgrounds in their highly anticipated 2D revival. Disney’s demonstrated that traditional animation can still be used, but further suggests that they’re still experimenting with different ways to animate and to cartoon. Their upcoming Rapunzel movie for 2010 is a testament to this as they’re trying to make a CG movie not look like a CG movie. I look forward to it, but I do hope that Rapunzel’s struggles will be a little more interesting storywise than Tiana’s.

There’s already been a live action adaptation of Death Note. Two of them, in fact, since the story isn’t easily told in one. I might be in the few as far as thinking that they were both fantastic movies and worked wonderfully as adaptations (I swear I’ll get around to reviewing them both), but the fact remains that it’s already been done, not to mention that L spinoff movie, which I’ve yet to see. All three of those movies have been licensed and released Stateside, so why do we need Hollywood to make another one?

Of course, Hollywood re-making Japanese (and other Asian) films is nothing new, and there are many instances where those re-makes are wildly popular and subsequently profitable. The Ring comes to mind, but I’ve seen neither that nor Ringu, from which it was based. Even so, there’s at least one adaptation that I found to be successful (The Departed, based on a Hong Kong film). But Death Note is not a J-horror and Death Note is not an action drama. And from what I can understand, Warner Brothers will not be basing their movie off of the existing movies, so Death Note isn’t even a movie.

Death Note is a superntural, psychological, suspense thriller manga, and I have little faith that a Hollywood adaptation will 1) make any money, 2) treat the source material right, 3) be a decent movie on any kind of level. Well, at least it isn’t Fox, right?

There are just so many potential problems with this that I can’t imagine enough of them being conquered for this to work. I might draw up a full list later if I feel like putting forth the energy to rant about it (if you want though, Gia’s already got at least five ways they can fuck it up), but for now, here is the biggest issues I see:

Audience Appeal

As fans, we have become jaded. It’s hard to ignore and forget this kind of abomination, as much as we’d all like to try. Some people say that fans are too critical and can never be pleased, and that might be true to a certain extent, but I like to think that there are actually a lot of people that are willing to give things a chance if given a reason to be positive. After all, I have hope in the upcoming Cowboy Bebop adaptation, and I’m also cautiously hopeful about that Akira adaptation. And it isn’t just the live action medium since, as I’ve mentioned, I love both already existing live action adaptations for Death Note. I was also kind of fond of the Speed Racer movie, if only because it refused to take itself seriously — that works for Speed Racer. It would never work for Death Note.

This might be a more minor thing, but it might be worth mentioning that some fans, while still fans, have gotten sick of the title’s supreme oversaturation across all markets. I mean, the manga finished in 2006. In the three short years since then, there has already been two live action movies, one spinoff, and an anime. Now there’s going to be yet another movie? Geez.

As far as the general audience goes though, is Death Note even the sort of story that would fly in the States? I think the supernatural element would be a huge turn-off both because straight-up monster-looking things aren’t that popular in [serious] American movies and because CG becomes an issue. Ryuk’s design and translation into CG was already an issue for the Japanese adaptations, but if it’s anything less than amazing this time around, people won’t go for it because they will compare it to stuff like Pirates of the Caribbean and I doubt Death Note will have the budget to compete with that.

I wonder if the whole capital punishment theme would cause a stir at all, and if so, would it be positive or negative as far as ticket sales go? Consider that so many schools took issue when Death Note-like notebooks made rounds in middle schools with kids’ “enemies’” names scrawled in the pages — would they be afraid of more stuff like that happening as a result of a domestic movie’s release? It’s also worth noting that The Boondock Saints was a movie that had a similar theme: it had a limited release and poor reviews, but has garnered a cult following since. Death Note already has a cult following, but the cult is hypercritical. Would WB’s Death Note create a new sublegion of fans? People that knew nothing of Death Note before seeing that version?

Warner Bros. must realize how big of a gamble this is. Speed Racer tanked. Dragonball Evolution tanked phenomenally. If they can’t help but do more manga/anime adaptations for some explicable reason, I have to wonder why someone doesn’t pick up a few shoujo titles and have at some chick flicks — why all these crazy shounen and supernatural stuff? Shoujo is, by nature, much, much more suitable for live action. The Japanese understand this — there are tons of dramas and movies based off shoujo. But none by Hollywood.

Dragonball Evolution

STORY & PACING – Honestly, I don’t even know where to start. This movie is about a kid who has to fulfill some (lame) prophecy and save the world from an evil alien before the next solar eclipse. That already sounds pretty recycled and uninspired, but the worst of it all is that nothing is ever explained. Ever. Our main character Goku is a high school kid teased by his classmates for being different, but we never see how or why he’s different. He just is. Why is this alien Piccolo here? Why is he hellbent on destroying the earth? How did he escape his previous imprisonment? Why is the deadline to stop him the solar eclipse? Beats me. Who is this henchwoman of his and why is she obeying him? No idea. It makes for a troublesome movie when your villains have absolutely no motivation to speak of.

And the protagonists’ motivation? Goku wants revenge. Bulma wants fame. Yamcha wants money. Predictable, but it’s kind of funny that those three “good guys” should have three of the most popular villain motives, and they act just as one-sided as stereotypical villains. Master Roshi and his saving the world bit seems wonderfully secondary to the others’ primary motivations. Way to teach values to the kids, right? Except that there are those awful, inspirational one-liners repeated throughout the movie — you know, the generic “believe in yourself” stuff, which might have been fine if they could deliever them convincingly, which they couldn’t.

The pacing in this movie is also astonishingly bad, which makes it even more obvious just how absurdly weak the story is. I mean, I expected the movie to be bad, but I never expected it to be this bad. We jump from scene to scene with little or no transition; everything seems rushed and cobbled together. There’s never a comfortable lull in the action where the viewer’s allowed to gather his thoughts, so my impression is that they didn’t want the viewer to stop and think too much; having time to think would make it too easy to tell that everything on screen is complete and utter trash. Because of the constant push for mindless action, I couldn’t get a good sense of time. Has it been an hour or a day since the last scene? They mention early on that the solar eclipse is in x number of days, which gives a frame of reference for the film on the whole, but that still doesn’t help the scene-to-scene pacing.

At times, I wasn’t even sure how seriously I was supposed to be taking the movie. Some scenes could have been funny if you knew that they were just making fun of themselves, but the fact that you couldn’t tell made it even more confusing. Some scenes were just so over-the-top and ridiculous that you’d think, “This has to be on purpose!” But that feeling of uncertainty remains and kills the humor completely. Some scenes reminded me of the 90′s Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers: they were campy, but didn’t seem intentionally so, and just all around reminiscent of silly, children’s action shows with gimmicky fights, familiar plot devices, and hilarious costuming. The sad part is, of course, that Power Rangers was superior.

Even before you start trying to compare it to the source material, there is nothing attractive about the story in this movie. Once you start the comparisons though, the disaster becomes markedly worse. There are very, very few similarities between DBE and Dragonball. Those that are there are mostly superficial things — characters’ names, the word “Dragonball,” a trademark costume, and some portions of the character designs. The story is not recognizable. If you take away those names and Goku’s bright orange gi, it could be billed as something completely different and no one would be wiser. The things they included for the fans’ sake were pointless, really. Yeah, everyone made a fuss when initial photos of Piccolo showed him as not being green, but really? I would have much preferred they put some more effort into making the story not a piece of shit than bother with a fancier make-up job. Bulma had a few strands of blue hair and mentioned Capsule Corp in passing. Great. How about making her less generic of a character?

I think the main problem with Dragonball Evolution’s story is that Fox didn’t know who to aim the movie to, so they tried for everyone at once. All the generic plots were to tempt the mainstream audience, but it was way too much and the story just started looking like every laughable B-movie ever. Halfway through, they realized they were pissing off every existing Dragonball fan on the face of the planet and tried to tease in some actual references to their source material. By then though, it was too late and the story had been twisted so far out of recognition that the forced references to things like Namek, Oozaru, and Roshi’s pervertedness just seemed out of place and stupid. And thus, DBE was born! And we even get a dumb reference to the name of the film in the crappy dialogue of the movie!

CHARACTER & ACTING – My kid brother could probably write a deeper, more rounded, and more relateable characters than any that appear in this film. They single out Goku as being “different” somehow, but how is anyone supposed to relate if they don’t know what makes him different in the first place? Is it because he has no parents? Because he lives in the middle of no where? Because his name is weird? (Well, Chi Chi’s is too, but she’s popular!) Goku is adorably eighteen, but he faces bullies in school. Seriously? Where does this grade school bullying come from? Who in high school really faces these kinds of stereotypical bullies? All he wants is to be left alone and to get the girl! Once again, I can’t imagine a further departure from Dragonball’s Goku, but even without that comparison, there’s nothing redeeming about the movie’s character.

In some half-assed, roundabout way, I suppose the movie was trying to have a “coming of age” theme. As such, Goku would need to learn to accept and believe in himself before he could save the world. Dandy. But as much as the movie tried, I remained unconvinced that he had serious self-esteem issues to begin with. He was able to stand up to his bullies fine, and his progress with Chi Chi was only a matter of time. Where’s the struggle here? As soon as he realized that Chi Chi was a “fighter” also and knew what ki was, there was very little self-doubt left, which made the climax of the movie very anticlimatic.

Goku also had a few endearing, manga-like traits sneak into the movie, such as his unquestioning devotion to his grandfather (“He said he’d tell me what happened to my parents when I turned eighteen!”) and silly daydreaming, but those qualities clashed so much with his otherwise modern-day, typical high school student character that I kind of wish they’d just left them out completely, especially since Justin Chatwin completely failed to capture the child-like innocence and ignorance of Toriyama’s Goku. Toriyama’s Goku was cute stupid. DBE’s Goku is just retarded stupid.

Goku was a flat character, but the rest of the cast was worse. Bulma, Chi Chi, and Mai were all gimmicky fillers for character archetypes. The techy ally, the girlfriend, the evil henchwoman. Yamcha was a completely useless character that served absolutely no purpose beyond becoming Bulma’s five minute love interest. Master Roshi got to recite a prophecy, turn a monestary into a bed n’ breakfast, and train Goku to paladin level in all of a week. All of these people were (bad) plot devices more than characters. Not to mention Piccolo, who has all of a dozen lines in the entire movie, no motivation, and no purpose beyond giving Goku an obstacle to overcome (except not really). All of the acting was sub par as well, though it might have been because all of the actors were so bewildered at the monstrosity they’ve signed on to play that they had no idea what to do.

It also bothers me immensely that the best derogatorive name that the bullies could come up with for Goku was “Geeko.” /facepalm

MUSIC - I was too shocked and offended at how terrible the story and acting both were to really pay attention to the music, but I suppose it was about average. There were no lyrical inserts in the film, and if Ayumi Hamasaki’s “Rule” played in the credits somewhere, I didn’t stick around to hear it. As I said all along anyway, Ayu can’t save a shitty movie all by herself. (And I feel sorry for her for having her music attached to such an abomination.)

ANIMATION & EFFECTS – I’ve seen better effects in Disney Channel and Sci-fi original movies. I’m not kidding. The dragonballs and ki blasts were shiny, but poorly integrated into every scene that featured them. They felt out of place and exceedingly silly. More and more, you just feel like the transition from manga and anime to live action was something that should have never been attempted in the first place. Even if the story wasn’t terrible and the characters weren’t uninteresting, things that work in other mediums don’t always work with live action. Dragonball Evolution didn’t work visually either. The Kamehameha can suddenly be used to light (and douse) candles and to bring back the dead, but it wasn’t much to look at.

Matrix-style slow motion for fights just looked stupid and overdramatic. Bulma’s Capsule Corp. vehicles were kind of interesting, but never focused on long enough to be relevant. Piccolo still looks like he walked onto the set for the wrong movie, but decided to stick around for shits and giggles. And he had a giant, floating can opener building with no explanation. Oozaru looked like he came out of a crappy 70′s werewolf movie. Shenlong was a hilariously Western-looking dragon. That’s just insulting.

OVERALL - Dragonball Evolution was the worst movie I’d seen in a long, long time (arguably the worst I’ve ever seen, but I can’t be sure since I habitually block out all memory of other shitty movies I’ve seen), and I’m confident that I could make that claim even if I knew nothing about Toriyama’s Dragonball. Fox’s first mistake was deciding that Dragonball could be adapted in live action at all. Being a weird fusion of myth, sci-fi, and campy humor was fine for a comic and a cartoon, but live action as a format destroys many of the illusions we come to accept in the previous incarnations of the franchise. Ki blasts and green aliens just don’t translate well.

Still, the fact that it was doomed from the beginning doesn’t excuse Fox from the terrible product that just debuted at #8 in the States. It doesn’t excuse the amateur writing, the poorly developed characters, or the horrendous special effects. (I am running out of synonyms for “terrible.”) I just hope that a lesson is learned in all this. Some things just weren’t meant to be adapted. Dragonball was one of them.

Zac Bertschy of ANN, in all his snarky glory, probably summed it up the best: “[T]his movie appeals to nobody. It was made for no one. People who aren’t familiar with the Dragon Ball story at all will be so flabbergasted by what’s happening that they will likely tell everyone they know that it’s one of the worst movies they’ve ever seen. Fans who do know what the general story is will be furious at just how unbelievably badly they screwed this entire thing up. Kids are used to better writing than this in their weekday afternoon cartoons. It’s a clunky, tiresome, badly executed, horribly written pile of shame that deserves no quarter.“

Now. Let’s just pretend this never happened.

Even before I went to see the movie on Friday, I had heard the blasphemous whispers of a sequel. Or at least, I had heard that Zack Snyder is refusing to have anything to do with one, which is certainly reassuring. Watching the movie, I couldn’t help but notice Dr. Manhattan’s ominous line, “Nothing ever ends.” It seemed like it had less to do with his concept of time and more to do with Hollywood’s tendency to milk everything for all its worth. Except that a second Watchmen movie wouldn’t fly, even for non-fans. Seriously, what would you do? Just about everyone involved in the film is confused on that front. Who would want a sequel? Or even a prequel?

This article is pretty hilarious and this excerpt and quote sums up everything I have to say on the matter:

While a possible prequel about the Minutemen — the superhero team that came before the Watchmen — may make financial sense, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who plays seasoned “Watchmen” superhero The Comedian, says it would be creative suicide.

“The fans would kill us if we tried to go and do something else,” Morgan said. “If we tried to do a prequel that wasn’t written by Alan Moore, we’d get crucified. We couldn’t walk down the street. Unless Warner Bros. wants all of their actors to get killed, I think it’s a bad idea.”

And Alan Moore would never write a sequel, especially not if the entire purpose is so that a second movie could be crafted from it.

There are a lot of movies that should have never had sequels. Among them, the Matrix, Short Circuit, the Wizard of Oz (yes, that had a sequel; I know, right?), and most Disney movies. Watchmen begins and ends. They’re already releasing the cut material from Tales of the Black Freighter and Under the Hood as DVD features, so there’s nothing more to say or do. Really, I think chances of a second movie getting greenlit is slim to none, but it’s still unsettling to know that the actors have a clause in their contract binding them to a potential sequel/prequel, which means that Hollywood, at the very least, thought about it at some point.

(Hey, this poster looks kinda familiar…)

Watchmen

STORY & PACING – Most of the story was intact. Indeed, people will point out that many sequences were filmed panel for panel and that there were large chunks of dialogue lifted directly from the comic. This might bother those that believe the film should be an adaptation and that it isn’t an adaptation if it’s taken panel for panel, but it made me happy. Mostly. Unfortunately, the exactness of some of the scenes also made it really obvious when something was changed, however slightly. Sometimes the small deviations made sense, but sometimes, they were just so trivial that I had to wonder why they didn’t just stick to what had been written. It’s too noticeable when you follow something almost exactly.

One scene that sticks out to me in particular is when Rorschach visited Osterman and Juspeczyk following his visit to Dreiberg near the beginning of the movie — the conversation was a lot longer in the book and touched on the Comedian’s attempted rape of Juspeczyk’s mother, so Rorshach being subsequently expelled from the lab made sense. In the movie, it seemed more like Osterman getting impatient, which doesn’t fit as well, and since Rorshach never gets to mention Dreiberg at all, they reworked it to Osterman suggesting Juspeczyk go see him, which doesn’t make much sense either, even if they tried to use it to touch on his simultaneous time-seeing abilities. It’s the little things. Also, I’m probably the only anal retentive idiot who is slightly annoyed at the fact that Rorshach’s opening lines did not include the “look down” part and was therefore not word for word.

The biggest cut from the story was everything involving the newspaper vendor, the freeloading kid, and Tales of the Black Freighter, but that was pretty predictable. I’ve heard various things about the pirate side story being released with the DVD, and actually, in the commercials/previews before the showing, there was an ad for an animated version of Tales of the Black Freighter to be released on its own? Not sure. In any case, Bernie and Bernie still make various cameo appearances throughout the film, so it wasn’t like they were axed completely.

The biggest change was obviously the ending. I would not have had a problem if they replaced the alien with a nondescripit explosion of undeteremined cause, but I was kind of puzzled as to why they decided to frame Dr. Manhattan. I mean, the guy’s already left the planet with no intentions to return, so it’s kind of pointless to pin it on him — if the threat has left the planet, hell, the galaxy, why should the peace last? Maybe they don’t know where he’s gone, but eh… I dunno. It just seemed pointless to me. They could have just left it as an explosion and the world could freak out not knowing where it had come from. The only plus of blaming Manhattan is the explanation of how Veidt got the technology to do what he did without kidnapping random scientists, but I don’t feel as if that subplot would have been hard to work into the movie (I’m actually a bit disappointed the New Frontiersman didn’t play a very prominent role at all since that’d have made Rorschach’s decision to send them his journal less random).

Also, I didn’t like that Dreiberg witnessed Rorshach’s death at the end. His scream was really weird and unnatural feeling, and his beating up on Veidt afterwards just seemed forced. I think part of the reason I didn’t like it was just because I’m too used to anime pandering to the fujoshi crowd and just couldn’t unsee the slash potential of Rorshach/Nite Owl II that resulted from that scene, and that is just so many kinds of do not want. =_= The “you’re a good friend” scene was fine, but that final angst just pushed it over the line for me. I dunno. Dreiberg should have been off banging his girl again, not watching his buddy get blown up. That said though, Rorshach obviously had the coolest blood splatter ever.

Other random things: so, how about that sex scene, huh? Honestly, I didn’t have many qualms about it other than the fact that it went on for way too long. Seriously did not need that latter half with the awkward thrusting. That was just. Yeah. But other than that? The Hallelujah Chorus and flames in the sky? Sure, whatever, man. The theatre had a great time laughing it up so it was all good. Oh, and Rorshach’s backstory. I think the only reason they changed it was because they didn’t want to seem like they were ripping off Saw with the limb-cutting thing when clearly it’s the other way around. I don’t dislike what they did, but they made it seem like Rorshach just lost it then when I feel like it was a more subtle change than that. The fire was slower-acting and put him in a position to contemplate what he’d done more than just hacking the guy’s head open.

I didn’t like that they made “Watchmen” the name of the second generation superhero group. Sure, it’s infinitely better than “Crimebusters,” as it was originally, but it takes away from the ambiguity of the title, which could be a reference to a number of things, from the Doomsday clock to a quote from Einstein. It’s one of those changes that makes perfect sense but doesn’t sit well all the same. Don’t you hate no-win situations?

Changes aside though, I wasn’t all that fond of the pacing in the movie. It seemed really choppy, especially when we were bouncing back and forth between characters. I never really got a sense that anyone was the “main” character, which is fine I guess, but that made it harder to focus. It was a lot of character and story elements strung together — I didn’t get a very good sense of time passing, which was odd as well. The whole movie could have taken place in two days, but it really should have been more like two weeks. A lot of the logic didn’t follow very clearly for me either. Like, why did Dreiberg decide he wanted to spring Rorshach from prison? Not sure. Juspeczyk’s whole parental subplot? Didn’t feel relevant at all, and honestly, it felt kind of misplaced when it finally dawned on her.

Hum, seems like my disjointed rambling is already leading into the character section, so let’s go there. D;

CHARACTER & ACTING – First off, Jackie Earle Haley as Rorshach was mindblowingly perfect. His voice, his face, everything about him was spot on. I think his face freaks me out the most because of how much it fits even though Walter Kovacs was probably supposed to be quite a bit uglier than Haley. The acting and characterization was fantastic though, and I’m really not even sure how to express how happy I am that Rorshach translated so damn well into live action. I really appreciate that Haley is also a fan of the book and worked hard to get a convincing portrayal down. The black and white nature of his character was clear. I did feel like he was a bit more emotional in the film — there was more feeling in his voice than I’d have expected when he told Dreiberg “[he] quit” and he almost looked/sounded like he was pleading in that last scene with Manhattan. That was fine though, as the point of his character wasn’t lost. Nevertheless, I do wish they could have incorporated more of his backstory and daily life — I don’t feel they were that effective in capturing his philosphies and moral views, and I did not get the impression that there was a stark difference between Rorshach and Walter Kovacs despite various scenes hinting at such. I guess I can understand the cuts to the psychologist scenes; after all, it isn’t Rorshach’s movie, but it was still a little disappointing.

Patrick Wilson as Dan Dreiberg was also pretty good. As far as acting goes, his awkwardness and sincerity was well done, but sometimes his interactions with the other characters felt forced. The characterization also didn’t feel very solid or in-depth, but that’s more a matter of script than acting. I didn’t get as much a sense of his past with Rorshach, and the progression of his relationship with Juspeczyk felt rushed because the pacing of the movie in general felt rushed. I also didn’t get a very clear sense of his inner conflict with superheros and vigilantism, partially because I don’t think anything involving the Keene Act was well explained. The flashbacks and such dealing with the police strike felt jumbled and focused more on the Comedian as a character than the moral questions surrounding the subject. So in the end, I guess this made Dan a pretty flat character, which really is a shame because the acting wasn’t bad.

Speaking of the Comedian, I didn’t like the opening of the movie. I didn’t like that we caught that glimpse of him while he was still alive when he’s otherwise portrayed entirely through flashbacks. Honestly, I think that opening bit was more of a bone tossed at the fanboys than anything substiantial storywise — it was a good place to sneak in references to Nostalgia and other things that I can’t seem to remember right now, but we had that later montage where there were references up the wazoo anyway, so it’s even more pointless that way. Rather than spend those ten minutes watching the Comedian die, I would have preferred they be invested in better developing one of the other characters. Eddie Blake wasn’t badly characterized though. Every bit of him we saw in the film was pretty much taken straight from the comics, so it felt pretty solid. I think his scene with the pregnant woman in Vietnam would have been better if it had stuck more precisely with the book, but that might just be another on the long list of things that stood out because they were done almost exactly.

Malin Akerman was an okay Laurie Juspeczyk. I have to say that I never really liked the character to begin with though, even in the comic, and it seemed like all of her imperfections were more obvious in the movie. As I said before, her entire subplot with her parents seemed frustratingly irrelevant, though this could partially be blamed on Jon Osterman’s poor film characterization. Her conflict with her mother and the fact that she had been raised into vigilantism was not very clear (her mother’s acting and characterzation was great, however). Her relationship with Osterman seemed contrived at best, and the time (or lack thereof) it took for her to come onto Dreiberg just makes her seem like a slut. I’m just a huge misogynist though… I guess it doesn’t help that the only important thing she seems to do in the entire movie is motivate Dreiberg to put on his costume again (and sleep with him).

Billy Crudup really looked the part for Dr. Manhattan, but his character was exceedingly difficult to grasp in the movie. I think part of this is because the format of his lengthy flashbacks on Mars just wasn’t as effective as it was in the comic. The lack of narration made it harder to understand that he perceives all time simultaneously, so you couldn’t really understand that he had been growing more and more distant from humanity because of that ability. The impact of his relationship with Janey Slater didn’t resonate very well; as a result, his relationship with Juspeczyk didn’t hold too great either. Thus, Osterman just comes off as a cold and distant character — since his feelings for Juspeczyk felt contrived, his “sudden” appreciation of humanity near the end of the movie didn’t really connect. Actually, this bothered me in the book too. He “saves” the world by deciding not to do anything about Veidt’s plan, kills Rorshach to ensure that no one else does, but then he jumps ship and leaves the galaxy? Just because Juspeczyk leaves him? Humanity has to mean more to you than just one relationship, right?

And finally… Matthew Goode as Adrian Veidt. Am I the only one who thought that he had neon flashing lights over his head proclaiming “LOOK AT ME~! I’M THE VILLAIN~!” from the minute he was introduced? Just everything about him seemed to scream stereotypical supervillain, from the slight accent to the arrogant demeanor. I consider Watchmen’s storyline to be a mystery at its core — this doesn’t work if the “bad guy” is obvious from the second he walks in. I was completely fooled by Veidt in the comic, so what the hell happened?? This is my single biggest gripe with the entire movie. Veidt came off as a much more playful, and even naive, character in the book (his sad little “My display…” comment after the Comedian burns his chart thing in that flashback sticks out in my head); his obsession with Alexander the Great and Egyptian myth wasn’t obvious at all and was not explained until the very end. The worst of it was that they chose to have him ramble about his idols and motivation right before the attempt on his life. They alienate his character and pretty much confirm him as a villain right before the attempt to remove him as a suspect. Yeah, that totally works. -_-

All of the minor characters in the movie were pretty great though. Rorshach’s shrink, Hollis Mason, Sally Jupiter, Moloch (even though I think the pointed ears could have been left out) were all spot on. I really do think they did a brilliant casting job — most of what’s missing in characterization is due more to cuts in the script than anything else. I always feel like they could have invested more in developing all the characters properly rather than spending the time on decidedly less important things such as the intro with the Comedian and the sex scene, but I also know that to the general population, especially those who have not read the comic, shiny things are better than deep things. So what can ya do.

One thing though, my roommate and I both swear we saw Patrick Stewart as one of the generals in the war room with President Nixon (sitting on the far-left in many of the shots). His name wasn’t in the credits, not does it seem to be mentioned anywhere else, but we SWEAR it was him. Anyone else spot him or are we just crazy?

ART & ANIMATION – Rorshach’s face was amazing. Dr. Manhattan also looked pretty good, and I appreciated that they didn’t try to censor his occasional full blown nudity. The doc exploding people was also nice looking. Other than that though… a lot of the movie looked too shiny to me for some reason. It felt too modern. I had a hard time remembering that it’s 1985. I think that’s more due to the format of the film than anything else though — the shiny things on Mars didn’t help either. There were a lot of hints towards the era; I just had a hard time picking them up because 1) my historical sense is terrible, and 2) everything was still so shiny! Is it unfair of me to say that things were just too well-animated? The Comedian being thrown out the window in slow motion was just too sophisticated. I wanted nitty gritty. It’s a dirty, oldschool crimescene; I didn’t want the fancy schmancy effects.

The explosion at the end was also a little disappointing. It felt too overdramatic and staged, which is weird because it should have been dramatic, just not staged. Maybe they’d overspent their budget on Dr. Manhattan by that point. I didn’t get a very good sense of just how much devastation there was either — there was no shot of the mountain of dead bodies tumbling out of the Garden afterwards. Even the newscasts didn’t seem to emphasize that millions of people died. It felt weird, but it’s still a good-looking movie, maybe just too good.

Oh, wait. I forgot to talk about Bubastis. Bubastis looked cheap. Didn’t blend with the scenery at all, and just wasn’t very convincing in general. Really, I wish they had just left her out altogether because without the genetic experimentation angle on Veidt’s plot, she just seemed like a misplaced character. All she did was make Veidt seem even more like a stereotypical supervillain. All the bad guys seem to like to have their little kitty pet. (It’s always a cat. Why always a cat?) The fact that Veidt was lacking in all his rambling monologue didn’t help either because the audience didn’t get a chance to appreciate Bubastis before her death. It’s very sad.

MUSIC - My first thought was that there was way too much in the way of vocal background music in this movie. My roommate pointed out that a lot of it helped put us in the time period — pieces like Nena’s “99luftballoons” and Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence” (okay, maybe that one’s a bit old). I guess that’s true, though I suck at pop culture and can’t place these things very well anyway. “Hallelujah” was just exceptionally corny, which is okay, except that they went for corny twice. They’d already used “Rise of the Valkyries.” I did like most of the music choices; it just seemed excessive after a while. The soundtrack itself was pretty neat, though I’d probably need to watch the movie again to get a better opinion.

OVERALL - Hell, I want to see the entire movie again to get a better opinion in general. I already can’t remember a lot of specific scenes, and that really bugs me. I think this “review” sounds a lot more negative than I want it to — it’s always easier to talk about the poorer aspects of something because praising the good parts just feels like finding all the synonyms of “awesome” that exist and spewing them together onto the page. I liked this movie. There are some things about it that I would change if it were up to me, but really? It was a solid enough film; it was fun and entertaining. Some of the changes/additions were pretty neat too (I loved Rorshach’s “It’s your turn, doc: what do you see?”). It’s true that some of the deeper questions that spawned from the book are missing, but the general idea is still there. It still poses the same moral question at the end.

I would probably recommend it to fans of the book as long as they’re willing to accept that changes will always exist. I’m not really sure what to say to non-fans though. I’ve yet to hear many opinions from people who’ve never read the comic. I did say that I felt the pacing was a bit confusing, so maybe the non-fan would be too confused to grasp the core themes. In that sense, it’s a shame, and maybe the movie didn’t really succeed, but for the fan, it’s still a nice treat to be able to see everything in live action.

I can’t say I’m really surprised, but with every bit of news that comes up, I find myself getting a little more optimistic about the prospects for the film. It’s a cautious optimism, but it’s optimism all the same. At the risk of repeating myself, I’m going to give Reeves a chance. It’s true that almost all of the roles I’ve seen him play (which admittedly, isn’t many) all have the same general personality — that stoic, reserved, almost confused kind of person that doesn’t really suit Spike Spiegal at all. But nevertheless, if Reeves is really an actor, then he should be perfectly capable of acting outside of his comfort zone, especially if it’s for a character he actually likes and admires. I had huge doubts about Heath Ledger being cast as the Joker, but look at how that turned out. I think it’ll be really interesting to see if he can pull it off and perhaps grow as an actor.

Another point of optimism is the fact that so many original staff members seem to be involved. I’m thrilled to see that Shinichiro Watanabe, among others, will have a hand in producing. Reeves had mentioned wanting to stick as close to the source material as possible, and while neither he nor Watanabe will be the director, I can hope that their influence on set will gear it in a canonic direction. And anyway, Bebop’s story and plot is much more flexible than say, Dragonball‘s, so I think any changes they do make will be less of a deal; they should be able to integrate everything much more smoothly.

I’m still interested in knowing who the rest of the cast will be and whether any of them will be cut from the movie for the sake of brevity and relevance (I would much rather see characters cut then having to split limited time between too many characters). Though I love both characters, I think that both Ed and Ein are pretty expendable, especially considering that they’d likely be the hardest to cast for. For Ed, they’d have to hunt down one hell of an androgynous kid, and for Ein, anything less than a perfectly trained Welsh Corgi will send fans into a rage. Because I’m not too knowledgable about actors, I don’t have any ideals for Jet or Faye, but I feel like their achetypes are common enough that it won’t be too much of an issue (the fact that I like Jet and Faye both less than Ed and Ein will also mean I’d probably be less critical).

Someone on the ANN forums mentioned his/her desire to know about the musical credits of the film — what a damn good question! I’m kind of surprised no one else has really brought it up before now. The music in Bebop is a huge part of the experience, and I’m not sure I can really imagine Bebop without it. If they can get Ayumi Hamasaki to do music for Dragonball, will they be able to convince Yoko Kanno to come back and reprise her role in Bebop as composer? Personally, I wouldn’t mind just recycling music from the anime series or animated movie if they can’t get Kanno, but I understand that’d kind of be a cop out. Would it be the same with someone else? There are plenty of talented composers out there, and even though you don’t hear a lot of jazz in films these days, I’m sure there’s someone that can pull it off… even so, will it be the same? Sometimes I think that fans attach too much importance to the original people, but sometimes, there’s a good reason for that.

Reactions across the community thus far seem pretty mixed, but I wonder about how people’s opinions will change as more is revealed about the project. Right now, I have higher hopes for this than I’ve had for any other live-action adaptation by an American company. Part of that is simply because Bebop itself is more accessible to the mainstream than a title like Dragonball. Sci-fi can be mainstream, especially if it’s filled with badasses and busty women. Serenity was a box-office flop, but I kind of blame that on the fact that it was a sequel. Bebop won’t be a sequel. I can see non-anime fans watching and liking it if it’s done right. At the very least, they will be able to take it more seriously than they could Speed Racer or can Dragonball. The former demanded you know and appreciate the original cartoon. The latter will demand that you be missing part of your brain.

More wait and see. I wonder if it’ll really be done by 2010. Seems like a huge stretch, but hey, so did the whole Reeves thing at first.

In other news, this is my 100th blog entry here. :3 Go me.

Spike and friends are blasting off on a new adventure as plans for a live action film adaptation of TOKYOPOP’s Cowboy Bebop have just been announced! Keanu Reeves (The Day the Earth Stood Still, Matrix trilogy) will star as Spike Spiegel with Erwin Stoff (I Am Legend) to produce.

Of course, TP can’t be considered a reliable source as they have nothing to do with the film at all. (I love how they claim Cowboy Bebop as their property.) They’re just using the tidbit to promote the Cowboy Bebop manga they have. The article they link doesn’t explicitly cast Reeves as Spike either (or at least, it cites an interview that’s already been torn apart by the aniblogosphere and the general consensus seems to be that he really wants the role, but it isn’t a sure thing yet).

I think they’re just jumping the gun on that announcement, but I don’t think I really care at this point.

I said in July that I’m willing to give the guy the benefit of the doubt on his potential as Spike. At the very least, I’m comforted by the fact that Reeves is a genuine fan, which should seriously help him adjust to the role should he get it. I don’t know enough actors to be able to suggest a better suitor anyway. But since the rumors of July seem to be holding pretty well for the most part now, I’m wondering if the bit about Bebop’s production being accelerated for a 2010 release is going to end up being true also. If that’s the case, I really want to know who’ll be signing on for the rest of the cast, as well as who’ll be directing it.

I think Jet would be easy enough to cast for. He’s the most archetypal of the lot. Ed and Faye I’m worried about. I can’t decide who I’m worried about more…. probably Ed since she needs to be very androgynous and very quirky to work right. I’m also wondering if they’ll be able to secure a trained Corgi for Ein? Or would a different breed be easier? I don’t expect them to cover everyone’s origin stories, and Ein would be pretty easy to cut out completely if it came down to it. (So would Ed, for that matter.) Hmm. Honestly, there’s a lot that can be sacrificed with Bebop since the series is so episodic. If they want to incorporate the ending, then it’s more Spike’s story than anything else. I guess we’ll see. I’m cautiously excited about this.

I’m not really happy with how I reviewed this movie though. It’s hard to convey mixed feelings when numbers are so impartial. I might just need to watch this movie again and revise the review after that, I dunno. (I overthink these things, I’m sure of it.) I’ve lost a lot of friends since everyone parted ways for college (what is a Facebook friend, really?), so maybe that’s why I had such a snarky attitude towards some parts of this film. The characters made it seem too unrealistic, which is a damn shame because the topic is so relevant. It’s ironic that in today’s super-connected society, people are as isolated as ever.

Nostalgia is a terrible thing sometimes.

I’m wishing again that users on MAL could actually leave comments on reviews so I know for sure why people think some of mine are “unhelpful,” particularly when I think I’ve reviewed in favor of the general consensus, like my Perfect Blue review. I want to know if it’s actually something about my writing or people disagreeing with my opinion. Ah, well.

I just finished Nodame Cantabile, so that review should be coming up soon~.

I was thinking of re-structuring the format I use to set up my reviews. Right now, the sections I use are a mix between the sections dictated by Kiji Anime, a now-defunct review site I used to write for, and my own breakdown of categories. Most review sites or whatever use a similar break down, but since I use MAL pretty much exclusively now, I was thinking of just conforming to that. Really though, the sections I use are pretty much the same anyway, just I list them in a different order and use slightly different names. Some of the other better reviewers also break down the “Sound” category into “music” and “voice acting,” so yeah… Dunno. I’m a fan of cohesiveness and conformity on things that should be uniform, like reviews, but that also means I like cohesiveness and conformity within my own collection of reviews. It’d be troublesome to have to go back and edit old reviews, lol. This is a pretty pointless internal debate, isn’t it?

I think I’ll probably just keep doing what I’m doing and not worry about MAL’s format. Eh.