The much-anticipated trailer for “Watchmen” directed by Zack Snyder is now online (it seems the Empire, who had the exclusive, has been deluged with a traffic onslaught) and man, say what you will about this CGI-heavy filmmaker, but he knows how to translate comic-book looks into spot-on visual effects (we’re sure the trailer will be back up in a sec it’s below; look at the side-by side comparisons above).
The bigscreen trailer is going to be shown during public screenings of “The Dark Knight” this weekend, us critics (*cough*) didn’t get the chance to see it with our viewings.
The striking images are not a surprise to many who already know and adore “300,” the visually impressive film about oily Spartan soldiers fighting bravely to their sweaty doom at the Battle of Thermopylae which raked in a left-field boatload at the box-office in the spring of 2007.
Our skepticism over this project has generally eroded over the months. The casting is pretty formidable (Billy Crudup is never one to slouch at) and the first images of the film released were pretty outstanding, but this trailer, aside from the effects, we’re sort of on the fence about.
In an EW interview posted yesterday with “Watchmen” comic-book creator and mastermind, the notoriously crotchety Alan Moore, the irascible artists said once again, that his comic shouldn’t be made into a movie (he’s argued this incessantly over the years once telling the same thing to director Terry Gilliam who was once interested in the project).
While he hasn’t seen “300,” everything he’s heard or seen about the film makes him think it was “racist…homophobic, and above all… sublimely stupid.”
When asked if he was even a tad curious what Snyder was doing with the now DC Comics-owned property, Moore said, “I’d rather not know.”
It’s everywhere now, thanks Alex. The trailer recycles uses “The Beginning is the End is the Beginning” by Smashing Pumpkins a track that is not to be confused with the “Batman & Robin” soundtrack song by the Pumpkins, “The End Is the Beginning Is the End,” got that? [ed. we admittedly fell for this too, but have since fixed this piece].
It doesn’t play right here and it’s corny, but we’re assuming this is just a trailer convention meant to wow less discerning geeks who are likely going to go apeshit over it all regardless. We give it a B- overall as there’s far too much forced movieness and gratuitous, over-the-top slow-motion, but thank god there are no gauche colors on the heroes. This would have never worked. As you can kind of tell from this post, we sort of went from liking this trailer, to thinking, “wow, that kinda looks dumb,” to wondering to ourselves whether we should ever even slightly endorse anything Synder is ever apart of again. We’ll wait and see, we guess, but we’re sure a big portion of the boy interweb world is freaking out right now. Watchmen is due on March 6th 2009.