Monday Movie Musings: Who Watches the Watchmen

     Yesterday Sam and I took in Atomic Blonde, Starring Charlize Theron and James McAvoy. It's an excellent spy-trhiller that kept me guessing until the end, and finding out at the end I guessed wrong. Not going to spoil anything, it would literally be like telling you Vader is Luke's Father, or revealing the disguise of Verbal Kint. You need to go into this one unspoiled, unsullied and innocent.


     Apart from the well crafted plot, there are two things that stand out. Maybe three.

• The trailer makes the protagonist look super-dangerous, but also superhuman. She is definitely not. The fight sequences are bloody, exhausting, and brutal. they appear to take a physical toll not only on the characters, but the actors and audience as well. what you have is human beings, desperately trying to survive and win, and the extreme lengths they will go to. The main character, Lorraine does have an excellent spur-of-the-moment planning ability, and it's why she usually comes out on top. 
• The soundtrack- memories from the Heyday of MTV, like Der Kommisar, 99 LuftBallons, often in highly ironic spots  in the movie put this one up there with Guardians of the Galaxy V1 and 2, as well as my next subject here, following this bludgeon of a transition. 

     Not my first watch, not my last. Amazing soundtrack, with evocative mood-setters by Simon and Garfunkel, Jimi Hendrix, Bob, Dylan and many more. I think that this is probably the best movie you could make out of the classic graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. It didn't get Alan Moore's blessing, but what ever has? He refused to even see it. This film is Zach Snyder at his very best, his most faithful to the panels of the comic and the characters who live within them. 

     I once thought of Adrian Veidt as Lex Luthor as a superhero, and there is that element, but when I watched it this time I was looking for Justice League analogs, and I found them...and unfortunately, they were all Batman...

     Yep. Three characters, three different interpretations of Batman. 

     Nite Owl (Daniel Dreiberg): Also compared to Ted Kord(AKA the Blue Beetle) He reminded me of the idealistic 1960's Batman- the Adam West Batman- thrust into a violent and terrible world and dealing with it with his gadgets, and his belief in the right course.

    Ozymandias (Adrian Veidt): The cold, chessmaster Batman who is always moves ahead of everyone else, and who plans(for instance) for the day his friends will go bad by figuring out how to kill or incapacitate them. For him the end always justifies the means. 

    Rorschach(Walter Kovacs): is the grim, uncompromising Frank Miller-esque Batman, with a running Internal Monologue providing a soundtrack to his mental state, which can either be utterly insane or frighteningly sane depending on which angle you view him from. He is the Batman for whom Bruce Wayne is the mask, and the Dark Knight is the true face. I happen to think he is the most interesting and complex character in the movie. 

     As always, the film's ending leaves me wanting, yet dreading more, with Rorchach's war journal about to be published with all his observations and secrets. If you haven't seen this one, watch the director's cut. If you have, but it's been a while, give it another watch. 

     One final thing. Zach Snyder KNOWS what superheroes should look like when they fight. The greatest triumph of Batman V. Superman is someone finally captured Batman really fighting and why he is able to hold his own among the strongest that world has to offer.