Gary Kelly8 said:Well, it's been over a year since the movie "The Watch arrived in America." So, what now? Has anyone from this forum actually seen it? Any opinions, complaints, or grievances to share?
I’ve seen it twice myself. That alone probably speaks volumes about my impression, but let me elaborate:
- The first time, I went with a group. It was alright, though I didn't fully grasp the plot immediately. It isn't exactly a masterpiece of complex storytelling; the film is just too MTV-style to be a deep conversation starter at home.
- The second time, I watched it with a friend who couldn't make it to the theater due to finals. This time, I caught some details I missed initially (like, why are they wearing sunglasses in twilight? What's with all those mosquitoes?) and the movie immediately felt better.
Essentially, the plot isn't any smarter than your average Hollywood flick, but a week later, I watched the third Blade movie on Blu-ray and was stunned by how anemic and soulless it felt compared to The Watch: there's no humor, no interesting side characters, and Blade is so monolithically perfect that you know from the jump he has zero chance of losing...
"The Watch" is interesting to me specifically because of its contrasts with typical American films. Instead of working for some massive corporation, the heroes work for the electric company. The villains are clustered around a pop singer like Britney Spears. There's a kid on TV watching Buffy dubbed in Russian. Nuclear plant workers are cooking sausages on the pipes. Half the action takes place in public housing projects. There are heaps of little details that allow for a complete suspension of disbelief, making you believe that if vampires actually existed, this is exactly how things would go down.
And then there’s the lead, a total walking disaster of a drunk, who despite all his flaws, tries to do the right thing. As Matthew Doyle73 commented after the film:
"Uuuu, this one can turn into a tiger! And this one into an owl! And this one into a bear! What can you turn into, kid?"
"Nothing."
Who knows, but I find myself much more inclined to root for a hero like that than for hyper-competent, high-octane icons like Blade, where it's painfully obvious from the start that they'll succeed.
In any case, I didn't take the film too seriously, but I got the sense that the film itself doesn't take itself too seriously either, which works for me.
