Critical Reaction to Watchmen
To the surprise of many,
Watchmen not only did very well at the box office, but received substantially positive critical reaction. Rotten Tomatoes, a critical aggregate site which debuted in 1999, retroactively gave the film an 87% rating, marking it as “Certified Fresh”. Particular praise was singled out for the movie’s action, special effects, supporting performances, and nostalgia factor.
Roger Ebert gave the film four stars (out of a possible four, by definition the best he can possibly give). Ebert started his review saying, “When I was viewing
Watchmen, I was constantly on the wait for the illusion to crack. Cameron’s directing, the acting, the story… these were all far too good, far too complicated to be a superhero movie. I was on guard for the smile, the breaking of the fourth wall, something that would ruin the whole experience. And it didn’t happen.
Watchmen takes itself dead seriously. And that’s, oddly enough, what makes it so enjoyable”. Peter Travers, Richard Corliss, and Owen Gleiberman expressed similar opinions.
While all of the performances were considered at least adequate, much attention was given to the acting chops Bruce Campbell, Brent Spiner, and especially Mark Hamill displayed. Travers noted, “…it’s kind of funny to see the three box office stars get utterly and completely upstaged by the three nobodies”…” don’t get me wrong, they (Schwarzenegger, Russell, Stone) weren’t bad, not at all. But take a look at Bruce Campbell, best known until now for the ultra-gory
Evil Dead B-movies. The man is a maniac, and a murderous maniac at that… but there’s something about him that makes you like him. Maybe it’s his ultimate mental breakdown, but for most audiences, I think it’s because Campbell is so cool the theater gets noticeably colder”. “Campbell does seem to have charisma is spades, doesn’t he?” Gene Siskel wrote in his review. Critics also enjoyed Spiner’s cold detachment, though many conceded it was often hard to tell where the actor ended and the special effects began [1]. But, again, particular praise was heaped on Mark Hamill, whose terrifying showing was credited for reviving his career, which had remained essentially dormant throughout the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. Legendary
Star Wars director George Lucasprobably put it best- “Mark’s superhero vigilante was creepy, horrifying, sad, touching, and kind funny, actually, all at the same time. This is movie acting at its best. This was the reason I entrusted Luke Skywalker to him nearly twenty years ago”.
The special effects were considered, for lack of a better word, revolutionary. In fact, the scene showing the birth of Doctor Manhattan is often included as the one of most memorable and poignant movie moments of all time, and not just because it was emotionally touching, but because many audiences were stunned at the time at how much computer effects could actually convey [2]. Doctor Manhattan’s rendering was considered a triumph in general, as it was the first time a character had been realized in a movie as a completely digital character, which would lead to many attempts to copy the effect in the ensuing years. Stan Winston’s practical effects were warmly received, as always, and the Squid was generally considered on par with one of the dinosaurs from
Jurassic Park.
Though most critics enjoyed it and audiences loved it, most negative reviews centered around the film’s plot. Jonathan Rosenbaum sneered, “Besides the fact that there is absolutely no pacing to be found in
Watchmen, there’s no consistency to the storytelling either. At one point it’s a somber family drama, the next it’s the third
Batman film, and the next it’s a giant monster feature. Sometimes it’s trying to show the future envisioned by the 50’s, and the very next frame it wants to revisit the famous events of the 60’s and 70’s, as if our heroes were Forrest Gump in tights.””…It’s as if Cameron grabbed the script and had the special effects halfway finished before he even tried to see if it would make any sense”.
Generally, though, it was considered a really good movie. Better than
Forrest Gump, at least according to the critical consensus. Would the Oscars agree? Traditionally, they didn’t. No film based on a comic book, much less a superhero story, had ever been nominated for any sort of “major” Oscar. Joel Silver, however, was determined to change history. He convinced Fox in late 1994 to pony up a massive “for your consideration” campaign tailored for Academy voters, focusing particularly on the performances of Mark Hamill and Bruce Campbell, and on Cameron’s direction. A brutal competition arose between the thematically similar
Watchmen and
Forrest Gump, with the two camps resorting to extremely petty name-calling (for instance, Tom Hanks’ portrayal of Forrest being called “demeaning to the mentally challenged”, and
Watchmen bashed on the contention that “comic books are a low art-form”) [3]. When the nominations were announced in early 1995, however…
Major Oscar Nominations (listed in alphabetical order by film or person's name, where applicable)
Best Picture:
Forrest Gump
Four Weddings and a Funeral
Overture
Pulp Fiction
The Shawshank Redemption
Best Director:
James Cameron-
Watchmen
Krzysztof Kieślowski-
Three Colors: Red
Quentin Tarantino-
Natural Born Killers
Quentin Tarantino-
Pulp Fiction
Robert Zemeckis-
Forrest Gump
Best Actress:
Jessica Lange-
Blue Sky
Juliette Lewis-
Natural Born Killers
Miranda Richardson-
Tom & Viv
Winona Ryder-
Little Women
Susan Sarandon-
The Client
Best Actor:
Don Cheadle-
Overture
Tom Hanks-
Forrest Gump
Woody Harrelson-
Natural Born Killers
Nigel Hawthorne-
The Madness of King George
John Travolta-
Pulp Fiction
Best Supporting Actress:
Rosemary Harris-
Tom & Viv
Helen Mirren-
The Madness of King George
Robin Wright Penn-
Forrest Gump
Uma Thurman-
Pulp Fiction
Dianne Wiest-
Bullets Over Broadway
Best Supporting Actor:
Morgan Freeman-
The Shawshank Redemption
Mark Hamill-
Watchmen
Samuel L. Jackson-
Pulp Fiction
Martin Landau-
Ed Wood
Gary Sinise-
Forrest Gump
The 67th Academy Awards are broadcast on Monday, March 25th, 1994, and will be hosted by comedian Jay Leno…
...
[1] This particular line, at least the wording, is lifted almost entirely from Roger Ebert’s review of Rise of the Planet of the Apes (for obvious reasons), so kudos to him.
[2]
Probably similar to this scene from Spider-Man 3
[3] Think of the brutal OTL campaign between
Shakespeare in Love and
Saving Private Ryan…
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So yeah, don't anyone panic, even though the Oscars are announced in early 1995, I'll backpedal and explain myself on some earlier stuff (1994 has yet to be filled out to my satisfaction). I may go back to this post, in fact, and edit some stuff in.
Other than that, I know there's not much to chew on, but thoughts?