HOPELESSLY DEVOTED: NEW YORK MAGAZINE'S DAVID EDELSTEIN ON WATCHMEN

I just saw NEW YORK MAGAZINE's David Edelstein give his two cents about the upcoming WATCHMEN movie on the CBS SUNDAY MORNING news magazine show and it's the first negative review I've come across for it. From what he had to say it was clear that Edelstein has read the graphic novel and as a result he had an informed viewpoint, so I take him at his word when he described the film as being "so reverential that Zack Snyder must have been directing from his knees," an aspect he says robs the film of any life or spirit of its own.

Curious to read his NEW YORK MAGAZINE review, I found it online here and suggest you read it for yourself, but here are some choice quotes:

"It is, at least, an awe-inspiring corpse: huge, noisy, gaseously distended by its own dystopia."

"As you watch the surviving characters slink away after a long two-and-three-quarters hours, you might long for the relative giddiness of The Dark Knight."

And the one that most sums up the fears I've held about this film for quite some time:

"Elements come to fleeting life, but numbness overtakes all. Alan Moore refused (in advance) to put his name on the movie, which must have hurt Snyder and company terribly; they’ve made the most reverent adaptation of a graphic novel ever. But this kind of reverence kills what it seeks to preserve. The movie is embalmed."

I'll be seeing WATCHMEN on Tuesday night and will get back to you with the skinny shortly thereafter, probably Wednesday morning, but Edelstein's review only serves to bolster my philosophy of attending the film with zero expectation of anything other than another bloated Hollywood product. I'm there for Rorschach and that's about all.