WATCHMEN: DIRECTOR’S CUT (2009, Blu-ray released July 21, 2009 – MSRP $35.99)
It’s two in the morning and I can’t stop watching the Watchmen Blu-ray disc. I got home late from work. Totally bagged. Ready to hit the sack minutes after kicking off my shoes. I had been seriously committed to sleep before finding the Watchmen disc in my mailbox. And now I’m done. I can’t tear myself away. Zack Snyder has me held enthralled, talking at me from the blackened studio of his Maximum Movie Mode, unveiling the secrets of his violent, masked universe.
I was all ready to slam this disc. I admit, I didn’t care for Watchmen in the theatre. The film has, to my mind, too many problems to be considered a success. While a lot of my issues with the theatrical cut still exist in the Director’s Cut featured on the Blu-ray disc (awkward dialogue, wooden performances, horrific music choices) I’m delighted to say that this version works a hell of a lot better! Wow. Consider me shocked. Watchmen actually needed that extra 30 minutes or so to breathe. To be honest, I had to hit the internet after watching to figure out where most of the “new” footage was found. To my surprise, a good percentage of it comes from simple scene extensions, longer takes, fewer cuts. That’s why it plays a bit better. It doesn’t cut abruptly away from a character moment. It lingers a bit longer and allows the weight of its world to sink in. In this three hour cut, the Watchmen actually works.
On top of enjoying the film itself, I was drawn in by Warner‘s new Maximum Movie Mode, where the director literally steps into the picture to walk you through a sequence. This works brilliantly well (watch a preview over at our previously posted article here) but only pops into the movie periodically. This is a crying shame. I could watch the entire film over again like this. When Zack isn’t on screen Maximizing the Movie, the rest of film plays through with pop-up facts, timelines, Picture-in-Picture interviews, comments and behind-the-scenes footage and offers to zap you out of the film to look at other content. I’ve never cared much for that, you know. As much as some of these features might interest me, I don’t ever want to leave the film to see them! There’s some great stuff there too, you know: artwork, designs, photos, focus point videos (which you can thankfully access outside of the “Mode”.) I just don’t want to have to stop the film to experience them. You hear me, Warner?! Give me the same content but never stop the show. That’s what Maximum Movie Mode is for. To display lots of stuff while the film rolls on.
Oh yeah. Almost forgot. The 3-Disc Watchmen: Director’s Cut set has more stuff to appreciate too! There are a handful of featurettes and things on the second disc and they’re great. Really nice stuff. None of it is going to blow your mind but its all a nice compliment to the bounty of information found on disc one. There’s also a digital copy of the film, found on its own, on a third disc. Yeah. I know. Digital Copy. Who cares…
For a full run-down of the discs features, read our detailed article here: Watchmen: Director’s Cut Detailed, includes Facebook Social Media Connectivity
I can’t speak intelligently about this Blu-ray disc as the studio didn’t send me a screener but I can tell you that I’ll be heading out directly after work to pick this up tonight. I loved Coraline in the theatres. It was my first 3-D experience. Yes, I’m serious. No, I haven’t been living in a cave.
I was dazzled by the tech, the polarized-lens 3-D thing. I thought it looked amazing without having to sacrifice the colours of the film itself, as red-blue anaglyph 3-D does. Sadly, that’s the only kind of 3-D we’ve got available to us at home at this time and the Coraline Blu-ray disc provides a version in that style. I don’t hesitate to tell you that I’ll be avoiding that version, however and enjoying the film for the first time in standard old, flat 2-D. I wonder how it will hold up?
ANOTHER PICK – 300: THE COMPLETE EXPERIENCE
I’m not going to try to sell you on 300. You either like the film or you don’t. If you’re here, reading this review, you probably think the movie’s all right and are no doubt familiar enough with the story, so I’m not going to bore you with it. It is, at its core, a two-hour fight scene. It’s an amazing battle, and incredible eye candy to be sure. But really, this sort of action epic, light on story, heavy on special effects is either your bag or you’re going to look elsewhere for your cinematic delights.
That out of the way, let me say WOW! I love this Blu-ray package. What an amazing job Warner has done with this set. Double-dip be damned, if you care at all about this film and are the sort of person who enjoys bonus features on a disc (I know there are two or three of you out there who couldn’t give a Spartan’s spear about them) then it’s worth ditching the old bare-bones one in favour of this, the 300: The Complete Experience.
Read my full review here: 300: The Complete Experience Blu-ray Disc Review
[...] silent assassin who doesn’t want you to touch his hat (Óscar Jaenada), the conflicted leader (Watchmen‘s Jeffrey Dean Morgan), the angry man who questions his blind loyalty to his leader (The [...]
[...] Movie Mode! That’s right, Snyder is back for another walk-on commentary and, much like his Watchmen walk-through, this one is almost worth the price of the disc itself. There’s a ridiculous [...]