Spam, spam, spam, spam...and Watchmen

[lillian13]

No, not email spam. Not even the kind that comes in a can. I'm talking Spamalot! This is the second time I've seen it, and I think it's two very different casts. The show I saw last night had Richard Chamberlain as Arthur. He was OK, but not as good as the actor I saw in San Antonio last year. I mean, I love Chamberlain, but he's just not...hammy enough to play the Monty Python version of Arthur. (It was Tim Curry's role originally, which might tell you something.)

However, that being said, it was a great time and I loved it just as much the second time as I did the first. The actor playing the main Knight who Says Ni! pulled a fast one on the cast--when he was making up the new name ("We're no longer the Knights who Say Ni!, we're...") he started singing "The Eyes of Texas" and making the Longhorns sign. The entire audience joined in, and the cast was just staring at us, probably thinking WTF? Is this a cult? I just about laughed myself sick. You could tell how comfortable they were with the show--there were a lot of little things like that. And the actor who played the main French guard was a hoot.

And now, Watchmen. When I was in college, we used to try to cast various comic books, etc. as movies--we never tried with Watchmen, because we were convinced it could never be made. I can't say Zack Snyder made a perfect movie, or even a great one, but I think he did an excellent job of distilling the main thrust of the graphic novel--putting on a mask and fighting crime makes you crazy.

Nite Owl II and Silk Spectre II both are pretty normal when we first see them. They're being regular people! Rorschach is crazy! Going out and fighting crime? That's for crazy people!

But then...well, why not put the costumes on again? Go out, be heroes again? What can it hurt? (Hint: it not only makes you crazy, it's addictive.) I mean, they can't even have sex properly until they've gone out and risked their lives. And soon, it's OK to punch out prison guards, bust out that lovable Rorschach, and smile benevolently as he kills someone in the bathroom. That guy! Such a kidder! Putting on a mask and fighting crime makes you crazy.

I mean...look at Rorschach. (Jackie Earle Haley deserves an Oscar nod for this one.) "Where's my face? You took my face!" He doesn't even have an identity without the mask. After he gets it back, it's as if what little human personality he had left was gone. All he had left was his loyalty and his determination to see justice done. Putting on a mask and fighting crime makes you crazy.

And Ozymandias. He left his life behind when he put on the mask too, and started to believe that he was the smartest man in the world, and knew the best for the world, at that. Putting on a mask and fighting crime makes you crazy.

Poor Dr. Manhattan. Brilliantly played by Billy Crudup (even if it was mainly his voice). I was aching for him early on, because he wasn't human any more, and doing what he'd been doing for the government for as long as he had had twisted him around too. Even for big blue naked guys (and yay! naked guys!), putting on a mask and fighting crime makes you crazy.

The Comedian is the only one who realized this. And he thought it was funny, since he was the only one who got the joke.
 
I may write more later. This movie is still making me all thinky, several days on.