Resfriar emoções.

Depois da ovação que foi a crítica de Devin Faraci, eis que um balde de água fria atemoriza as expectativas de Watchmen. Perdão, um não. Dois. O Hollywood Reporter e a Variety, duas das publicações mais cotadas no que toca às apreciações, torcem o nariz à obra de Zack Snyder. Kirk Honeycutt, do HR, torce e de que maneira.

“The violence is not as bad as early rumors would have one believe. It's still comic book stuff, only with lots of bloody effects and makeup. The real disappointment is that the film does not transport an audience to another world, as "300" did. Nor does the third-rate Chandler-esque narration by Rorschach help.

There is something a little lackadaisical here. The set pieces are surprisingly flat and the characters have little resonance. Fight scenes don't hold a candle to Asian action. Even the digital effects are ho-hum. Armageddon never looked so cheesy.

The film seems to take pride in its darkness, but this is just another failed special effect. Cinematographer Larry Fong and production designer Alex McDowell blend real and digital sets with earthen tones and secondary colors that give a sense of the past. But the stories are too absurd and acting too uneven to convince anyone. The appearances of a waxworks Nixon, Kissinger and other 1980s personalities will only bring hoots from less charitable audiences.

Looks like we have the first real flop of 2009”.

Nada meiguinho, este Honeycutt. Justin Chang, da Variety, não sendo tão corrosivo nas suas considerações, também está longe de ter ficado empolgado com aquilo que viu.

“Fans of Alan Moore’s landmark graphic novel, concerning a ring of Gotham superheroes brought out of retirement by an impending nuclear threat, will thrill to every pulpy line of dialogue and bloody act of retribution retained in director Zack Snyder’s slavishly faithful adaptation. But auds unfamiliar with Moore’s brilliantly bleak, psychologically subversive fiction may get lost amid all the sinewy exposition and multiple flashbacks. After a victorious opening weekend, the pic’s B.O. future looks promising but less certain beyond its core fanbase.

(…) Yet the movie is ultimately undone by its own reverence; there’s simply no room for these characters and stories to breathe of their own accord, and even the most fastidiously replicated scenes can feel glib and truncated. As “Watchmen” lurches toward its apocalyptic (and slightly altered) finale, something happens that didn’t happen in the novel: Wavering between seriousness and camp, and absent the cerebral tone that gave weight to some of the book’s headier ideas, the film seems to yield to the very superhero cliches it purports to subvert”.

Contudo, quando visitamos o Rotten Tomatoes, vemos que o filme recebe uma avaliação de 81% – muitas críticas ainda estão por chegar –, e estas duas são das poucas apreciações negativas. Menos mal. Agora, Justin Chang foca um ponto importante. A familiaridade da audiência com a história. Ou muito nos enganamos, ou muita gente sairá da sala sem perceber patavina. Há soluções. A obra de Alan Moore e Dave Gibbons é extensa, no entanto, Watchmen - The Complete Motion Comic, deverá ser uma excelente forma de apanhar o fio à meada.

Alvy Singer