The good, the bad, and the hot; part 2

2) Watchmen. There's not much good or hot about this one, though to be fair, with my long-standing antipathy for most superhero movies, I am hardly the ideal audience member for this. Years ago, I read the graphic novel this was based on, about a group of much-maligned, retired heroes who gather together to find out who is killing them off. In its time (mid-80's), it was a different approach to the superhero genre (some called it an anti-superhero story) and I remember liking it, but it has not stuck with me.

The film has everything I dislike about the comic book-movie genre: tons of angst, a drab color palette, dull performances by actors who are afraid to find any fun in the material, and, in the continuing attempt to give these movies artistic credibility, an overly-serious tone that becomes suffocating--hence, I guess, the dull acting. The X-Men and Fantastic Four movies manage to break away from these conventions (especially the FF movies which are the closest things I've seen to the comics of the Silver Age put on screen), but Watchmen embodies all these negatives with very few positives. The one thing I liked was Jackie Earle Haley (pictured) as Rorschach; for most of the movie, he wears a mask and I didn't even know it was him, but in a prison sequence in the middle of the movie, he is unmasked and his performance is truly a scary gem, occasionally striking me as something out of a David Lynch movie (we had just re-watched Blue Velvet before watching this). Billy Crudup comes off fairly well as Doctor Manhattan, but that's because he is a digital (or digitally-enhanced) creation for most of the overly-long running time (I forgot to mention excruciatingly long running times as another negative characteristic of this genre). A director's cut which adds 25 more minutes to the bloated 162 minutes of the theatrical version is out there. Run screaming.

3) Push. The hot is back with Chris Evans (The Human Torch in the FF movies), but not the good. Though this sci-fi adventure is not based on a graphic novel, it feels like it should be. In a near-future and/or alternate world, there are people/mutants/freaks who have mental abilities/superpowers and the government and/or some shadowy organization is experimenting on these folks, giving them injections of something that is supposed to amp up their powers. But for years and years, these injections have instead been killing them. But that doesn't stop these scientists/bad guys/dumbasses. Eventually, one mutant survives the injection and goes on the run.

As vague as that description is, that is about all I'm sure of in this movie. Bits of backstory are leaked out now and then, but mostly it feels like the screenplay was based on a pre-exisiting graphic novel or comic book series that we're all so familiar with, we don't need to have it all re-hashed. But it's not and we do, or at least, we need a little more background. So a potentially interesting story is turned into another fairly mindless SF action thriller. Evans is nice eye candy, but doesn't really get to do much (and doesn't take his shirt off nearly enough). Camilla Belle, the mysterious woman who everyone wants to get hold of, is totally without charisma and has no chemistry with anyone. Djimon Hounsou is wasted as the chief bad guy, and Dakota Fanning (pictured, with Chris Evans) is OK as a little girl along for the ride. The powers these people have are interesting, and certainly fall within X-Men range, but the goings-on are so muddled, who cares?