Monday, February 23, 2009

Insights from a Visionary

"Slow-motion helps me to enjoy the face-smashing even more."

Zack Snyder, visionary director of "300" and the upcoming "Watchmen."

And if you've already read the comic and/or don't mind spoiling a scene for yourself, you can see Harry Knowles jizz over a laughably bad action scene from the film. It's pure Snyder.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

There wasn't as much slow-motion as I was anticipating - certainly not as much as in most of the action scenes in "300." There were still two major slo-mo moments - and at least the first of those two was completely pointless. (The second one could potentially be justified, but I'm not sure.)

That said, the scene doesn't play well at all. It's not exciting, it's not particularly well-choreographed and it seems rushed. I've watched it three times and I still have no idea what Snyder is trying to accomplish with the sound design.

I assume the jizz-inducing moment Knowles is talking about is when Nite Owl floats down from his ship and the camera cuts to the glass breaking inside the prison, and there's that sound - but the sound sounds like some cheap effect from the low-rent Pinball game that comes free with Windows XP.

We're seeing the scene out of context, but it's not promising. Knowing Snyder, I expect him to amp up the slo-mo for all 2 1/2 hours - but if there's even a 5 percent reduction from "300," that's progress, right?

Jeremy Mathews said...

I'm hoping that the scene works better in the context of the movie, but I really didn't understand why it was anything to be excited about. It looks pretty generic to me.

Having just read the book, I definitely hope Snyder does something better than "300." The whole adaptation depends on tone.