When I first saw this film, I think it was in connection with its release, I wasn’t impressed. I don’t think I even finished the film to be honest. What I saw simply didn’t appeal to me. It’s been several years now and the bluray edition has been on my shelves for a couple of years. But since things are the way they are, there hasn’t really been time to take the plastic off – until now. I understand what I had against the film right from the start. However, it doesn’t bother me as much anymore. It’s inevitable that the appearance looks like it came straight from a comic book. In a way, that’s not strange because the original is exactly that. You can call it a graphic novel if you like, to me it’s still a comic. I’ve never understood the difference between a comic and a grapic novel. Possibly there’s a difference in the target audience.
It’s a very stylistic film. If I were to compare it to something, Sin City would be the closest. It’s not surprising since Frank Miller is behind it as well as this one. He is the one who is responsible for the literary model. The director is Zack Snyder, who also made Watchmen, Sucker Punch and Man of Steel to name a few. Incidentally, he was the one who made the remake of Dawn of the Dead once upon a time. Nowadays, with this film fresh in my mind, I think he has done a good job here. It’s like a comic book really – but with moving images. It’s simply excellent craftsmanship.
Whether the story has all the historical facts in place or not is rather uninteresting to me. No one has claimed that the film, or Frank Miller’s model, is historically accurate. And even though it’s almost two hours of film to watch, it never gets boring. It may not be the deepest story in film history, but it is nicely done and clearly entertaining. There is a lot of fighting throughout the film, most of it actually, but it is still entertaining. Still, it is nice to watch, despite some obvious CGI effects and green-screen tricks. I don’t usually like that, but it adds to the comic book feel.
Translation of a review I wrote in Swedish some years ago.
Our rating
