Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Watchmen: Tales of the Black Freighter and Under the Hood

Release Date: March 24th, 2009

From the pages of Watchmen come two books: the comic book story Tales of the Black Freighter and Hollis Mason's' Autobiography Under the Hood. Cut from the Watchmen 2009 Feature Film, the animated comic and a "Documentary" on Hollis Mason and his novel.


Tales of the Black Freighter
Starring the Voice talents of Gerard Butler
Directed by Daniel DelPurgatorio and Mike Smith
Tales of the Black Freighter: Combined into one singular animated film, the pirate story read by one of the characters is presented here voiced by Gerard Bulter and the adaptation co-written by Zack Snyder. ON the positive side, the animation looks great; the coloring influences the mood, matching the plot of the story very well without having to be copying the original art by Dave Gibbons. Unfortunately, for how good the movie looks and sounds, at the end it just feels hollow. Maybe the Black Freighter story should have been included in the theatrical cut of Watchmen, but that's my opinion. The animated adaptation isn't bad, just not as good as it could have been.
Rating: 3 of 5



Under the Hood
Starring Carla Gugino, Jeffery Dean Morgan, and Stephen McHattie
Directed by Eric Matthies
Under the Hood: Knowing that adapting perfectly the "excerpts" of Hollis Mason's Autobiography wouldn't make a movie, the filmmakers turned these back-up stories became a documentary. When talking about these two spin-offs, I found Under the Hood to be a more perfected adaptation and to be a fascinating film that captured the tone and spirit of the Watchmen movie. Also, it gives more character development to minor characters such as Mason, Silk Spectre I a.k.a. Sally Jupiter, or Big Figure.
Rating: 4 of 5

Click Here to buy Watchmen - Tales of the Black Freighter Exclusive Steelbook
Click Here to buy Watchmen: Tales of the Black Freighter & Under the Hood [Blu-ray]

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