Culch.ie

Zack Snyder has an unusually cruel eye.

I’ve written a longer review of Watchmen elsewhere, but there is an addendum I’d like to make that fell out of my head until a fridge moment today (and will serve as my inaugural post here). The Kennedy shooting during the title montage was possibly the cruellest thing to grace a cinema screen since the first filmed kick in the nuts.

It was clearly based on the Zapruder footage and as a dramatic reconstruction of a significant cultural event it gets full marks. Snyder obviously had someone count the pieces of brain that landed on the back of the car. It’s that accurate.

The scene serves no purpose however, other than service Snyder’s apparent fascination with the myriad ways bodily tissues disintegrate under stress. It’s not the only clumsy appropriation in the movie (the Last Supper and VE Day kiss in Times Square gave me the dry wretches) , but it was the most needlessly detailed one, and makes me wonder how long it will be before September 11th becomes simply another set piece for entertainment value. It’s a knowing wink and a nod to the audience that only patronises, does not service the narrative, and is a disrepectful punch in the guts to the family of Kennedy.