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71%
Overall Rating
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Ranked #5,143
...out of 20,684 movies
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A mariner survives an attack from the dreaded pirates of the Black Freighter, but his struggle to return home to warn it has a horrific cost.
--IMDb
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Review by Ginose
Added: March 25, 2009
Damn, it takes one shameless fanboy to buy EVERY tie-in to a movie that he's already seen and, of which, he has been an avid fan of the source material for some time. Perhaps I am such a fanboy, but I absolutely loved the idea of making "The Black Freighter" (a comic within the comic "Watchmen") into its own movie. It had an excellent story, some rich visuals, a compelling character with a fantastic monologue, and it is, actually, quite pertinent to the "Watchmen" storyline. In fact, the more I heard about it the more excited I became: An animated movie? Perfect. Follows the plot to the letter? Nice. Gerard Butler? Fuck yeah. Yup, it looked like this was going to be the best (and only) "Watchmen" tie-in ever! Well, after waiting months and months the importance of it really seemed to drip from me... I could hardly remember why I was still waiting for it... hell, by that time I'd even seen the movie that had given me hypothetical blue-balls since it was announced. There just wasn't much anticipation left in me... now, it's finally hit shelves and, of course, my interest was renewed.
Having just watched it at its AMAZING 26-MINUTE RUNNING TIME, I must say that I'm not disappointed in the final product... however, it does leave me in an odd position, as a reviewer, because there truly isn't much I can say about it... it was a fairly unremarkable experience. Interesting enough and held my attention just as well as the story had when I first read it, but it was truly missing a lot in the way it is presented.
This is a very slow, dark tale of a shipwrecked sea-captain attempting to reach his hometown before the evil, accursed ship that took the lives of his friends and crew does... and slowly losing his mind along the way. Simple enough, no? Well, I agree, it seems simple, but its observation of a lot of things is rather enlightening; the way it slowly syncs into the "Watchmen" story, being the most interesting aspect.
How did it fair as an adaptation? Remarkably. It's damn-near perfect in every respect, from its fine animation to its story execution and voice acting. Its faithfulness to the source material was a pleasant surprise as well. Technically, it's an amazing adaptation.
However, the farther it goes small things become more noticeable, such as certain choppy scenes... the audio being almost monotone at moments and the fairly lukewarm original score. Alone I wouldn't think much of them, but they tended to appear far more often than I'd have liked... still, nothing to take much away from the overall entertainment, as both a tie-in and its own story.
Like I said, there isn't much to say here... overall, this was an enjoyable 26 minutes, but nothing I was terribly impressed with, which leaves me in that odd spot... what is there to say, really? I'd advise it if you enjoyed the "Watchmen" version, or are interested in learning more of the "Watchmen" world. It's a good, gory, endearing half-hour, and I liked it a lot, but, still... 8/10.
I've no real complaints other than this review being so brief... but, like I said, there just isn't much more worth saying... except that I should still probably get on reviewing "Watchmen"... yep... any minute now...
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