Alright, first time making a thread.
With the upcoming adaptation of "The Killing Joke" hitting theaters for one bad day and a direct-to-DVD (and a partial inspiration by Birdie's currently ongoing look at all 721 Pokémon), I thought i'd take a look at the various adaptations of Alan Moore's work up to the soon-to-be released film. This won't necessarily be a "what they got right/wrong/omitted", though that certainly will come up with each of these. This is about how these many movies (and the few that aren't movies) hold up as their own work and a brief introduction of the original work they're based on. With that said, let's begin with the very first Moore movie:
From Hell (Comic: 1989. Movie: 2001)
Jump to 2001, where 20th Century Fox decided to make this dark exploration of the Victorian era and one of the most infamous serial killers of all time into an R-rated film...that has barely anything to do with the comics. To its credit, the film certainly has atmosphere, but it fails to captures the grimy depiction of London beyond aesthetics, only making London look ugly as a narrative shorthand for "this takes place in the poorer area of the city". The images, finely shot as they may be for a pre-Raimi's Spider-Man modern comic book film, don't have the same connection to the film's themes like they did in the comic nor does the film capitalize on them when it's aiming for horror. It's an exceptionally dull movie when it's not being annoying by way of loud noises or its obnoxious editing whose mystery lacks any sort of intrigue, not helped by the largely forgettable acting for the characters solving said mystery in spite of a talented cast. Johnny Depp plays Abberline like he's half asleep, mumbling through every line without a hint of interest in what's going on. One might chock this up to the character's opium usage but Depp doesn't sell that his character is anything but hooked on boredom. He briefly comes to life near the end when he's trying to escape captivity and save Mary after discovering who the serial killer is but by then, the film has spent over an hour and a half wasting one of the most energetic actors at the time on his least disinterested performance. Funny enough, Alan Moore once described Depp's portrayal of this character as "an absinthe-swilling, opium-den-frequenting dandy with a haircut that, in the Metropolitan Police force in 1888, would have gotten him beaten up by the other officers". Moore's displeasure with Hollywood taking his work and changing it, often for the worse, is something that will come up with later adaptations, needless to say he isn't happy with how many of them turned out, to the point where he would request his name not be used in the credits of the majority of future films and other features based on his work.
With the upcoming adaptation of "The Killing Joke" hitting theaters for one bad day and a direct-to-DVD (and a partial inspiration by Birdie's currently ongoing look at all 721 Pokémon), I thought i'd take a look at the various adaptations of Alan Moore's work up to the soon-to-be released film. This won't necessarily be a "what they got right/wrong/omitted", though that certainly will come up with each of these. This is about how these many movies (and the few that aren't movies) hold up as their own work and a brief introduction of the original work they're based on. With that said, let's begin with the very first Moore movie:
From Hell (Comic: 1989. Movie: 2001)
The first adaptation, From Hell is based on the comic of the same name, a black and white graphic novel that tells the story of a series of murders and Jack the Ripper, hence the title being based on a letter that was supposedly written by Jack himself. While there is a mystery to be solved about who's killing these people and why, the primary focus of the story is a deconstruction of the Victorian era, in that it wasn't as classy and enlightened as it's often made out to be. It's an interesting twist that's rather accurate when you consider a lot of what was going on during this period in time: Ireland had suffered a massive famine, India went through a violent rebellion due to the unfair treatment by the Honorable East Indian Company (along with a mix of racism and other contributing factors), women could only divorce their husbands under special circumstances, China was forced to negotiate some very unfair treaties during the Opium Wars, heck, the fact that the HEIC even resorted to selling opium that played a part in the first of these two wars only goes to show that it wasn't as enlightened a time as one might associate with Queen Victoria and her long reign. Eddie Campbell's penciling works wonders in depicting the gruesome nature of a setting that's all too often seen as a time of sophistication and aristocracy. It's considered one of Moore's better works, albeit not quite given the same reverence as Watchmen, The Killing Joke or his MiracleMan run.
Jump to 2001, where 20th Century Fox decided to make this dark exploration of the Victorian era and one of the most infamous serial killers of all time into an R-rated film...that has barely anything to do with the comics. To its credit, the film certainly has atmosphere, but it fails to captures the grimy depiction of London beyond aesthetics, only making London look ugly as a narrative shorthand for "this takes place in the poorer area of the city". The images, finely shot as they may be for a pre-Raimi's Spider-Man modern comic book film, don't have the same connection to the film's themes like they did in the comic nor does the film capitalize on them when it's aiming for horror. It's an exceptionally dull movie when it's not being annoying by way of loud noises or its obnoxious editing whose mystery lacks any sort of intrigue, not helped by the largely forgettable acting for the characters solving said mystery in spite of a talented cast. Johnny Depp plays Abberline like he's half asleep, mumbling through every line without a hint of interest in what's going on. One might chock this up to the character's opium usage but Depp doesn't sell that his character is anything but hooked on boredom. He briefly comes to life near the end when he's trying to escape captivity and save Mary after discovering who the serial killer is but by then, the film has spent over an hour and a half wasting one of the most energetic actors at the time on his least disinterested performance. Funny enough, Alan Moore once described Depp's portrayal of this character as "an absinthe-swilling, opium-den-frequenting dandy with a haircut that, in the Metropolitan Police force in 1888, would have gotten him beaten up by the other officers". Moore's displeasure with Hollywood taking his work and changing it, often for the worse, is something that will come up with later adaptations, needless to say he isn't happy with how many of them turned out, to the point where he would request his name not be used in the credits of the majority of future films and other features based on his work.
