Tales of the Black Freighter (2009) (V)

User Rating:

7.1/10   

Directors:

Daniel DelPurgatorio
Mike Smith

Writers:

Zack Snyder (screenplay)
Alex Tse (screenplay)

Release Date:

24 March 2009 (USA)

Genre:

Animation | Short | Action | Adventure | Horror

Plot:

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. |

Plot Keywords:

Mariner | Pirate | Shark | Severed Head | Damnation

Cast

Gerard Butler	...	The Sea Captain (voice)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Cam Clarke	...	Money Lender (voice)
Siobhan Flynn	...	Sea Captain's Daughter (voice)
Jared Harris	...	Ridley (voice)
Salli Saffioti	...	Sea Captain's Daughter (voice)
Lori Tritel	...	Sea Captain's Wife (voice)

Also Known As:

Watchmen: Tales of the Black Freighter and Under the Hood (USA) (long title)

MPAA:

Rated R for violent and grisly images.

Runtime:

26 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Colour:

Colour

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Certification:

USA:R | UK:15 | Australia:MA | Canada:13+ (Quebec) | Canada:18A | New Zealand:R16 | Singapore:NC-16 | Brazil:18 | Germany:18

Company:

Warner Premiere

Trivia:

Gerard Butler got his role in this after Zack Snyder couldn't find him a role in Watchmen (2009).

Movie Connections:

Spin off from Watchmen (2009)

Soundtrack:

Pirate Jenny

Great little short film whether you consider it "important" as part of Watchmen or not

It was a while after I watched Watchmen that I got around to getting this companion film – essentially put together from the reading of the comic of the same name within the comic of Watchmen. Not being a massive defender of the comic, I am not petty about it nor do I wish to debate for hours about how the film works without it, how the changes in the film affect this film, how you must be an idiot if you think this, or how you must be an idiot if you don't think that – and so on. No, instead I came to the short film knowing its parallels with the main story/film and yet also keen to see how it works as a film full stop.

The answer is that it works very well because it produces a really gaudy depiction of the story with a much clearer link to the mental journey of Ozymandias and/or Rorschach – again I cannot be bothered to debate it on the message boards, for my money it works for both. The film is really well animated but not to the point that it is stylised to the point where it doesn't feel real. Instead, the gore and horror is made to feel very real and very horrible – not "owh gross" horrible in the way teen slasher films are, but it is really quite tangible how awful events are from start to finish. The story is quite simple but, because the horror is so well captured, it doesn't really matter if you watch this with Watchmen in mind or not – although of course it is meant for you to do so as well. The delivery is generally strong as well thanks mainly to the impressive delivery from Butler as the captain in narration. His haunted and nuanced voice is a great fit with the graphics – in particular the captain showing on his face what we are hearing.

It is ironic because, while I thought that the full film of Watchmen struggled because of how it stuck to the events in the book to the detriment of the heart of the book, the Black Freighter appears to have captured both. I'll let others argue it out but for me it was best to strip this out of the film and, while it works well in the comic spread out over the telling of the main story, it works equally as well here as a companion short film.