10 Movie Fight Scenes That Set The Bar For Slo-Mo
4. The Comedian Is Murdered - Watchmen (2009)
The Scene
An apartment room. High up over the New York City skyline, The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) sits, cigar in mouth, on his couch just before he meets his maker.
How It Sets The Bar
The grim ambience of the room is broken through by the kicking open of the door with an immediate use of slo-mo. Time continues to shift between authentic speed and Zack Snyder-speed for the stare down and initial distraction concocted by The Comedian. Each item is blasted and crumble in such a way that we are treated to each molecule put under scrutiny in its destruction - much like the glass shattering scenes of Wanted.
Snyder was one of the first to depend on the device of slo-mo to such an extent that it feels like another world within his movie - a place we can visit at any point in the movie if we were to only tap a button on our remote...imagine.
Decreasing the speed with the abiding shot of Comedian's face absorbing a left hook is again sandwiched between the returns to comic book action. As fights go - it's an extended one - but as Dean Morgan is hurled through a window, Snyder succeeds in marrying harrowing violence with the emotion and compelling physical storytelling of Swan Lake.