Watchmen Movie Review #2 – A Huge Fan of the Book Satisfied, but Not Floored

Who watches the Watchmen? (The obligatory headline for anything in print Watchmen-related for the past few weeks — couldn’t help myself.) Apparently every geek this side of the Dark Knight. This film has hit theaters with greater internet buzz than could be imagined, or even warranted, from something made by the director of films such as the Dawn of the Dead remake and 300. Is it deserved? Does this buzz come from an audience and a community expecting the film version of the book we have all loved for decades? It’s unrealistic to expect such a feat from a film made so long after the initial effect of the book, and made so much after so many conventions have been set by films, superhero and otherwise. Watchmen, as any other review on the internet will tell you, is the Citizen Kane of comic books; in that it pioneered the sophistication of a medium not taken as true art until much alter in its existence. Therein lies the problem, though. Much like my fears about this film being made warned me, this film is a literal and direct adaption of the book (with a few exceptions, of course). That is where Zack Snyder always falls prey to fanboydom, and that is what is missing from his adaptions thus far — a hint of “film” that sends the work over the edge from “perfect adaptation” into “emotionally moving film”.

The performances in the film could not have been better with the script that they were handed, with the exception of both actresses that played the Silk Spectre (I and II, Carla Gugino and Malin Akerman, respectively). Their performances were stunted by what seems like a disconnect between what they were feeling and what the character was supposed to be feeling. They were not outright terrible, but did not fit into the ensemble of the cast which was otherwise fantastic.

Billy Crudup’s Doctor Manhattan is possibly the best performance of the film. As described in the story itself, the most subtle twitches of his eyes have roaring emotion beneath them. Having to live up to that kind of complex, detached, and simultaneously profound persona is something that anyone who read the book would tell you is darned near impossible. Billy Crudup captures the character and makes you believe that Doctor Manhattan is real. You lose yourself in what could be seen as a character comprised solely of CGI. And much like we did with Golem, or other “mo-cap” creatures such as Peter Jackson’s King Kong, we can marvel at the performance of the actor against the technology being used to project their image onto a character that cannot exist; but in Doctor Manhattan, the performance shines through the visual innovation. Great job in Billy Crudup’s part.

Jackie Earle Haley, best known as the Oscar-nominated child predator from Little Children, plays Rorschach exactly as imagined in the book. He takes out his Christian Bale/Dark Knight raspy voice for an embodiment of what we read in the comics as squiggly, seedy, dirty, and cynical words. He does as well a job as could be done with his face being hidden through most of the film, and plays the Napoleon complex and determined rage of the character to a tee. The rest of the performances are done well, true to the character, and scripted well enough.

The film’s strength lies in its performances and in the feeling and tone of the entire setting which Snyder created with his crew while emulating the book as closely as humanly possible. The costume design, albeit somewhat controversial, works (although I’m still not into the nipples on Ozymandias — satirical or not). The art design is true to the book in every imaginable way. There are literally panels from the book in the film itself.

As I said before, Zack Snyder made a near-perfect adaptation of the best graphic novel ever made. But here is where it falls slightly short for me, and here is where the complimentary spoiler warning will begin: the film has the same climax as the book, which is thematic, but feels a little short of the action seemingly being built up throughout the rest of the film.

Watchmen is a story about the human condition, the value of human life, the absoluteness of morality, and the definition of heroes super, and otherwise. Such a sophistication never seen before it in a superhero graphic novel. Aside from the relationships in the story, there are themes that play out until the end that are really the base of the story. The action in the book is there; yet is almost circumstantial. Alan Moore’s opus is meant to paint a picture of a world where superheroes exist in order to tell us about what humanity really needs. Action will be inevitable in a story about crime fighters.

Snyder, on the other hand, took the story and gave it a lot of action; which is more than appropriate, being that the film needed to be not only entertaining, but marketable (also, he is kind of a self-proclaimed action geek). Doctor Manhattan does not pull any punches (figuratively), The Comedian is as morally reprehensible and prone to action as he is in the book, and the opening sequence illustrates the tone of the rest of the film: gory, hard-hitting, action-packed, and entertaining — which is probably Alan Moore’s greatest fear.

So what’s the disconnect? Does the action hurt or help the film? In my opinion, the action precedent set in the duration of the film falls flat in the climax of the film. What happens at the end? There is action, there is a fight between Rorschach, Night Owl, and Ozymandias. Doctor Manhattan grows to a giant and slaps Ozymandias around a bunch. What do we find out about the event the entire film has been leading up to? That while we are watching all this, it has already happened. We get maybe 45 seconds of people (in New York only) suffering the consequences of what the heroes have been trying to stop throughout the entire film. We get no glimpses of what else is going on in the world, aside from visions of news reports, and nothing that truly shows the devastation that has occurred. It seems that not much has changed, physically, in the world. Sure, there is a huge crater, but just in New York. It doesn’t go beyond that, and therefore limits the scope of something that could have seemed a lot bigger and devastating. This would have fixed the need for action-escalation in a story like this. The Watchmen Film is a great adaptation, but not too much more than that.

The book, even, spends 6 uninterrupted, wordless, full pages on the devastation of the world once Ozymandias’ monster/apocalypse hits. The apocalypse that will unite humanity. The film handles this well, takes off the “squid” and makes it make sense for a filmverse of this story, but it does not illustrate what the entire film has been leading up to. Devastation! Ruin! We see thousands of dead bodies in the book, gore, suffering, a city in complete ruins. In the film we see a crater. This is my main problem with this film. The end was a let down, in that it could have done a lot, yet decided to do less, and not for more, but for focus on an ideological/thematic climax (as the book also does) instead of one based on the action precedent set by the rest of the film. Sure, not a huge problem, but it prevented the film for “sealing the deal” for me. The effect of the entire film, the ideology, the problems, the struggle, the true face of what brought the world together and the horror that Rorschach gave his life to expose is mitigated, and that, to me, just wasn’t right. Unfortunately, the one thing Snyder chose to change created the film’s greatest weakness.

Other than that, the film is highly enjoyable. I had a blast seeing characters I loved come to life, seeing panels I remember from years back gracing the silver screen, and hearing voices of characters I’ve wanted to hear for a long time. The film truly is the book come to life, and much like with 300, this was its biggest problem. From a fanboy perspective, there is no way a comics fan could keep his “geek cred” and not see this movie; but from the perspective of an objective audience, the film leaves something to desire in the department of closure. Either way it is a fun film that should be enjoyed by fans of the book and of the genre despite its stunted pacing (due to the chapters of the book being VERY present in the film), questionable music choices (as well as apt ones), and its excessive (and sometimes lacking) gore. This film will make you think: what did I think of this movie? Enjoy the Watchmen and be ready to enjoy the “what was better, Watchmen or the Dark Knight?” debates at your local comic book store, coffee shop, and internet cafe.

p.s. If I had absolute power to control matter, my own and otherwise, I would also make myself a “show-er”