My favorite little stat to spout at people about Alan Moore’s “Watchmen,” the 12-issue comic series upon which Zack Snyder’s new movie is based, is that it is listed as one of Time Magazine’s “100 Greatest Novels of the 20th Century.” Not graphic novels, mind you, just novels. I think this gives people an idea of the seriousness this piece of literature achieves. Adapting this unruly beast was never going to be easy; Moore and artist Dave Gibbons took a page from J.R.R. Tolkien in their painstaking construction of a deep, rich backstory which informs every action on the page, far too much material for three hours. On top of that, the characters are subversive parodies of superheroes, often little more than paranoid outcasts or bored bourgeios.
I won’t give you the standard speech you’ve been reading in every review about how “countless directors have tried” and “unfilmable material” and “Paul Greengrass spent $7 million in preproduction,” blah blah blah. The point is, “Watchmen” did finally get made, here it is, how did they do? The answer is complicated: sometimes this thing is brilliant, sometimes it’s okay, sometimes it’s almost terrible. As the credits rolled, I realized that the movie’s mildly bewildering aftertaste was not entirely removed from the feeling the source material produced after the first read-through. That can be fairly credited to Zack Snyder, for ably and lovingly reproducing much of the book’s core spirit onto celluloid.
The difference is, when I finished Alan Moore’s comic, I knew there would be so much more to digest the next time through, not to mention I was certain there would be a next time through. With the movie…not so much. I feel I’ve seen, in one pass, everything this film can show me, and it’s not calling my name for another go-round. This failure, and it is a failure, must also fall on Zack’s head, because “Watchmen” as a story is built on the foundation of revisiting, reanalyzing, rethinking; it’s what Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons intended, and without it, this strung-out and occasionally ridiculous narrative does not bear fruit. By painting every scene with an emotionally deliberate brush, because that’s what Snyder always does, he keeps the story from finding the tone it needs. He passes judgments on everything, labeling some of the characters “good” and others “bad,” some of the scenes “scary” and some of them “sexy,” and this is fundamentally agaist what the novel is about. “Watchmen” dictates nothing to its reader, that is the secret to its staying power, and I fear that the celluloid addition will not share this legacy.
I won’t talk about the plot, it’s way too long and complex to “summarize.” I will tell you that both versions are centered around an alternative universe in the late 1980s, where costumed heroes without super powers are a part of society’s mesh work. The plot is essentially an excuse to examine who decides to wear these costumes, what they do once they’re in them, and how society reacts. There, that’s enough of that, now let’s discuss what works and what doesn’t.
The movie definitely starts out incredibly strong, even the credit sequence is deft and brilliantly done. The murder of Edward Blake, AKA “The Comedian,” is filmed just about as perfectly as it ever could have been, and I was thrilled to watch it. A lot of credit has to be paid to the makers of this movie, because I knew the outcome of the fight, and yet I was still grimacing at each landed punch. That is impressive.
I also enjoyed a lot of the casting. Patrick Wilson, a terrific actor, gives an inspired turn as Dan Dreiberg (the alter-ego of the Batman-like Nite Owl), which is hard because it’s one of the least showy roles one could possibly play. Billy Crudup’s voice and face are perfect matches for the god-like Dr. Manhattan. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is great as the Comedian. Malin Ackerman is passible as Silk Spectre, although hers is not an easy role to make sympatethic. And of course, Jackie Earle Haley is a revelation as Rorschach, bringing the character into stunning life, and probably single-handedly igniting his career.
About half of the stuff they chose to take from the book works perfectly well, most of the bigger successes occurring around Rorschach and Nite Owl. The former has a wonderful and complete character arc, generating tremendous sympathy with a stunning efficiency, despite the character’s many rough edges. Ditto for Nite Owl, who is a convincing everyman, and I applaud that they retained his struggles with impotence from the original story. The action scenes are well choregraphed, if a little too gory (Note to Zack: “Watchmen” was not written by Frank Miller). I also approved of the changes they made to the ending, because I thought they achieved the same goal with less fuss. That’s not to suggest the original’s ending was flawed, but simply that it was wise to adjust things a little for this version.
Dr. Manhattan is more iffy; sometimes he looks good and it works, sometimes he glows too much and stops being convincing. They definitely do not give him enough of a sense of weight, especially when he walks, and there’s a conspicuously “CG” quality to many of his scenes. Occasionally there was so much blue bias when he was around that it hurt my eyes, and I got the sense that cracks in the visual effects work were being covered up. I’m sure Zack Snyder would tell you that this character was supposed to feel aloof, and that’s true, but before such emotional distance can mean anything, he needs to be a little more corporeal.
The single biggest road block “Watchmen” kept hitting was tone. The book is eclectic, jumping haphazardly from violent and ominous to ridiculous and satirical, and for some reason Zack Snyder does not follow this example. It’s a schizophrenic loyalty that this director has to his source material: his left hand copies dialogue word for word, but his right completely ignores the bright color palette and spurts of deliberate zaniness, drenching the whole thing in a David Fincher/Christopher Nolan seriousness. Snyder seems almost desperate to legitimize the story, to make us take it seriously, and when that instinct comes up against his blind loyalty to certain exact phrases, or plot points, or visuals, the results are a mess. The sex scenes were a perfect example. When Alan Moore wrote these moments into the book, they were allowed to be absurd, they even mocked their characters a little, but here they’re basically softcore pornography with no sense of humor. The Comedian also falls victim to this new weighty style, because his cackling way of looking at life’s horrors doesn’t resonate in a movie that can’t tolerate even a smirk in its direction.
And then there’s the gore, almost all of which is not in the comic. Some of it, like the extra anatomical detail in Jon Osterman’s transformation into Dr. Manhattan, is a good addition, but many of the fight scenes are too brutal to function correctly. This is especially true when the kind-spirited Dan Dreiberg mutilates some hapless thug’s arm in three places, or when the similarly mild-mannered Silk Spectre snaps someone’s neck three seconds into a fight. It just feels wrong for both of these characters to be this ruthless, especially since Rorscharch is supposed to be the cold-blooded one, and few of the things he does are that intense.
I said above that the Comedian was well-played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and that’s true, but sometimes the character doesn’t work anyway, because his lines are dictated to him by a book written two decades ago. More than any other character, this poor guy has to utter a bunch of crap that just sounds wrong, and it stumbles out of him more like a religious chant than an enlightening character moment. This dialogue should have been rethought and rewritten with a new artistic medium in mind, so the character could come off every inch as loathsome, crass and tragic as he did in Moore’s hands. It is always, and I mean always, a mistake to do anything in a movie for externally philosophical reasons, and we learn why watching this film. Snyder didn’t export the original wording verbatim because the story needed it, he did it because he is emotionally attached to the source material, and this costs him dearly in pivotal moments. I hope it was worth it to hear the “smartest guy on the cinder” speech in real time, Zack, because it ruined the scene.
But okay, enough negative stuff for awhile, let’s talk about some more positives.
I’m sure someone’s told you how great the opening credits are, gorgeously set to Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’.” This is one of the moments where the movie lifts off, achieving every inch of the original’s impact, constructing an entire world in little snippets. If only the rest of the movie had stayed this course, using the music to mix apocalyptic imagery with wit and irony, cross-breeding humour and tragedy, going right for the gut and landing every blow. Similar success is achieved with the prison break scene. Here, Snyder’s fondness for action serves him well: he makes the scene visceral and exciting, then gets a great punchline from Rorscharch’s indifference at being rescued.
The Comedian’s funeral, a scene I know Zack Snyder campaigned hard to keep in the theatrical cut, is a rousing success, and even though some of the flashbacks fall victim to the religious dictation we talked about above, the overall effect is still in place. Rorschach’s origin story, as dictated in the prison interrogation scene, is well-handled if a bit gruesome, and I admire that the movie managed to make us love this guy even though we have no reason to, just like the book did. The climax is a little exhausting and ridiculous, but in fairness to Kurtzman, Orci and company, it wasn’t much better in the book, and they just didn’t have time to fix it.
I read a story in some magazine recently where Zack Snyder was touring a journalist through the inside of “Archie,” Dan Drieberg’s flying mode of transportation. He pointed out that the buttons all worked, the coffee dispenser was genuine, things of this nature, and the journalist was impressed with how faithfully the thing had been reconstructed. “This is cool,” Snyder enthused, suggesting that even if all else fails, he at least achieved this.
And that is why he was not the right man to direct this movie. “Watchmen” is about subverting and destroying superheroes, but Zack Snyder is still too in love with them, too enamored with the spectacle of the story. He is consciously aware of Alan Moore’s intentions, but in his heart he can never really accept them; he’s a big kid with a wide grin, not the cynical doomsday prophet this material needs.
I won’t say that “Watchmen” is bad, nor will I claim I didn’t like it. I have the greatest affection for films who reach for the stars and miss, I begrudge them far less than some crass piece of Hollywood junk that aspires to nothing. I also think that large chunks of this movie were masterfully done, and I’m glad it was made. But this easily could have been a much stronger motion picture, if a few simple pointers had been heeded during production. I don’t think “Watchmen” the graphic novel is even close to unfilmable, it’s always had the potential for a fascinating movie inside of it, and it’s frustrating to see that capacity for greatness denied.
Rating: 70%
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