Music Review: Various Artists - Watchmen: Music from the Motion Picture

Soundtracks are a tricky thing. Music is an integral part of any film, especially one like Watchmen, which uses popular songs in a thrilling new context: The post-modern superhero saga. But it's one thing to hear a song in a movie, as it's coupled with moving images, adding to the onscreen thrill. It's another to hear that song lumped together with a bunch of other songs. Such has always been the problem with soundtracks, though a few, like Quentin Tarantino, have managed to overcome it.

Watchmen is an interesting case. The surprisingly good film, and the brilliant comic book upon which it was based, largely take place in an alternate 1985 in which Richard Nixon is on his third term, superheroes are outlawed, and the Cold War is about to result in nuclear disaster. So it's very important that its soundtrack be able to replicate that bizarre, desperate atmosphere. To some degree, it does, but its major fault is that it doesn't really hang together as a cohesive work.

Starting with My Chemical Romance's punky, nervy cover of Bob Dylan's "Desolation Row" is probably a mistake. As someone who's more into movies than music, there are a lot of bands I don't get around to, and My Chemical Romance is one of them. So I'm not familiar with their larger body of work, and while this cover isn't at all bad--it is, in fact, surprisingly badass — it doesn't start things off on the right foot. It's the song used over the closing credits in the movie, and by the time we hear it, it's just the catharsis we need. It hits you in the gut. But as an opening track, it's relatively weak; it's got the energy, yeah, but it doesn't really take us anywhere.

The second track, Nat King Cole's "Unforgettable," as the first song we hear in the movie, would've been a much better opener. It's a weird fit for a superhero movie, but then again, so is the whole film. It catches us unawares, and its lighthearted, jazzy swing lilts us into a false sense of security. In the movie, it's a sense of security shattered by a violent fight scene, wonderfully underscoring the brutality of the sequence. Here, it doesn't have the same advantage, but it's still a lovely, unexpected choice.

Article Author: Arlo J. Wiley

Arlo J. Wiley is an aspiring filmmaker who has a deep love of movies, music, television, and most other artforms. He is also totally obsessed with Joss Whedon and the Beatles. You kind of need to know that.

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