You cannot blame Zack Snyder's long-awaited film version of the graphic novel Watchmen for not straying far from its original source, but in this adaptation it is strangely not a plus. Yes, the movie is almost slavishly faithful to the inspired, award-winning graphic novel (save for a couple of key plot points towards the conclusion) but the key word here is "slavishly." It is one thing to see a film really cinematically interpret the material and quite another to see one like Watchmen that just uses the source novel as a superficial blueprint.
Now I did thoroughly enjoy the original graphic novel created by Alan Moore (who is so vehemently opposed to any of his works being filmed that he asked his name be removed from the credits) and illustrated by Dave Gibbons. It portrayed an alternate universe in which the Vietnam War was won through the use of superheroes and former President Richard Nixon was hence able to stay on as president for four more terms until 1985 when the story is set. The film project was passed on through a couple of studios and several directors, including Paul Greengrass and Terry Gilliam, who wanted to film it as a mini-series (which I would have preferred considering the multitude of back stories). As director Zack Snyder has now filmed it, the movie disappointingly underscores his fanboy-appealing obsession with employing the same surface theatrics he deployed in his previous film, 300, rather than seriously depicting the more flesh-and-blood and less archetypal characteristics required for this story.
As in the graphic novel, the movie opens with one past superhero, Edward Blake aka The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), being viciously attacked by an even stronger assassin and finally thrown out of his high-rise apartment. It may seem like a random killing but Rorshach (Jackie Earle Haley) believes there may be a larger plot to target the other Watchmen, consisting of Dan Dreiberg aka Nite Owl II (Patrick Wilson), Laurie Juspeczyk aka Silk Spectre II (Malin Akerman), Adrian Veidt aka Ozymandias (Matthew Goode), and Jon Osterman aka Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup), whose skin radiates blue and whose superpowers helped him almost single-handedly win the Vietnam War for the US. Despite that victory, it also ultimately propelled Nixon to outlaw superheroes after years of endorsing the Watchmen and the previous group they took the place of, the Minutemen, which included Hollis Mason aka Nite Owl (Stephen McHattie), Sally Jupiter aka Silk Spectre (Carla Gugino), who is also the mother of her successor, Silk Spectre II, and The Comedian, who stayed active throughout the span of both clans while being generally a hedonistic, vicious, uncouth lout.
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Article comments
1 - Al Barger
With due respect, Moviejohn is all wet. The Watchmen movie is brilliantly done, and in fact distinctly a little bit better than the Alan Moore comic books.
A lot of folks seem to get themselves all hung up trying to watch a movie based on famous source material. What the hell does "slavishly" following mean? There's no way Snyder could win with some people. He'd either be dismissed for being too close to the comic book or for straying from the source and betraying the original vision.
But there's not a damn thing "lazy" about the making of this movie. There's Gibbons pen and ink comic book drawings, then there's brilliance with which the image turn into moving three dimensional things. Even just the scenes of Dr Manhattan in the lab were things of beauty.
The acting was perfectly good and in a couple of cases outstanding. I just wish we could have seen more of Rorschach without the mask, cause Haley is really good. But then, he had the most interesting and beloved character to work with.
I've never seen Malik in anything else, but she did fine here. I'm not expecting her to win an Oscar - but it's a comic book character, not Shakespeare. There's only so much that acting can do for a character that ain't that deep.
Plus, the ending was clearly a major improvement over the alien octopus from Outer Space. This really made it zing.
2 - handyguy
Worst movie of the century, except for 300. Who directed that one...?
Well, actually Mamma Mia! and Sex and the City may be slightly worse. And Speed Racer is the worst movie of the millennium. Come to think of it, there have been several memorably awful movies the last year or two.
But the violence in Watchmen is genuinely vile, and not in an 'artistic' way. The parts that aren't disgusting are laughable. Sometimes, the disgusting parts are laughable too.
As has been pointed out, if the rest of the movie were as good as the opening credits, that would have been something worth seeing.
I did rather like the origin flashback of Dr. Manhattan, and Billy Crudup's sweet, beautiful voice is always welcome. And Jackie Earle Haley is excellent, but who wants to sit through his nauseating origin flashback? Or the godawful prison riot scenes? Yikes.
A 70% drop at the boxoffice in its second week, and not at all surprising.