Rorschach, who gets his name from his facial mask that keeps changing ink-blot patterns, pays a visit to each of the retired Watchmen, as his diary presents his reflective musings and also serves as the voiceover narration throughout the film. The movie also keeps the same structure of inter-cutting various heroes' back stories at various points in the main present story, so much the same, in fact, that what worked in the comic occasionally becomes muted on the screen, as resorting to excessive flashbacks in movies often end up robbing some of the forward narrative momentum as it does here. In any case, the filmmakers have certainly scrambled to cover their bases within their 161-minute running time to try to get the fans to savor each character and the non-fans to come up to speed on the story.
A story like this, however, needs standout performances at the center to bring the various dimensions of these characters to life and this is the part of the film that shows Snyder is far more interested in visuals than simply getting story and character interaction right first, which is quite apparently difficult given that the actors are in front of a blue screen throughout as in 300. Perhaps Snyder trusted the mostly first-rate cast, including Billy Crudup and Patrick Wilson, to let the acting take care of itself (except for Malin Akerman, whose acting skills everyone is picking on for good reason) but few of the actors ever seem completely at home in their roles. Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach makes the best impression as he seems to truly absorb his character and reflect the tortured psyche that was permanently scarred by a heinous crime and thus propelled him to become a vigilante. Carla Gugino also adds in some sass and spice playing Silk Spectre as a '50s superhero vixen and later a 67-year-old woman, although with Righteous Kill and this movie, she may want to take on a role that is somewhat less demeaning (with her character having a penchant for rough sex in the former and almost getting raped here).
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.