Movie Review - Watchmen

Zack Snyder’s adaptation of Alan Moore’s seminal graphic novel Watchmen is a peculiar piece of art. It is visually stunning, filled with iconic images of the unbelievable framed as perfectly as any comic splash page, but as a narrative it is discordant, sluggish, and pretentious. Of course, those very qualities could describe the novel itself. I read Watchmen for the first time about three years ago after twenty-two years of wondering what was behind that blood splattered smiley face. I was nowhere near as impressed as the most ardent comic fans. I understood its brilliance, (it was one of a handful of titles in the ‘80s that brought the tried and true conventions of the superhero genre crashing down.) but that didn’t make me enjoy it any more. I never liked or even remotely cared for the characters. And, while I understood the insane genius of the antagonist’s plot, I always thought there had to be a simpler plan. With that in mind, I did not buy into the hype for Watchmen. I knew exactly what this movie would be: a love letter to the fans and a confusing mess to anybody who wasn’t invested in the original property. After sitting through this nearly three hour behemoth, I found out just how right I was.

Set in an alternate 1985 where Nixon is campaigning for his fifth term and the Cold War is about to go nuclear, Watchmen tells the story of the end of “superheroics.” It follows a group of a “superheroes”–debatable considering only one actually has powers–as they unravel the mystery of a hero killer and discover a devilish plot that threatens the world with total annihilation. Our “heroes” in this piece include the increasingly apathetic and god-like Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup), aging, impotent Dan Dreiberg, known ominously as Batman analogue Nite Owl II (Patrick Wilson), frustrated yet sultry scuba-suit-wearing superheroine Sally Jupiter, The Silk Spectre II (Malin Akerman), vicious absolutist vigilante Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley), psychopathic superspy The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), and, the comic book version of Alexander the Great, Adrian Veidt, or Ozymandias to his legions (Matthew Goode). Through a jarring narrative structure, we learn about the disturbing faults behind these “heroes,” ranging from fetishism to sadomasochism to nihilism to total apathy for humanity, Snyder mimics the novel’s structure by interweaving flashbacks that traces the history of the group from their predecessors to the outlawing of masked heroes to the present (1985) where nuclear war between the US and USSR is imminent.

With Watchmen, Snyder uses a deft combination of CGI and staging to faithfully recreate the visual aesthetic of Watchmen illustrator Dave Gibbons original artwork. He also meticulously mimics and compresses Moore’s complex narrative structure. What Snyder failed to do was use these elements to craft a story or characters that movie audiences would actually cared about. Yes, technical proficiency and adaptation faithfulness count for something, but if a director fails to engage their audience then for all intents and purposes they have failed. In all fairness, the blame is not solely Snyder’s to bear. The obtuse source material, a collection of shoddy performances, the limits of the film runtime, and the modern audience’s understanding of superhero films all had a hand in crippling the Watchmen.

The difficulty in adapting Watchmen lies in the relative investment of its audience. Moore’s graphic novel is revered because it was targeted at readers who were invested in the concepts and philosophies of superhero comics. Snyder’s Watchmen struggles to connect with audiences that enjoy superhero movies, but, once they leave the theater, still believe that comics are kids stuff. Furthermore, Watchmen pushes superhero conventions so far into adult thematic territory that it becomes uncomfortable and laughable to modern audiences. Take for instance, the scene where Nite Owl and Silk Spectre make love in a flying Owl-mobile after they’ve saved citizens from a burning building, with Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” as the score. Looking over the audience, I noticed some patrons were squirming while others were ready to explode in laughter. It was just as ridiculous as it sounds. And that’s the problem. The concepts that were so powerful in Moore’s novel appear simply insane on film. With superheroes barely taken seriously by mainstream audiences, this film does not help the case by putting people in silly costumes in preposterous situations.

Adding to the ridiculousness of the story were wooden performances,–the most notable being Akerman’s stiff, ineffectual Sally Jupiter–bad makeup,–see Carla Gugino as the aging elder Jupiter and senior citizen Nixon–and unsympathetic characters–fetishist Nite Owl who gets off from doing deeds of daring-do. If not for the electric performances of Jackie Earle Haley and Jeffrey Dean Morgan this film would sink leagues beyond its weight. Haley’s Rorschach is amazing. This tiny firecracker is a moral absolutist who brutally punishes his foes with homemade weaponry and Dirty Harry style quips. Anytime Rorschach is on screen the film comes alive, thanks to his uncompromising nature and penchant for kick-ass brutality. To a lesser degree, Morgan’s Comedian also shoots life into the film with his brash, despicable superhero turned government spook. The Comedian’s disturbing actions cover up a broken man who lives with the weight of terrible truths and sins. In a few scenes, Morgan displays this disturbing duality through masterful control of emotion and delivery.

Haley and Morgan’s performances alone could not save Watchmen from its debilitating disconnect and distance from audiences who barely read comics. Today’s movie-goers absorb superhero films mostly as popcorn entertainment. With the exception of a few masterfully done pieces, (Dark Knight, X-Men 2, American Splendor, Ghost World, etc.,), most movies in the superhero genre are light fare with simple plots for easy consumption by masses that respond more to stunning visuals than complex storytelling. Therein lays the problem with Watchmen. It is an inherently dense and complex story. There is no way even a modicum of the depth and complexity of that 400-page tome could be completely and accurately translated into the brevity of film without alienating mainstream audiences or disappointing core fans. Terry Gilliam, an early contender for the director’s chair when Watchmen was first optioned, was on target when he said Watchmen would be best served as a five-hour miniseries. If Watchmen was filmed as a mini-series it would give viewers time to digest and reflect on the material over time rather than engaging in the futility of parsing the dense narrative in a three hour span. Furthermore, the extended runtime would allow for significant establishment of the Watchmen’s universe with more scenes to better develop the characters and a world that is in dire peril. An extended runtime would also improve viewer investment in characters that are difficult to sympathize with and world that may be too implausible even for the most jaded viewers. In this case, Watchmen was undeserved by a conglomeration of external and internal forces. A work this significant did not need to be adapted into a potential blockbuster. It made the most appropriate impact in the late 80s when it effectively reshapes the superhero genre by attacking its conventions. In the case of the film, its impact is less significant but the result may be the same. Just as Moore’s Watchmen effectively killed the popularity of traditional superhero storytelling, Snyder’s Watchmen may have fired the kill shot on the popularity of the superhero genre. Based on recent statements from Snyder, maybe that’s exactly what he wanted Watchmen to do.