Imagine a 130 million dollar superhero studio film that has:
1. No superheroics.
2. Three different first person narrations.
3. Flashbacks within flashbacks.
4. A male character who is nude throughout the entire film.
5. A story that covers 40 years of history.
6. No pat answers to anything
7. OH and no happy ending.
Now, imagine you’ve just walked out of “Batman and Robin” in 1997, and you’ve just said to yourself “Wow, that movie was a piece of dog feces”. Then up comes some random time traveler from the year 2009 and says to you “In twelve years the studio that produced this movie, will produce the movie I just described”. You’d laugh in their face, and possibly hit them.
I first read Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons graphic novel Watchmen my freshman year of high school this would be 1999-2000. I think I picked it up because I was reading on the internet that it was finally going to be made into a movie, or it was because Terry Gilliam had been involved in the project, and Gilliam is one of my favorite filmmakers so I decided I’d pick up the book. I hated it the first time through. I found it, long, overblown, ultimately rudderless, and I also found it boring. I got what it was trying to do, but I was expecting something more along the lines of Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns. I mean, yeah Miller’s work deconstructed the superhero myth, but he at least had superhero fights in it! Was what I thought at the time. About two years later, for one reason or another I picked up Watchmen again. And I loved it. I suddenly GOT it, I understood the deconstruction of the superhero, I understood WHY the heroes in the novel never did anything particularly heroic, why there were no super villains, I was supremely affected by Dr. Manhattan’s existential musings on the nature of human beings. I got all the little jokes in there. Isn’t it funny how a work of art can completely change because of life experiences?
When I heard that Zach Snyder was going to direct Watchmen, I was quite terrified. I found his first film, the remake of Dawn of the Dead quite good, but his second film 300, was quite possibly one of the worst movies of the past ten years. I was scared that the adaptation of Watchmen would fall apart in a merge of hyper stylized CGI, and random gratuitous violence. I was positive he would get the material visually, but the one thing Snyder lacks as a director, was subtlety.
For those not in the know, Watchmen is a twelve issue comic book series by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, published in 1985 it is a deconstruction of superheroes. The question it ultimately poses is this: “If superheroes existed in the real world, what would have happened?” The graphic novel spans 40 years of this alternate history, it flashes back, has flashbacks within flashbacks, extra text material appended to the back of each issue. The novel has a comic book within the comic book that a character is reading. It has a ton of minor characters, acting as the Greek chorus to the apocalyptic superhero nightmare going on around them. If you are a screenwriter and you are tasked to not only adapt Watchmen to the screen, but also conform it to studio standards, I think I would have a minor heart attack. Which is why the screen adaptation has been in development hell for so long. In actuality it would be an interesting piece to have seen adapted to the stage.
Now here we are…it’s 2009 and the director of 300 has made Watchmen. All I can really say is…WOW. From the opening frames of the film where the superhero Comedian is brutally murdered to the strains of Nat King Cole’s “Unforgettable”. I was drawn right in. Then the opening credits began, I can’t talk about these opening titles enough, hands down it is one of the best sequences ever put to film. It is a montage of images starting in 1939 and leading to the alternate 1985 of the film, iconic images from our actual history, the World War II V day Kiss, the Kennedy Assassination, the moon landing, Studio 54, Andy Warhol, with the question behind it “What if superheroes existed during this time”. Set to the strains a very iconic song. The montage is stirring, moving, and funny.
Quick rundown of the plot: It is 1985 superheroes have existed since 1939, but recently they have been banned, except for two heroes who work within the government The Comedian a kind of mercenary soldier(think Nick Fury or Captain America), and Dr. Manhattan, the only superhero who has any super powers created in an atomic lab accident he is a blue glowing naked god-like being. And because the U.S. has this being on their side it allowed the U.S. to win the war in Vietnam, which in turn allowed Nixon to be president for three consecutive terms in office. Even so, the U.S. and Russia are still in an arms race and are more than likely going to nuclear war with each other. And the doomsday clock is inching ever closer to midnight. Amidst this someone is killing off the former superheroes, starting with the Comedian. Who is the murderer? Is there a bigger conspiracy? And what does it mean for the fate of the world.
I loved Watchmen. The film is powerful, affecting, funny, campy, and ultimately human. It worked as a film, not just an adaptation, but as a film. Yes there have been some changes, and cuts; some obvious (cutting the comic within a comic would be the first thing to go), and some not so obvious the specifics of the MacGuffin have changed, but thematically it’s all the same, and that’s all that really matters.
Across the board, the cast just nails it. Patrick Wilson brings the schlubby good natured, fighting paunchiness of Nite Owl II brilliantly to life. Malin Ackerman makes Silk Spectre II interesting, which she’s really not in the novel, let’s face it she’s really annoying in the book. Matthew Goode as Ozymandias is the actor who has been getting the most flack for his performance. I think the actor is too young for the role, but that being said he brings a dark sense of tragedy to the film, that the character had in the novel, but it’s not exactly the forefront of his character. Watch as he delivers the line “I feel every single life…” it’s heartbreaking and pompous in the right ways.
But there are three huge standouts in the cast, that just bring everything they have to their roles; Jackie Earle Haley as the vigilante known as Rorschach is terrifyingly brilliant, he keeps you on your toes and watch his delivery on “I’m not imprisoned here with you, you’re trapped in here with me” it’s chilling. Jeffrey Dean Morgan as The Comedian makes an extremely unlikable character, human. Here is a man who has done terrible things in the name of his country, and just as a person, he sees the dark underbelly of humanity, he is Kurtz from Heart of Darkness. It’s an amazing performance, and to be fair if his performance did not work the film would fall completely apart. Billy Crudup’s shy meditative voice is perfect for Dr. Manhattan the blue naked god, underneath the digital effects and motion capture, comes a sad haunting performance. When Dr. Manhattan finds himself tired of humanity and goes to Mars, Crudup brings the world weary sense of Hamlet to the role, “I have of late, but wherefore not know have lost all my mirth…”.
Okay, so I’ve just gushed all over this movie, but it’s not perfect. While on the whole the film looks absolutely stunning, some of the aging makeup really doesn’t work, and the guy playing Nixon, looks very cartoony, which I think was done on purpose, but it doesn’t exactly work.
All that being said, the movie is very good. I say see it, see it in the movie theater don’t wait for this one on DVD, see it. This is an important film and the things that it has to say about the use and abuse of power, do the ends justify the means, and human nature are important. Don’t forget this is coming from a 130 million dollar studio superhero film, and that my friends, is an amazing achievement.
