Watchmen reviewed
First things first, I need to clarify upfront that I have read the seminal comic book mini-series on which Watchmen is based. This automatically means I’ll be looking at this superhero film from a somewhat different perspective to the casual viewer unfamiliar with the movie’s source material. This said, every person I’ve spoken to who is a stranger to Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon’s award-winning creation has enjoyed the film thoroughly.
Personally, I didn’t find Watchmen to be outstanding – there are too many niggly flaws for that – but it is very good. Most importantly, the film IS the graphic novel brought to the big screen. No one could have done it better. And at no point did I feel this more strongly than about half way through the film, during an outstanding sequence that sees Dr Manhattan, the only genuinely super-powered hero, examining his life in a non-chronological fashion. This was the highlight of the film for me, the moment I felt like I was watching a living, breathing, moving version of the comic. I had always felt this would be the hardest chapter of the book to pull off onscreen, and the film makers did it magnificently.
With his sad, disengaged voice and impassive facial expression Billy Crudup is excellent, and surprisingly sympathetic, in the role of Manhattan, a man-turned-god who finds himself slowly losing touch with humanity. Manhattan’s parting from Laurie is far more emotionally affecting here than in the comic, and this is largely due to Crudup’s performance.
In fact, performances in Watchmen are universally good to excellent. Long gone are the days when actors treated comic book adaptations as a chance to ham it up without consequence. In Watchmen, what acting criticisms there are seem to be levelled squarely at Matthew Goode as Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias, a genius with a Christ complex, and Malin Akerman as petulant, second generation hero Laurie Jupiter/Silk Spectre.
Although perhaps a bit too slight in appearance for the role, Goode actually exceeds expectations in terms of his performance – bringing an off-kilter intensity and aristocratic air to Adrian, helping to suggest that this golden boy is far from perfect. As for Akerman, it’s not her performance that’s the problem (even if I kept seeing her as her nightmarish Heartbreak Kid character) as much as it is Laurie’s largely underwritten role. The character seems to exist merely to stomp around in latex when she’s not bouncing between the beds of 2 heroes. This said, Akerman certainly is sexy and she and Patrick Wilson’s Nite Owl share the most titillating sex scene of the year so far. After Gerard Butler and Lena Headey’s bare-assed and bare-breasted romp in 300 last year I think we can admit director Zack Snyder knows how to invest movie love scenes with plenty of sizzle – and slo-mo.
One thing you certainly can’t say about Watchmen is that it’s boring. The film’s 2 hour 40 minutes running time breezes by. It’s also not at all subtle – particularly in terms of its graphic violence – which probably explains why a number of fans of the comic have had issues with the film. Once again, though, this relates to the process of adapting a book for the big screen.
Mainstream Hollywood cinema is rarely subtle when it comes to examining social and psychological issues. Superhero films are even less so. Most of the time you end up with cool-looking but utterly forgettable fluff like the Fantastic Four, and apparently movie audiences are content with that.
What is admirable about Watchmen is its ambition in regards to shattering this shallow stereotype. Like The Dark Knight, it is definitely a film for mature viewers. Watchmen doesn’t want to be flippant and fun. It wants to be dark and thought provoking. The problem here though is Watchmen’s cinematic format. Movie adaptations typically prioritise the book’s storyline and in the Watchmen film that certainly is the case. Here we have a group of costumed vigilantes, in an alternate version of 1985 New York, who are forced to shake themselves out of retirement when one of their more reprehensible colleagues is murdered. These heroes quickly realise that someone is out to sideline all masked heroes to prevent them stopping an impending catastrophe.
The thing is, in Watchmen the comic, this simplistic plot was never especially important. Rather, Watchmen’s great thematic strengths and complexity came from all the bits and pieces situated around this storyline. Extracts from Hollis Mason’s book, posters and graffiti that repeatedly appear in comic panels, the Black Freighter story within-a-story, little aside comments and discussions – these are what add depth to the comic, and what made it such an influential creation. Not its storyline.
Watchmen, the film, touches on most of the main issues raised in the comic but that’s all it can really do. Just touch on them. As a film Watchmen cannot afford to continually shift its focus to the “support material” as this will grind the movie to a halt. As a result, the film feels quite weak in this regard – striving to impart meaning but continually falling short; having to settle for flashes of implication instead. But once again this lack of depth is a problem faced by all book-to-film adaptations. And for Zack Snyder and company to have accomplished what they have with such a dense text is commendable.
What would I have done differently with the film? I believe Bubastis, Ozymandias’s beloved pet got a bum deal in terms of screen time, as did Hollis Mason (Stephen McHattie), the idealistic first Nite Owl. His death, which made me cry when reading the comic, does an excellent job of showing how despicable society has become.
By changing one important action, and chopping certain sections of his back-story, Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley) too comes across as more psychotic in the film, preventing the audience from engaging and actually sympathising with him as much as they do in the comic.
It also would have made sense to include some kind of dialogue exchange that revealed the role Dr Manhattan played in jumpstarting the world’s technological development. This would have explained why in this alternate universe there exist fabrics like Rorschach’s mask, how the genetically spliced Bubastis is possible, and given credibility to Archie, Nite Owl’s aircraft. Then again, this explanation would have made all the film’s “topical” discussions about oil and resources (not in the book) completely redundant.
As for the film’s divergent ending from the comic, I was very satisfied with it. I always felt the alien squid was very out of place in the comic in terms of everything that had preceded it, and the film’s substituted Event makes far more sense, even if it eradicates Dr Manhattan and Ozymadias’s provocative “Things never end” discussion.
I haven’t really spoken about production design or visual effects, but Watchmen excels in both departments. The film is visually stunning, having recreated the world of the comic exactly, and I could stare at Dr Manhattan’s CGI eyes for ages.
So, yes, ladies and gentlemen, Watchmen is not a disappointment. Not at all. It’s definitely not this year’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I’ll certainly be seeing Watchmen again at the cinema. And absolutely will be buying the extended Director’s Cut on DVD to see if an extra 30 minutes of footage fleshes out the film where I felt I needed it. Watchmen scores four out of five stars... which incidentally I would probably have given The Dark Knight last year as well if I was attaching a star rating.
Out of interest, I really enjoyed and agreed with a lot that was said in the following 2 reviews:
My New Plaid Pants and Electronic Cerebrectomy.
Check them out.
Personally, I didn’t find Watchmen to be outstanding – there are too many niggly flaws for that – but it is very good. Most importantly, the film IS the graphic novel brought to the big screen. No one could have done it better. And at no point did I feel this more strongly than about half way through the film, during an outstanding sequence that sees Dr Manhattan, the only genuinely super-powered hero, examining his life in a non-chronological fashion. This was the highlight of the film for me, the moment I felt like I was watching a living, breathing, moving version of the comic. I had always felt this would be the hardest chapter of the book to pull off onscreen, and the film makers did it magnificently.
With his sad, disengaged voice and impassive facial expression Billy Crudup is excellent, and surprisingly sympathetic, in the role of Manhattan, a man-turned-god who finds himself slowly losing touch with humanity. Manhattan’s parting from Laurie is far more emotionally affecting here than in the comic, and this is largely due to Crudup’s performance.
In fact, performances in Watchmen are universally good to excellent. Long gone are the days when actors treated comic book adaptations as a chance to ham it up without consequence. In Watchmen, what acting criticisms there are seem to be levelled squarely at Matthew Goode as Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias, a genius with a Christ complex, and Malin Akerman as petulant, second generation hero Laurie Jupiter/Silk Spectre.
Although perhaps a bit too slight in appearance for the role, Goode actually exceeds expectations in terms of his performance – bringing an off-kilter intensity and aristocratic air to Adrian, helping to suggest that this golden boy is far from perfect. As for Akerman, it’s not her performance that’s the problem (even if I kept seeing her as her nightmarish Heartbreak Kid character) as much as it is Laurie’s largely underwritten role. The character seems to exist merely to stomp around in latex when she’s not bouncing between the beds of 2 heroes. This said, Akerman certainly is sexy and she and Patrick Wilson’s Nite Owl share the most titillating sex scene of the year so far. After Gerard Butler and Lena Headey’s bare-assed and bare-breasted romp in 300 last year I think we can admit director Zack Snyder knows how to invest movie love scenes with plenty of sizzle – and slo-mo.
One thing you certainly can’t say about Watchmen is that it’s boring. The film’s 2 hour 40 minutes running time breezes by. It’s also not at all subtle – particularly in terms of its graphic violence – which probably explains why a number of fans of the comic have had issues with the film. Once again, though, this relates to the process of adapting a book for the big screen.
Mainstream Hollywood cinema is rarely subtle when it comes to examining social and psychological issues. Superhero films are even less so. Most of the time you end up with cool-looking but utterly forgettable fluff like the Fantastic Four, and apparently movie audiences are content with that.
What is admirable about Watchmen is its ambition in regards to shattering this shallow stereotype. Like The Dark Knight, it is definitely a film for mature viewers. Watchmen doesn’t want to be flippant and fun. It wants to be dark and thought provoking. The problem here though is Watchmen’s cinematic format. Movie adaptations typically prioritise the book’s storyline and in the Watchmen film that certainly is the case. Here we have a group of costumed vigilantes, in an alternate version of 1985 New York, who are forced to shake themselves out of retirement when one of their more reprehensible colleagues is murdered. These heroes quickly realise that someone is out to sideline all masked heroes to prevent them stopping an impending catastrophe.
The thing is, in Watchmen the comic, this simplistic plot was never especially important. Rather, Watchmen’s great thematic strengths and complexity came from all the bits and pieces situated around this storyline. Extracts from Hollis Mason’s book, posters and graffiti that repeatedly appear in comic panels, the Black Freighter story within-a-story, little aside comments and discussions – these are what add depth to the comic, and what made it such an influential creation. Not its storyline.
Watchmen, the film, touches on most of the main issues raised in the comic but that’s all it can really do. Just touch on them. As a film Watchmen cannot afford to continually shift its focus to the “support material” as this will grind the movie to a halt. As a result, the film feels quite weak in this regard – striving to impart meaning but continually falling short; having to settle for flashes of implication instead. But once again this lack of depth is a problem faced by all book-to-film adaptations. And for Zack Snyder and company to have accomplished what they have with such a dense text is commendable.
What would I have done differently with the film? I believe Bubastis, Ozymandias’s beloved pet got a bum deal in terms of screen time, as did Hollis Mason (Stephen McHattie), the idealistic first Nite Owl. His death, which made me cry when reading the comic, does an excellent job of showing how despicable society has become.
By changing one important action, and chopping certain sections of his back-story, Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley) too comes across as more psychotic in the film, preventing the audience from engaging and actually sympathising with him as much as they do in the comic.
It also would have made sense to include some kind of dialogue exchange that revealed the role Dr Manhattan played in jumpstarting the world’s technological development. This would have explained why in this alternate universe there exist fabrics like Rorschach’s mask, how the genetically spliced Bubastis is possible, and given credibility to Archie, Nite Owl’s aircraft. Then again, this explanation would have made all the film’s “topical” discussions about oil and resources (not in the book) completely redundant.
As for the film’s divergent ending from the comic, I was very satisfied with it. I always felt the alien squid was very out of place in the comic in terms of everything that had preceded it, and the film’s substituted Event makes far more sense, even if it eradicates Dr Manhattan and Ozymadias’s provocative “Things never end” discussion.
I haven’t really spoken about production design or visual effects, but Watchmen excels in both departments. The film is visually stunning, having recreated the world of the comic exactly, and I could stare at Dr Manhattan’s CGI eyes for ages.
So, yes, ladies and gentlemen, Watchmen is not a disappointment. Not at all. It’s definitely not this year’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I’ll certainly be seeing Watchmen again at the cinema. And absolutely will be buying the extended Director’s Cut on DVD to see if an extra 30 minutes of footage fleshes out the film where I felt I needed it. Watchmen scores four out of five stars... which incidentally I would probably have given The Dark Knight last year as well if I was attaching a star rating.
Out of interest, I really enjoyed and agreed with a lot that was said in the following 2 reviews:
My New Plaid Pants and Electronic Cerebrectomy.
Check them out.
Comments
I also thought Goode was a little underdeveloped for Veidt, but I let it slide because I liked to the sort of megalomaniacal aspect he helped bring to the screen.
Excellent review.
Mjenks: I'm 99% sure Mason's death will be in the extended version. I'm sure I've seen glimpses in trailers of him lying on the floor looking up at his trophy wielding attackers.
In the current cut of the film, I thought that Bubastis's appearance made no sense. She was just this weird cat thing that popped up in the film out of nowhere and roamed around Adrian's base. I don't think it helped that Adrian didn't show any affection to her whatsoever in the film, whereas in the comic she's continually at his side and he actually even sadly apologises for her fate.
Then again, I think I'm just a little sore on the issue because I love furry, cuddly critters. It's probably one of the reasons I remain a big supporter of Return of the Jedi. Ewoks!
And yes, Haley certainly seems to have come out of nowhere as a potent screen presence.