watchmen review…
the accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists, and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout, “save us!” and I’ll look down, and whisper, “no.”
- rorshach / watchmen
i’m sure a lot of people unfamiliar with the graphic novel scratched their heads when they saw the trailer for 2009’s first blockbuster watchmen. there’s something low-key about the title, the costumes, even the era it’s “filmed” in. the heroes are unrecognizable. it’s noirish.
and it’s directed by the guy who made the box office hit 300.
hardly anyone will know that the source material, written by alan moore and drawn by dave gibbons, was chosen to be included in the list of, “the 100 best english-language novels from 1923 to the present,” by time magazine. its inclusion as the only graphic novel shows how critically acclaimed it was — comics have often been looked down upon as kid-stuff; colorful superheroes in form-fitting spandex suits fighting evil with fantastic powers.
the watchmen’s affect on the comic book industry changed it forever. the graphic novel got its own section in bookstores. comic book companies began collecting series and selling them in the new form that began to blur the line between comic books and novels. the watchmen’s sales even helped publisher dc comics to overtake its rival marvel in sales.
set during the cold war era when nuclear tensions were measured by a “doomsday clock” set to a few minutes before midnight — the time of humanity’s extinction — watchmen opens with the death of a washed up superhero, the comedian. like snyder’s other movie, 300, the movie does more than take its source material at its word — dave gibbon’s artwork served as storyboards that directed cinematography. the opening sequence is lifted off the pages onto the film playing out as snyder and crew imagined it would.
its supposed strength becomes its major weakness. watchmen the movie sometimes feels like the soulless embodiment of a legend — animated and flashy, but missing emotive resonance. at times, watchmen the movie gets it — the scene of dr. manhattan’s self-imposed exile to mars taking place within a series of flashbacks shifting through time feels incredibly inspired. others, like most of the first quarter of the movie, feel contrived and exacting. i struggled to give my trust to the shaky acting, perhaps in my hesitancy to believe that my favorite comic book could ever be retold in film form. patrick wilson as the second nite owl plays the socially awkward daniel dreiberg woodenly and stiff. billy crudup’s dr. manhattan might be this year’s version of last year’s “what’s wrong with batman’s voice?” for some, the soft spoken crudup might be an inspired choice for the naked muscular soviet deterrent — for others, it might be another roadblock on the way to suspended reality.
and that might be the film’s greatest problem. the watchmen is set in an alternate universe where the vietnam war is ended and won by the americans, and nixon holds the presidency for a third term. characters speak about their greatest fear — nuclear attack — but between the slow motion, dramatic shots and poorly executed dialogue, that tension doesn’t manifest itself. i wanted to believe in the characters and feel the fear of being hunted by a superhero murderer. the conspiracy plot never seems to lift off the ground — in the end, it feels like a crash after a giant caffeine rush that only gets you a cramp from running around the room in circles.
jackie earle haley as rorshach is the movie’s joker — his voice gruff and raspy, the actor’s stage presence is incredible. as the menacing right-winger vigilante, rorshach packs a huge punch inside his small frame. his mask acts like a cloud forming rorshach patterns though one wonders how. most of the updated costumes look more modern than their comic counterparts. while the costumes take a more modern approach, one wonders why they decided to make nixon a caricature — his nose is so large it serves as the key illustration of everything wrong in the movie: the movie tries to be what its source material broke free from.
a comic book.
3/5
