Watchmen: Hurm!
by mcg
And so it came to pass. The much anticipated movie in comic geekdom has finally arrived: Warner Bros’ film adaptation of Watchmen arrived last March 6 amidst hype and trepidation. I finally got to see it earlier tonight, choosing not to force the issue of having to juggle schedules on opening night. Had it been another Christopher Nolan Batman or Guillermo del Toro’s Hobbit, I’d probably make an exception. However, given Zack Snyder’s slavish adaptation of Frank Miller’s 300 and thanks to the advance hype machine that gave us glimpses of the set (oooh photos of the Gunga Diner! The newstand!) I already knew what kind of movie to expect (also, the online world didn’t wait too long to give its verdict on the movie).
My take on it? For a movie, it’s a great comic book. I didn’t hate what Snyder did to Watchmen. I also won’t rave about it as I did Nolan’s Dark Knight. If someone was to ask me if he or she should read the book or watch the movie, I’d recommend them to read the book first. The movie becomes a supplement to a very dense novel – a Cliffs Note if you will, with an okay soundtrack and perfect casting of the characters. If you must watch the movie, do yourself the favor of watching it in the theater as it is one of those movies which was made for the big screen, no matter how hi-def your home TV maybe. Spoilers ahead.
My main problem with Snyder’s Watchmen is that it does not add anything substantial to the world of the novel (save one, perhaps). Here I must bring up Nolan’s Dark Knight again. Nolan added to the Batman mythos – a Bruce Wayne who actually toyed with the idea of giving up the mantle of Batman for the promise of a true crime crusader working within the judicial system, a Batman whose weaponry and vehicles are based on existing technology, a Joker who looked and acted like a true agent of chaos. These to me were fresh takes on characters that are almost 70 years old.
Snyder, to the man’s credit, did in fact say he’s going to be faithful to the book. His decision to do just that may have been to mitigate the expected nerd rage usually accompanying any small deviation from what was on the page. This decision also doomed him and the movie to an almost glacial pace – which works on the page but definitely not on screen. Where Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons loaded each panel and each page with meaning meant for the reader to discover he but lingers, Snyder missed that particular point of the endeavor. Snyder was given the golden opportunity load each frame and each shot with would’ve worked on screen. The opening credits alone hinted at that possibility had Snyder decided to be a film-maker instead of a comic book fan. Synder should’ve worked with the medium just as Moore and Gibbons did.
I have to give credit to Snyder for two things: one is the casting and the second, the altered ending. James Earle Haley was the perfect Rorschach. When the mask came off, he was like a pint-sized psycho Clint Eastwood. Delivering that line while Kovacs/Rorschach in prison “I’m not locked in here with you! You’re locked in here with me!” was just pitch perfect. (Haley definitely had a better affected gruff voice than Christian Bale in Batman, by the way.) Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Patrick Wilson, Malin Ackerman, definitely looked and acted the part. The parts of Nite Owl II and Silk Spectre II could not have worked if the wrong actors were cast – thankfully Wilson and Ackerman had good chemistry. JDM straddled the right balance to make the Comedian both overbearing and pathetic. It must be mentioned that while Dr. Manhattan thankfully wasn’t just Billy Crudup painted in blue, the cg-ed mouth was a bit of a distraction whenever Dr. M was delivering a line. The much ballyhooed non-squid ending definitely works for the movie. Like I’ve said, this might be the only thing substantial Snyder was able to add to the novel which worked on screen. At least it wasn’t some outlandish, pulled-from-nowhere stunt but actually made sense in the context of the motivations of the characters.
Overall, while it is an enjoyable movie for fans of the book, it may turn off most people with its very graphic violence (broken arms, cleaved heads, limbs cut by power tools etc) which maybe incongruous to the brightly colored costumes shown on the trailers. There’s a very good reason this movie is rated R. The dvd, coming out in July promises a longer cut of the movie and perhaps bundled with the promised animated Tales of the Black Freighter, originally a comic book appearing with the graphic novel.
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