Watchmen (2009)

I’m sure I’m not the only one who got their first exposure to Watchmen during the trailers before The Dark Knight. I maintain that Watchmen‘s trailer is one of the finest trailers ever created.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I got hooked. I got the graphic novel out of the library the next day, and read the entire thing within 24 hours. It was the first graphic novel I’d ever read, and it was excellent. Dark, scary, sexy, powerful, oozing with the fear and tension of the Cold War. Apparently it was also the first comic books to tackle the problems of superheroes stone-cold seriously, and has become a classic.

So how does one transfer this to a film? The problems are obvious.

1. The source material’s story is too rich to be completely transferred to screen.

2. The source material is uniquely fitted for its original format, comic books, in its themes

3. The source material is illustrated in glorious detail already.

4. The source material is classic, and therefore any changes to it will be viewed as heresy by the diehard fans.

Therefore, there is no way for the film to measure up to the book if it is merely remaining an adaptation. And that is the film’s weakness – this wasn’t really a movie in and of itself as it was merely an adaptation of the book. Zach Snyder, the director, wrote about the reverent attitude of the cast and crew while filming as they tried to remain faithful to the source material. Great. Wonderful. But why make this kind of a movie if it is clear that filming it will add nothing to the piece of art, but rather detract from it? In some ways, it is like a fan video. The best parts of the story are there, and gosh, it is exciting to see it all acted out with awesome effects, but artistically? Probably works best as an introduction and companion to the book, like it was for me.  It occupies that awkward place where the people unfamiliar with the original book will probably be confused, whereas the people who have read it will find that it comes up short.

That said, coming from this perspective, I think it is still a decent little movie.  The ending to the movie was far better than the ending to the book. Jackie Earl Haley was absolutely phenomenal as Rorschach and managed to absolutely break my heart yet again. The effects for Dr Manhattan still aren’t 100% convincing. I was very aware I was just watching CGI whenever he was onscreen (Avatar‘s blue people are much better than this blue person). The sex scene is unworkably awkward – there were many nervous giggles in the theatre when I first went to see it, and we ended up fastforwarding through it this time around.

And the violence? I was not a fan of the overly gross violence in this film. (Confession: I fast forwarded through most of Zach Snyder’s 300.) How much slow motion cracking of bones and splurting of blood do we really need to see? I am all for honest violence (like in Pan’s Labyrinth) but this was over the top. The excessive blood only worked in one perfect scene, where we see a puddle pooling out under the door of the men’s room in the prison.

In summary, Watchmen works well as a beautiful tribute to a classic comic even if it’s unable to stand on its own two feet.

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