I really wanted to love Watchmen. I mean, if anybody on this planet was jazzed to see this movie, it’s me. The Alan Moore-Dave Gibbons miniseries from 1986/87 is one of my favorite works of the comic form. After reading it’s complete deconstruction of the genre, I basically stopped reading comics (I thought, what was the point? It was like arriving at the top of Mount Everest – you’ve reached the peak, and everything else is downhill). I have the Absolute Watchmen limited edition book, and, after seeing some of the amazing work – and perfect recreation of the original panels in the few scenes and trailers I have seen – well, I was right there and ready, opening night.
And I’m happy to say the producers and director did exactly what they set out to do – recreate the comic, panel by panel, with only a few tweaks to the ending and some subtle changes in some scenes and character actions.
Which was completely the wrong approach to take with this material.
The thing that immediately came to mind as I walked out of the theatre was “Well, I don’t need to buy the motion comic Warner Brothers is selling – I just saw it.” The “˜motion comic’ basically is an audiobook with animated panels, kind of like those old Clutch Cargo cartoons. The mouths and some of the parts of the panel move, but the rest of the screen is taken up by the flat static art from the original book. That’s what this movie felt like, especially the last hour – a paint-by-numbers “Well we have to do this, then we have to do that” translation.
Which does. Not. Work. A comic book is NOT A MOVIE.
Watchmen deserved better. It could have been the Godfather of superhero movies (Devin at Chud already compared it to Coppola’s classic) but it’s not even close. And, ironically, I also thought of the Godfather as I exited the screening. Ever read the original Puzo novel? It is dramatically changed when it was adapted as a screenplay – Johnny Fontaine is a major character in the book, and is in one scene in the movie, for example – and all the changes helped make the film work better. Was Tom Bombadil in the Lord of the Rings movies? Nope, and again – his absence is only missed by the die-hard fans. My point is what works in one medium may work (and well) in another medium… but more often than not, it doesn’t.
Many have said this was unfilmable – well, that’s ludicrous, anything is “filmable” – the real challenge any filmmaker who is adopting something should ask is “what is the spirit of the work?” and “What is the point?” I think that the makers of the Watchmen thought more about “What lighting and lens do we need to use to frame this shot EXACTLY like panel 6 from page 13 of issue 8?” The point is lost. The art becomes artifice. Tell the story, and if you have to radically rethink the structure to tell the best story you can as a film, then you do it. Screw the fans who complain.
And, honestly, I’d rather have seen a completely different Watchmen than I got if that meant the audience was sucker-punched and awestruck the way I was after I finished the story way back in ’87.
I can’t pinpoint exactly when the movie lost me – but I think the tonal shifts (again, totally from the original work) was a big part of it. The first hour is fantastic, and the strongest part of the movie… but when we don’t see the (murdered) Comedian on screen anymore, and after Dr. Manhattan is gone… well, you lose two legs of the stool, and when the focus shifts to Dan and Laurie… bye bye interest level. I wanted to care about the characters and I never did – the whole thing was hollow inside.
Maybe that’s because a major point of Moore’s worldview, as reflected in Watchmen, is that superheroes are facists in dayglo colors… and so there’s no real “heroes” there. All I know is I need a character to care about and never really had one. Maybe the deterministic view of someone who knew the story inside and out prevented this from happening for me, stopped me from empathizing with the characters. Maybe the movie works as “meta-commentary” on the audience – hey, you get excited by super heroes? Well guess what? The costumes are a big turn on for the characters too! So maybe me being turned off by what I saw means I’m a “recovered” comic fan… or maybe I’m reading WAY too much in a semi-successful adaption of a seminal work.
I’d like to see it again, with someone who has not read the comic, to see what they think, cause I may be overstating my criticism – it may work as a stand-alone film, and there’s a lot of people out there who love the movie. But it just kind of fell flat for me – like two-dimensional comic panels.
I left Watchmen thinking “meh.” I never thought that would be the reaction I had, but there it is.
UPDATE: Ok, a couple of days has passed and I’m rethinking my initial response. I think my initial take comes off as WAY too critical… I liked it, just didn’t love it. I think I’m just too close to the source material. I think my expectations were way too high.
So, some more positives, starting with the actors: The casting of Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach is possibly the best casting ever, and boy does he bring it. I think his work here is as good as that of Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler – and that’s the highest praise I can give a modern actor. He IS Rorschach, body and soul. Jeffrey Dean Morgan’ Comedian is fantastic as well, and actually makes that son of a bitch MORE sympathetic than in the book. Patrick Wilson does some really good work as the all-too-human Dan Dreiberg, my second-favorite character (and the character who I see when I look in the mirror).
And the titles… oh, my, the title sequence. If Saul Bass were alive today, he’d be jealous. It’s fantastic work, recapping the world of the Watchmen to that point, over Dylan’s “The Times they are a Changin’.” It may be the part of the movie I revisit the most. But don’t take my word for it, you can now see them for yourself by clicking here.
I also think the movie is unfinished, and Zach Snyder has admitted as such – 40 minutes are gone to make a theatrical cut of 160 minutes, and as a fan I knew exactly what is gone: the two Bernies, more Dr. Manhattan back-story, more Mars dialogue, the psychiatrist, Nite Owl I’s last moments (and Nite Owl II’s reaction to the news)… I could go on, but you get the point. And that’s not even counting the Black Freighter stuff (which is fantastic subtext to the main story) – that’s coming out as an animated adaptation on DVD. Basically, A LOT of the humanity has been removed, stuff that would have given the ending an added resonance… and maybe my negative reaction is based on me missing that stuff. Yes, there will be a directors cut with all that restored, and an Ultimate DVD release with the extra footage AND the Black Freighter cut back into the movie… but I want that NOW.
And I guess that is telling about my true feelings on the movie – disappointed but still impressed… and still wanting more. Some online have compared this to Blade Runner, a movie that was poorly reviewed and eventually hailed as a masterpiece. I wouldn’t go THAT far, but I think it’s telling that my initial opinion of Blade Runner was as apprehensive and tentative as my thoughts on Watchmen have been. I came around to love Blade Runner, and I probably will come along to loving Watchmen too.