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Watchmen
Period Piece
2009
Review: March 14, 2009
Director: Zack Snyder
Starring: Jackie Earle Haley, Jeffery Dean Morgan, Malin Akerman, Patrick Wilson
If you like, though it’s awful long for that.
THE SETUP:
Adaptation of the famous graphic novel by Alan Moore.
DISCUSSION:
So I just this second walked out of Watchmen, which I was looking forward to and honestly, expecting to be a little blown away by. Then the reviews came out, and they vacillated between people saying it was like Bergman made a comic book film [I think I actually read that] and others saying it was incredibly boring and silly and describing people walking out of the free screening. So this kind of polarization is usually a good sign, at least in my book. And off me and my friend go!
We open with the murder of this former masked superhero The Comedian. Then we have the credits, which introduces the alternate history we’re in… beginning in the 60s, this movie lays out an alternate history in which Nixon is still president and Russia and the United States are still on the brink of nuclear war. There were a bunch of masked superheroes, none of whom actually had special powers, apparently, and they retired and mostly passed the torch on to a younger generation, who also retired. One of them, Rorschach, believes that the murder of Comedian is the beginning of a series of murders of all the masked heroes. And so we’re off.
I really can’t muster up the energy to describe what happens throughout the rest of the movie, because it’s really just dull.
We have some investigation. We have flashbacks to the lives of the superheroes. We see what’s going on in their lives now. None of it is boring, per se, but after a while you begin to realize that the story is not involving and neither are the characters. You could leave any time you want, for as long as you want, and not really miss much of anything except a bunch of special effects. Go ahead—take that extended bathroom break! Catch up on your email—your calls! There’ll be plenty of movie left when you get back.
Throughout there is lots of talk about nuclear war, and how it is really bad. We hear a lot of talk about mutually-assured destruction. At one point Nixon is saying we could bomb all of Russia and only lose the East Coast of the United States. An hoo boy, it’s taking me back! Back to when this was kind of an interesting topic, and you had Sting writing that song about how we’d better hope that the Russians love their children, too, and WarGames was out, and there were self-important made-for-television movies about how very awful it would be if there was a nuclear war. And I realize as I’m writing this now that I’m like “Oh yeah, nuclear war, Kajagoogoo, shit was crazy in the 80s!” but somehow the issue just doesn’t seem to have the weight it once did, and this movie can’t help but start to seem like a period piece. The friend I saw it with took this attitude afterward, saying it is a product of its time. And that’s fine, but you’re sitting through three hours of it NOW. And sure, strictly speaking, it’s still relevant, I guess, but it also bears the stink of something written in the 80s, and not updated since the 80s. Very much, oddly enough, the same problem we had with Revolutionary Road.
The other problem is that its worldview is just a little juvenile. In this movie, humanity is vile, corrupt, selfish and barbaric. The narrator’s [Rorschach] view, is the old thing about nasty, jaded adults who have lost their humanity and are awful to each other, and the purity and innocence of little children—we know this because his origin story involves a little girl that got kidnapped [and perhaps worse, it is suggested], and eventually fed to dogs, at which point he gave up on humanity. A fine viewpoint, just one that’s rather juvenile and—what’s the word?—Pouty? Petulant? Like a kid saying “The world sucks and I’m just not going to participate anymore!” Well, you certainly have to do no convincing to bring me on board with that assessment, but at the same time, come on guys, pulls your heads out of your navel. This movie’s worldview is kind of on the level of the high school burnout sneaking a cigarette in the school’s alcove and saying “People fuckin’ suck, man.” And like that guy usually thinks, there’s just a simple, albeit harsh, solution that would instantly solve the entire problem. Without giving too much away, positing that the two warring superpowers can achieve peace by uniting against a common enemy is a simplistic, Sting-level, coffee-napkin solution.
THIS JUST IN! A friend just explained the ending of the comic to me, with the ambiguity of that and its idea about war being inevitable does sound a lot more interesting than what we got here—and did not come through to me at all from the movie I saw.
As for what the middle two hours was about, you got me. I read a review [from someone who had read the comic] that it was about “idol making,” and okay… but I didn’t get any of that from the movie. I am aware that the movie is very reverent [many say over-reverent] to the comic, and that maybe the two work best in combination, but my viewpoint has always been “I am reviewing the MOVIE and if it’s not there in the movie, it doesn’t count.” Really, you could take out the middle two hours completely, as far as I’m concerned. I thought this was just me, but then a friend said he had heard separately that “nothing really happens,” so I guess it’s not.
In retrospect, maybe this is what makes it “unadaptable,” as many have said, as it really is a READING experience—you have a story presenting different aspects of an idea, and different aspects of its characters, whom one watches grow and change… and as you are READING you have the time to pause and reflect and recollect, put it down, think about it, come back, and this is something that, for the most part, is simply not suited to the movies. Movies are primarily visual and primarily plot-driven, and don’t offer a lot of time to pause in the middle and reflect. Especially THIS movie, whose intense visuals may work against it, by further distracting from the time one needs to just sit and let it wash over one. In this case, I’ll never know, however, as there’s no way I’m ever sitting through this crap again.
SHOULD YOU WATCH IT?
If you've read and love the graphic novel. If not, it won't kill you, but won't do much for you, either.
And then, my inbox brought me this additional viewpoint...
Hey Scott,
just read your Watchmen review and agree with a lot you are saying except that you say people who read the graphic novel should watch it in your final sentence. Having read the graphic novel many many years ago and having LOVED it (really, it´s fucking amazing) sitting through this film was pretty much like having a large part of my childhood raped. And not in a good way.
Snyder did exactly what I thought he would do (and has done to 300 before). He´s made a visually nice looking film that has NO SOUL. If you don´t care about the characters it doesn´t matter that those fight sequences are beautifully shot and choreagraphed because you simply don´t give a fuck about those who fight.
So many interesting details and characters have been left out of the film. Where you awake during the attempted rape scene? The guy stopping the Comedian, the one who gets asked if he gets off on beating him, he´s called Hooded Justice and he´s gay. He´s a minor character but having him in such a great story as a closeted small town boy (ha!) was just something that made the whole comic even cooler. In the film he is in it for 3 seconds. Sure, lots of the plot has to go in order to make it a film that is not 20 hours long, but if you have time for senseless slo-mo effects and pretty embarrassing fuck scenes how about getting rid of those and put something into the film that is actually interesting? Not surprising there was time for a lesbian kiss. Not that we find out ANYTHING about the woman, we just see her kiss and then she´s murdered. Snyder likes to keep things in order.
So much about the graphic novel was lost here and many people who would love it will never pick it up because the film pretty much sucked. Oh, there´s a pirate story in the comic too. And not told in pictures but in words. For 11 issues it makes you wonder why it´s there but in the end it all makes sense. I wish you could say something similar about this movie.
The film pissed me off!
Thomas
