Watching the Watchmen

For those of you who are Purists of the Alan Moore-Dave Gibbons masterpiece Watchmen, I can tell you that you will have absolutely no complaints of the Zack Snyder film adaptation. I would say that the graphic novel was translated seamlessly onto the screen, if not for Alan Moore’s outright panning of the film as a whole. But what can you expect from Alan Moore, right? One could say that the fact that he didn’t light himself on fire in a fiery rage means that the film wasn’t as horrible as he portrays it to be. Methinks Mr. Moore either simply has a flair for the dramatic, or he really just doesn’t think Watchmen is filmable. Zack Snyder proved him wrong, but only to an extent.

For those who have yet to see the film, let me give you a brief overview. Watchmen is set during the period of the late 70s to early 80s when Richard Nixon gets elected for a third term, and Cold War looms on the horizon. People are starting to get paranoid and antsy, and costumed heroes, once heralded as saviors of the day for fighting the bad guys, get out of control, and they become distorted caricatures of the superheroes we all know and love. The premise is that if you have the audacity to dress up in a superhero costume and fight crime, you’re probably mentally unstable. The superheroes in this novel make Peter Parker’s geeky insecurities seem small and immature. In fact, they seem more like villains than heroes. The Comedian is an example of a superhero with very flawed principles, and you find that out the hard way when you see how vicious he gets with women and children. So, everyone fears the end of the world, and costumed heroes are hated by the public. Suddenly, someone kills the Comedian, and the story becomes a whodunit mystery with little twists and turns. Watchmen is a story about human nature, and how it is only human nature to want to save the world, to be loved and appreciated, and to exact justice.

From the get-go, once the project was announced to be helmed by Snyder, buzz had begun to swarm around this holy grail of graphic novels. According to several die hard fans, it was simply too complex, too deep, too grim or some other thing that’s just too _______. While I agree that Watchmen is definitely one of those works of literature that is extremely difficult to translate properly onto the big screen, I don’t believe that anything in literature is unfilmable, if the right person were to take on the task. Granted, many fine reads have failed despite reputable directors [I'm talking to you, Andrew Adamson, and your failed Prince Caspian film] at the helm. But, like Dr. Manhattan muses to Laurie while on Mars, there are those miracles in filmmaking; those rare gems that occur only when the right person comes upon the project. The best example of this filmic rarity is Peter Jackson and The Lord of the Rings. Imagine how catastrophic it would have been had the original plan prevailed of making the trilogy into one movie. One movie. Yeah. I thought so. You were seething when I said that, right? Exactly.

When it comes to interpreting great works of literature to the big screen, one is faced with the seemingly insurmountable task of remaining true to the message of the book, being able to separate the detrimental, necessary and unnecessary parts of a book, and to interpret the characters’ intentions appropriately, given the more sensitive medium of film. The trick to adapting a work of literature is to remain true to the essence of the story, while at the same time presenting it from a new and unique perspective. Unfortunately, Snyder was only able to fulfill the former and not the latter.

As a Watchmen fan, I had absolutely no problem with the movie. It was like watching the graphic novel unfold on the big screen, literally. For those who like Watchmen the way it is, and who think that no enhancements were required for the actual novel to be even better, you won’t be disappointed. However, if you were looking for a neat twist, or fresh insight into the graphic novel, you won’t find it in the movie. Unfortunately, the problem (well, technically it isn’t really a problem, but more of a personal preference on my part) is that Snyder was a bit too faithful to the novel. Now, like I mentioned before, it’s extremely difficult to translate one of the most celebrated graphic novels of all time onto the big screen and make cosmetic or substantive changes to it and not get serious backlash. However, when you remain too faithful to the book, you risk not putting your signature on it and making it even better than the book. I personally would have preferred that Snyder injected a little bit of insight into the movie to make it his own, but perhaps he feared by doing so he would get scolded for it by the legions of Watchmen fans around the world, and he is completely in the right to be wary. So like I said, it wasn’t a big problem, but one that I’ve heard about before from critics and fans alike.

Now, my humble opinion is that Watchmen was good, but it could have been great. The film was so literal that everything was in perfect sequence, and even exact frames from the graphic novel seemed to be lifted right off of the pages and transferred onto screen. I was pleased at this, because it was like an inside joke for us fans of the graphic novel. If you hadn’t read the graphic novel, you wouldn’t be amazed at the likeness of the cast members when they took on the exact same poses as the characters they were trying to emulate. There were several nuggets in the movie that I feel were a nod to the hardcore fans, the ones who’ve read the novel numerous times and who appreciate the insertion of the newspaper man and his comic book-obsessed friend (see: Tales of the Black Freighter).

The film took its time to progress, which for many die hard fans is just the way it should be. I had no problems with it, but I noticed that quite a few people started going to the bathroom in parts that were a little slow, such as the Silk Spectre 1 parts and the Dr. Manhattan flashback. Now, I wouldn’t want any of these parts cut at all, but I felt like there were parts that we could have done without, such as the Hollis Mason Under the Hood sections, and the flashbacks could have been shortened. The reason I say this, despite being content with the film, is that as the film progressed, it actually got better and better. Towards the end, after Nite Owl and Silk Spectre 2 resolve to do something about the end of the world, the movie started to get to a much quicker, more urgent pace, which I thought made that whole end-of-the-world-at-midnight premise even more forboding. I liked how it built up, and that Snyder saw that these parts were imperative in making the story appear complete, but some may not see it that way.

Something peculiar that I noticed was that instead of a score, a bunch of songs were used as backdrops to some momentous scenes, including The Comedian’s burial, featuring Simon & Garfunkel’s “Sound of Silence”. At first I was wigged out by it, because it was just too strong of a backdrop and sometimes when you have actual songs and not film scores you risk having the songs distract you from the scene. The songs were a bit distracting, but when you get used to them they kinda blend in well with the film. Many people were also disturbed by the fact that Dr. Manhattan was butt naked (front and back) in the movie, but I feel like this was just a silly uproar, only because if it were a woman the audience wouldn’t feel as such. Funny how double standards still apply to big blue supermen like Dr. Manhattan.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan plays the cigar-smoking, trigger-happy Comedian.

I could not ask any more from the acting. At first I was skeptical about Matthew Goode being cast as Ozymandias/Adrian Veidt, but as soon as he started speaking, you could tell he was immersed in the character. Personally, I would have preferred that the person they cast as Veidt was more buff, or at least a little bit bigger and more well built than Goode, but Goode compensated for it with his acting. Patrick Wilson was a very good Nite Owl/Dan Dreiberg. He was able to encapsulate the mid-life crisis and inferiority complex that the character was going through and you could see the apparent change when he finally decides to give the costume another chance. Jeffrey Dean Morgan was the Comedian. I couldn’t even tell that he was acting. It was like the character from the graphic novel literally jumped onto the screen. Another person I was a little skeptical about was Billy Crudup as Dr. Manhattan. If you think about it, this guy has the most difficult task. He has twice the challenge, because he is not only a big blue motion-capture or CGI figure, but he also has to remain detahced, while at the same time being able to convey the reasons he is so. Crudup did a tremendous job; his voicing  for Dr. Manhattan was definitely on point. And of course, we’ve come down to the man of the 3 hours, Rorschach, played by the amazing Jackie Earle Haley. There is a reason why Rorschach is such an interesting and acclaimed character. He reminds me a lot of Yossarian, from the book Catch-22, because his character starts off as someone everybody thinks is crazy or is mentally deluded. But as the story progresses, you realize that Rorschach is the only one who really still has his goals in check and who thinks that justice needs to be served. Rorschach is grim and has absolutely no faith in humanity because of all that he has gone through from his childhood. He is joyless, pensive, but he is every bit the classic superhero, because of his pure vision of justice. Jackie Earle Haley was the ultimate Rorschach, and no one could have done the role justice than he did.

I had several favorite scenes from the movie, all of which were scenes from the novel that I loved as well. The Laurie-Dan sex scene in Dan’s apartment was classic, AND extremely important. It was also very well done by Malin Ackerman and Patrick Wilson. In this scene, both were able to tell the story that these two people had–separate stories, but converging ones. Laurie was suffering from an inherited career as Silk Spectre 2. She was born into the career, and she did not exact any joy from it. On top of that, her lover, Dr. Manhattan, does not understand her and her needs. She needed Dan because Dan needed something exciting in his life. He needed to be reminded that he was once Nite Owl, and that he could do it again. The sex scene was funny because it was every bit the one in the graphic novel: raw, awkward and clumsy, but also very earnest.

Another scene I loved was the prison scene involving Rorschach. One of my favorite lines from the graphic novel is Rorschach’s, when he says to the prisoners who want a piece of him: “I’m not locked in here with you, you’re locked in here with me!” And with Jackie Earle Haley’s brilliant acting, I was almost brought to my feet! All in all, the performances were impressive and better than I had expected, and the ending had me in tears, I am embarrassed to say.

Overall, the film was well done. Great acting, epic story, stellar graphics, and precise directorial choices made this film enjoyable. As an adaptation, it was completely faithful. Some criticisms could be that the fight scenes were a little hokey, and were maybe a little too reminiscent of 300, which is understandable, considering we have the same director at the helm. Also, the Rorschach voice overs from his diary at first seemed like Sin City or The Spirit. When it first started, I was almost like, “Oh no.” But the voice overs were important, because how else would we get some insight into Rorschach’s lovely, demented mind? But I love the fearlessness of the movie, and how it delivered in terms of the atmosphere and the tenacity. Richard Nixon was definitely weird-looking, and I wish they would have just asked Frank Langella to play Nixon, but hey, we’ll take what we can get, you know? Overall, I highly recommend watching it.

Watchmen is an intelligent murder mystery with a justification that leaves it up to the viewers to judge. Whoever murdered the Comedian did so for both selfish and unselfish reasons and the audience will understand that, and in the words of Dr. Manhattan, “without condemning or condoning it.” Snyder delivered a home run, in my opinion, because it was a faithful adaptation of a graphic novel that really didn’t need any enhancements to be brilliant. Snyder had his work cut out for him, given that Dave Gibbons worked with him on the overall film and since he didn’t really need much work when it came to screenplay. All he needed to do was tell the story in a straightforward way, without compromising the essence of the characters and the story. In the ending, Rorschach tells Nite Owl: “Even in the face of armageddon, never compromise!” And that is exactly what Snyder did. Even in the face of critics and even the creator of the graphic novel telling him it could not be done, Snyder proved it could be done. The question now is, will you be watching the Watchmen?