Review: Watchmen

Watchmen (2009)
starring: Patrick Wilson, Jackie Earle Haley, Billy Crudup, Malin Akerman, Matthew Goode, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Carla Gugino
dir. Zack Snyder


The film had been playing fro about ten minutes when I felt this was going to be a really good ride. And it is. Watchmen is a relatively faithful adaptation with a few really nice performances, a some solid visuals (minus meh fight scenes) and for a film close to 20 years in the making, I didn't walk away too disappointed. Are there things missing that, for me, gave the original graphic novel extra layers and a sense of depth that is missing from the movie? God, yes. Yet I'm going to hold off on final judgment until after I see the ultra huge extended addition that will be out on DVD later in the fall. The addition of the Tales Of The Black Freighter (a well know part to fans of the comic) will be important in fleshing out the themes. Admittedly one of the nice things about the DVD market is the ability to release extended cuts.

Anyway, It's a very good, yet flawed film. The new conceit for the climax is a bit of a clunker for me. The original is so simple and streamlined that this one seems to hide behind the complexity and hand wringing of a true "Bwahahaha" type of plan. Where does one find a tachyon disruptor these days? It seems to unravel the film a bit. Snyder mentioned that the original ending seemed a little light in today's post 911 world, but the new ending doesn't make anything heavier. It even seems to diminish it by creating an aftermath that is just destruction and not a blood soaked nightmarish loss of human life.

Some of the problems I kept running into was that things that felt other worldly and really risky in the comic just seemed like run-of-the-mill filmmaking when translated to screen. The entire Dr. Manhattan back story was a real shaker when it came out in it's structure and design, but all it seems to feel like when put in motion is a voiceover covering events. That sense of being in all places at once didn't really click for me.

I felt the same with the Comedian's back story at his funeral. If I remember correctly, it's the same as it was in the comic, but when translated to the screen, it feels a little cliché. Each character thinking back to a moment when the Comedian reveals more about who he through immoral action or some philosophical diatribe about existence. No one ever remembers the moment when he took a dump and forgot to flush the toilet. It' a minor quibble, but suddenly cracks can be seen.

In he comic, because we have so much more control over how much time we spend on something we can correct this. A single panel of Rorschach glimpsing an image from an inkblot can be assigned a millisecond in our mind, where in the movie, time needs to be given to let us take in the image and understand what is going on in Rorschach's mind. It's an interesting dynamic that I'm sure will be discussed more when specific comics start to move to the big screen.

Jackie Earle Haley and Jeffery Dean Morgan are fantastic. They are given the most to chew on and screwed up characters are always more interesting to watch than the straight laced. Haley and Morgan jump right into it without reservation and give us exactly what we'd hope for.

Patrick Wilson who is a really good actor seems to feel out of place. I always interpreted Dan Dreiberg as an overweight loser who's lonely and in a certain denial about who he is, just seems more like a nerd. The scenes with him and Akerman are almost painful at times. Akerman is extremely uneven, delivering the lines like a cardboard cut out. We are lucky that there is weight behind her back story, otherwise the entire scene with her and Crudup on Mars would have fallen flat and made the entire third act seem fruitless.

One of my big complaints is in some of the sound design. Every punch and hit sounds the same. A heavy baritone thud. It doesn't matter if someone is thrown against a wall, punched in the face or kicked in the balls. It is the same deep and painful thunk. It is there to make us feel pain, but starts seeming a little ridiculous after a while. I was waiting for someone to set down a coffee cup and hear that same thunk after a while.

Given a choice, would I rather read the book or watch the film? I'd rather read the book, but the film does satisfy on a lot of levels. Though at times, it seems to be futzing around on the surface where the book is layer upon layer of dissecting the superhero mythos, as well as the human condition. It's a problem with any literary source being translated to screen, so Snyder and company should be commended for accomplishing what most would consider improbable.

8.0 out of 10