Last Friday marked the debut of Watchmen, the eagerly anticipated film adaptation of the Alan Moore graphic novel. It's been years in the making -- various incarnations of the project have been in the works since 1987 -- and as one of the most respected parts of the comic "canon," so to speak, the bar was set pretty high. I've seen it twice now, and I feel like I have a fairly good handle on my feelings about it at this point.
When I saw the first trailers for the movie with The Dark Knight, I was extremely optimistic. From a visual standpoint, the movie looked perfect, and this is largely borne out by the final product. You can easily take stills from the film and compare them with panels from the comic; here's one such example. The actors, by and large, look right for their parts, though Matthew Goode is a bit slight for Ozymandius. That's only a very small part of what is important about Watchmen though, and as a result I was prepared for the movie to possibly end up as an ambitious failure.
What Zack Snyder has given us is not a failure, but it isn't quite as good as I and probably many others would have hoped. Yes, visually, it is stunning -- the fact that Dave Gibbons, the artist on the original graphic novel, was brought in to help with the production design no doubt had a great effect on the movie. Sets look like they were plucked out of the pages and it looks and feels very much like a New York of the 1980s. Even the writing, while subtly altered in many places, is largely lifted from the graphic novel. Unlike a lot of film adaptations, I feel like Snyder was at least trying to be as true to the original material as he could -- the closest comparison I can make is to Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies; even if you don't like what he's done, it's hard to say he was just doing it to cash in on an established property. It's not a Starship Troopers-esque rape of all that is good and holy.
On the other hand, while it seems like all the parts of the movie have been well crafted, the greater whole of the movie itself seems a bit rough around the edges. Part of this, I think, is due to the fact that Snyder is trying to squeeze an incredibly dense twelve-part comic series into a 165 minute movie. In a comic book or novel, it's relatively easy to refer back to a previous panel or spend time absorbing the small details that are embedded on the page -- a film can't really do that, though Snyder's signature slow-motion shots allow for a small amount of that sort of thing (for those of you worried it goes over the top, I did not find it really that distracting and didn't think he went overboard like some people thought he did with 300). At times, it seems like the movement of the plot slows to a crawl -- such as during the Comedian's funeral, when all the other characters are flashing back on their interactions with him in the past.
There's other problems though; while the alternate history is illustrated beautifully in an opening credit sequence (probably the most "visionary" part of the movie), it's still hard for some people to grasp, and the fact that none of the characters in the movie are exactly household names like Batman or Spiderman means that the above problem is compounded. Hence we get some conservative critics being shocked and appalled at the fact that these "superheroes" are all pretty messed up people, and the violence and sex in the movie gives it a well-deserved R-rating. People who take their kids to this movie will regret it -- and if you're squeamish about people being pulverized into a bloody mess in a graphic fashion or seeing sex scenes that can come off as tasteful Skinemax soft core, you probably won't really like the movie either.
When the movie gets things right, though, it really gets them right. Jackie Earle Haley is the spitting image of Alan Moore's Rorshach in nearly every way; his voice, presence, and appearance feels ripped straight from the page; he probably won't get another Oscar nomination for this part, but you could certainly make the case he deserves it. Only slightly less impressive are Patrick Wilson as the Nite Owl II and Jeffery Dean Morgan as the Comedian. Wilson manages to bring across Dan Dreiberg's frustration and impotence (literal and figurative) with aplomb; his relationship with Rorshach in the movie seems much stronger than it did in the comic, and that gives Rorshach's pathos an extra layer. Morgan's Comedian gets across both the menace and the emptiness within; the only place his performance seemed a little weak to me was his conversation with Dr. Manhattan in Vietnam, where I felt like it was missing something. In contrast, nearly every other scene he appears he's really good, and people who are saying he's a "Robert Downey Jr. lookalike" are really not giving him enough credit.
Speaking of Dr. Manhattan, Billy Crudup does an admirable job with a difficult part; while I was watching I felt like there was something just a bit "not right" about Manhattan, though it's hard to place why. The CGI is good, but as always it's not quite right, and maybe that was it. Maybe it was because some of the line readings seemed a little off; Manhattan's "miracles" monologue on Mars with Laurie doesn't have quite the impact it does in the comic with Crudup's detached tone. It's hard to tell, however, if this is intentional or not; certainly Manhattan is supposed to feel detached from humanity and strange -- the man, after all, is a god in all but name. If it is intentional, it's remarkably subtle compared to some of Snyder's other choices. And yes, you see a lot of his penis.
Matthew Goode as Ozymandius and Malin Ackerman as Silk Spectre II, however, don't really live up to the rest of the cast. While neither is horrible, compared to the rest of the main cast they fall a little flat, and Ozymandius' part doesn't come across as layered and ambiguous as it is in the graphic novel. Ackerman misses out on some of the characterization she gets in the comic; in particular, the pressure her mother placed on her to follow in her footsteps was not as well fleshed out. Even so, her chemistry with both Manhattan and the Nite Owl seems off at various points of the movie, and the film suffers slightly for it.
The rest of the supporting cast does a very good job; it's always good to see Matt Frewer getting work, and Carla Gugino as the first Silk Spectre and Stephen McHattie as the first Night Owl are both good in their roles, what there is of them. The actors playing Nixon, Kissinger, and other real-life figures worked a bit less for me, but that's a problem you almost always run into with playing well-known real life figures. They are serviceable enough, anyway. Unfortunately, the movie, at least the theatrical cut, does get rid of most of the small characters, like the newsstand owner and the taxi driver, that give the finale some of its impact in the comic.
The big question for the movie for many people was about the ending -- it has been changed from the graphic novel, but, in my opinion, the ending is still in the same spirit as the original, and in my mind the important parts of the antagonist's plan at the end is kept largely intact. The important revelation -- 35 minutes worth -- is there, though the line delivery falls a bit flat for me, and the ending confrontation between Rorshach and Dr. Manhattan is a much more emotional than in the comic. Whether this is more or less effective, I'm not sure; in the comic, this underlines Rorshach's resignation and Manhattan's detachment, while in the movie, it gives Manhattan a bit of humanity and makes Rorshach a bit more sympathetic. I'll leave it to you to decide which is better.
Overall, I certainly can't say I'm perfectly happy with the movie; I found The Dark Knight to be a much more compelling film when it comes to comic book movies, but as an adaptation of Watchmen I feel pretty confident saying that it is about as good as we're likely to get. It's clear that the director and the writers tried to tread a very fine line between strictly sticking to the story and images of the comic and making a movie accessible to more than just die-hard fans, and sometimes that doesn't quite succeed at doing either particularly well. In this case, I don't think it's failed in that way -- it's a good movie and a good adaptation, and I am now eagerly anticipating the extended cut on DVD -- but it certainly didn't meet the admittedly high expectations I had going in. It is still well worth seeing, however, and if it gets more people to read the book, that's always a good thing.
When I saw the first trailers for the movie with The Dark Knight, I was extremely optimistic. From a visual standpoint, the movie looked perfect, and this is largely borne out by the final product. You can easily take stills from the film and compare them with panels from the comic; here's one such example. The actors, by and large, look right for their parts, though Matthew Goode is a bit slight for Ozymandius. That's only a very small part of what is important about Watchmen though, and as a result I was prepared for the movie to possibly end up as an ambitious failure.
What Zack Snyder has given us is not a failure, but it isn't quite as good as I and probably many others would have hoped. Yes, visually, it is stunning -- the fact that Dave Gibbons, the artist on the original graphic novel, was brought in to help with the production design no doubt had a great effect on the movie. Sets look like they were plucked out of the pages and it looks and feels very much like a New York of the 1980s. Even the writing, while subtly altered in many places, is largely lifted from the graphic novel. Unlike a lot of film adaptations, I feel like Snyder was at least trying to be as true to the original material as he could -- the closest comparison I can make is to Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies; even if you don't like what he's done, it's hard to say he was just doing it to cash in on an established property. It's not a Starship Troopers-esque rape of all that is good and holy.
On the other hand, while it seems like all the parts of the movie have been well crafted, the greater whole of the movie itself seems a bit rough around the edges. Part of this, I think, is due to the fact that Snyder is trying to squeeze an incredibly dense twelve-part comic series into a 165 minute movie. In a comic book or novel, it's relatively easy to refer back to a previous panel or spend time absorbing the small details that are embedded on the page -- a film can't really do that, though Snyder's signature slow-motion shots allow for a small amount of that sort of thing (for those of you worried it goes over the top, I did not find it really that distracting and didn't think he went overboard like some people thought he did with 300). At times, it seems like the movement of the plot slows to a crawl -- such as during the Comedian's funeral, when all the other characters are flashing back on their interactions with him in the past.
There's other problems though; while the alternate history is illustrated beautifully in an opening credit sequence (probably the most "visionary" part of the movie), it's still hard for some people to grasp, and the fact that none of the characters in the movie are exactly household names like Batman or Spiderman means that the above problem is compounded. Hence we get some conservative critics being shocked and appalled at the fact that these "superheroes" are all pretty messed up people, and the violence and sex in the movie gives it a well-deserved R-rating. People who take their kids to this movie will regret it -- and if you're squeamish about people being pulverized into a bloody mess in a graphic fashion or seeing sex scenes that can come off as tasteful Skinemax soft core, you probably won't really like the movie either.
When the movie gets things right, though, it really gets them right. Jackie Earle Haley is the spitting image of Alan Moore's Rorshach in nearly every way; his voice, presence, and appearance feels ripped straight from the page; he probably won't get another Oscar nomination for this part, but you could certainly make the case he deserves it. Only slightly less impressive are Patrick Wilson as the Nite Owl II and Jeffery Dean Morgan as the Comedian. Wilson manages to bring across Dan Dreiberg's frustration and impotence (literal and figurative) with aplomb; his relationship with Rorshach in the movie seems much stronger than it did in the comic, and that gives Rorshach's pathos an extra layer. Morgan's Comedian gets across both the menace and the emptiness within; the only place his performance seemed a little weak to me was his conversation with Dr. Manhattan in Vietnam, where I felt like it was missing something. In contrast, nearly every other scene he appears he's really good, and people who are saying he's a "Robert Downey Jr. lookalike" are really not giving him enough credit.
Speaking of Dr. Manhattan, Billy Crudup does an admirable job with a difficult part; while I was watching I felt like there was something just a bit "not right" about Manhattan, though it's hard to place why. The CGI is good, but as always it's not quite right, and maybe that was it. Maybe it was because some of the line readings seemed a little off; Manhattan's "miracles" monologue on Mars with Laurie doesn't have quite the impact it does in the comic with Crudup's detached tone. It's hard to tell, however, if this is intentional or not; certainly Manhattan is supposed to feel detached from humanity and strange -- the man, after all, is a god in all but name. If it is intentional, it's remarkably subtle compared to some of Snyder's other choices. And yes, you see a lot of his penis.
Matthew Goode as Ozymandius and Malin Ackerman as Silk Spectre II, however, don't really live up to the rest of the cast. While neither is horrible, compared to the rest of the main cast they fall a little flat, and Ozymandius' part doesn't come across as layered and ambiguous as it is in the graphic novel. Ackerman misses out on some of the characterization she gets in the comic; in particular, the pressure her mother placed on her to follow in her footsteps was not as well fleshed out. Even so, her chemistry with both Manhattan and the Nite Owl seems off at various points of the movie, and the film suffers slightly for it.
The rest of the supporting cast does a very good job; it's always good to see Matt Frewer getting work, and Carla Gugino as the first Silk Spectre and Stephen McHattie as the first Night Owl are both good in their roles, what there is of them. The actors playing Nixon, Kissinger, and other real-life figures worked a bit less for me, but that's a problem you almost always run into with playing well-known real life figures. They are serviceable enough, anyway. Unfortunately, the movie, at least the theatrical cut, does get rid of most of the small characters, like the newsstand owner and the taxi driver, that give the finale some of its impact in the comic.
The big question for the movie for many people was about the ending -- it has been changed from the graphic novel, but, in my opinion, the ending is still in the same spirit as the original, and in my mind the important parts of the antagonist's plan at the end is kept largely intact. The important revelation -- 35 minutes worth -- is there, though the line delivery falls a bit flat for me, and the ending confrontation between Rorshach and Dr. Manhattan is a much more emotional than in the comic. Whether this is more or less effective, I'm not sure; in the comic, this underlines Rorshach's resignation and Manhattan's detachment, while in the movie, it gives Manhattan a bit of humanity and makes Rorshach a bit more sympathetic. I'll leave it to you to decide which is better.
Overall, I certainly can't say I'm perfectly happy with the movie; I found The Dark Knight to be a much more compelling film when it comes to comic book movies, but as an adaptation of Watchmen I feel pretty confident saying that it is about as good as we're likely to get. It's clear that the director and the writers tried to tread a very fine line between strictly sticking to the story and images of the comic and making a movie accessible to more than just die-hard fans, and sometimes that doesn't quite succeed at doing either particularly well. In this case, I don't think it's failed in that way -- it's a good movie and a good adaptation, and I am now eagerly anticipating the extended cut on DVD -- but it certainly didn't meet the admittedly high expectations I had going in. It is still well worth seeing, however, and if it gets more people to read the book, that's always a good thing.
This seems to be a pretty consistent sentiment among a lot of people (particularly those who are big fans of the book): there are a lot of great things about this movie, but in the whole it actually adds up to less than the sum of its parts. While I didn't feel that way, I can certainly see where it comes from. I think it's an interesting sub-phenomenon.