2009 / 163 Minutes / R
Reviewed by Dale J. Nauertz

Every decade has its genre du jour. In the 30’s, it was the gangster picture. In the 50’s, it was the biblical epic. In the 80’s, it was “weird shit happening in suburbia” movies (which includes not only “E.T.”, “Back to the Future” and “Gremlins” but also David Lynch’s “Blue Velvet”). Our decade, of course, has the comic book adaptation. At its worst, this genre has given us every two-bit superhero imaginable in a pandering, kid-friendly PG-13 package (”Ghost Rider”, I suppose, is as good an example as any, though I thought it was a lot of fun). With such films as “Sin City”, “The Dark Knight” and now “Watchmen”, however, the genre has finally grown up.

“Watchmen” exists in an alternate 1985, wherein Richard Nixon is still president and a full out war with the Soviet Union looms just over the horizon. Within this world, “Watchmen” follows a group of superheroes that once belonged to a kind of bizarro world Justice League but are now past their prime. To be fair, after Nixon outlawed all masked vigilantes, they really didn’t have much to do. When one of them is murdered, another of them begins investigating the crime and soon posits the theory that someone is killing off these one-time masked adventurers one by one. But who is doing this? And for what purpose? And does it have anything to do with the looming war and possible apocalypse? Soon the old gang gets active again, all of them working to solve the mystery before their lives (and, perhaps, millions of other lives) are put to an end.

“Watchmen” the movie, like “Watchmen” the comic book, has a lot to say. And not just about the usual comic book topics like Good Vs. Evil or Power and/or Responsibility, but about American foreign policy, the presence of evil in everyday life, man’s inherent inhumanity to his fellow man and what it might take to truly achieve world peace and other assorted moral and philosophical quandaries. There’s a reason “Watchmen” was on Time Magazine’s list of the 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century, and I’m happy to report that that reason makes the transition from the page to the screen quite nicely.

To say much more would be giving away some of the best surprises in both comic book fiction or cinema in a long, long time. I don’t often read comic books, but I HAVE read “Watchmen” (TWICE). Therefore it’s hard for me to review the film on its own merits. When I heard they were going to translate this awesome graphic novel into a motion picture, my biggest worry was that they would drain away all the dark corners (pff, corners, this movie has a dark, chewy center), existential dread and pitch-black cynicism of the source material. Thankfully, although his previous “300″ was just one long CGI battle sequence without any real characters or insight, Zack Snyder and his collaborators have done a marvelous job of bringing “Watchmen” to the big screen with all its grit and dread in tact. If anything, he has adapted the book a bit TOO slavishly. He’s basically taken the graphic novel and just thrown it up onscreen, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but there’s a reason that movies are movies and books (even comic books) are books.

For one thing, there’s the issue of pacing. “Watchmen” flows pretty well, but it would have flowed a lot better if Snyder hadn’t been so afraid of losing a sub-plot here or there. (AH, but which ones? I know that filmmakers often have to kill their darlings, but the individual scenes and sub-plots of “Watchmen” are all absorbing and first rate. How do you decide which of these amazing bits to trash?) Hell, he didn’t even have to lose an entire sub-plot, just a scene here or there would have kept the film from feeling quite so long. (The scene between the current Nite Owl, for example, and his aging predecessor could have fallen under the axe without losing much. It’s a nice bit of business, but it could have been cut without impacting anything else. And the sex scene in the flying owl–that statement sounds completely outlandish unless you’ve either seen or read this–could have been shorter. As it stands, that scene just feels…awkward. Unless, of course, that was what Snyder was going for, in which case, good job!) I know that Snyder was trying to appease fans of the graphic novel and, perhaps, even its creator, Alan Moore. But in preserving so many of the graphic novels wonderful little touches, Snyder has made a movie that, while fascinating and visually stunning, could occasionally be described as plodding. If he’d streamlined things a bit more and experimented with the novel’s structure (as is, it is a story told in sections or chapters, which is the way a TV or comic series unfolds but it’s not very cinematic), he would have made an already great movie into a towering achievement. Besides, Moore is a notoriously cantankerous old hermit anyway, who would probably be grumpy even if a filmmaker adapted his comic books by simply pointing a camera at them turning the pages. So pissing him off is pretty much a foregone conclusion. And comics fans are a notoriously whiny bunch, prone to bitching about virtually ANY deviation from their beloved books, so they’re also going to be pissed no matter what. So you may as well make the movie the best damned movie that you can, Zack, comics fans and crotchety Brits be damned! At least, that’s MY opinion. But I loved the movie “Constantine” so I’m obviously not the target audience for this sort of thing. (Yes, Keanu Reeves is neither blonde nor British, can we please move past those aesthetic differences and appreciate a movie on its own damned merits? Do you honestly want the movie to star Sting? Really? STING?)

Many of these same comic book snobs have bitched about the one major area in which the film DOES deviate from its origin: the ending. Personally, I thought the ending worked. It retains the emotional impact of the original work while playing with the exact details and I, for one, am inclined to think that it might work BETTER than the ending of the book. Without giving too much away (I hope) the film’s resolution gives it more of a “wrath of God” feel that I really dug.

So, should those of you who haven’t read the book give a damn? Hell yes. “Watchmen” is an excellent film. It’s both a fine example of a superhero movie and a clever deconstruction of one all at once. It plays with the standard plot points and tired old tropes of the genre and uses them to present a deep, intellectually stimulating experience. There’s a lot more meat to this film than one would expect from the simple plot synopsis. The characters all have many layers and dimensions to them and the film delves into some very interesting themes and moral conundrums, while still providing all the spandex-clad ass-kicking that any attention deficient teenager could possibly want (and, hey, boobies). “Watchmen” is one of the few comic book action spectacles that reward you for NOT turning off your brain. It’s a magnificent film, despite its few defects.

Though, be warned: it’s almost three hours long and there is some very graphic violence and, at times, kinky sexual situations. If that’s not your cup of tea, well, you’ve been warned. If that’s what you look for in a film, however, you’re in for a rousing time.

Share on Facebook

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 10th, 2009 at 5:29 pm and is filed under Dale's Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.