WATCHMEN: The loyal treatment

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/03/2009 (6359 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If it achieves nothing else, the movie version of Watchmen should once and for all dispatch the notion that superhero movies are kid stuff.

We had intimations that notion would be put to rest last year with The Dark Knight, a movie in which director Christopher Nolan removed all traces of ironic condescension toward the much-abused figure of Batman. Nolan did the character justice by taking him seriously.

Director Zack Snyder (300, Dawn of the Dead) goes further than that. He approaches Alan Moore’s revered 1987 graphic novel as something like sacred text. Working from a truncated but essentially faithful screenplay by David Hayter and Alex Tse, Snyder turns Moore’s rich, complex, ambitious source material into a rich, complex, ambitious movie.

The film is set in an alternate version of 1985. Richard Nixon has managed to stay in power for a third term, riding on the considerable shoulders of an authentic American superman called Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup). Once a scientist, Dr. M uses his ability to alter matter to help Nixon win the war in Vietnam, while all other non-super costumed vigilantes have been outlawed by an act of Congress. But that victory has boosted Communist Russia’s hostility, and the world is now looking anxiously at a Doomsday Clock that is counting down to a possible nuclear Armageddon.

Given that background, the brutal murder of a mercenary named Edward Blake (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) seems like small potatoes. But a dogged outlaw vigilante who calls himself Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley) discovers Blake was once a costumed crusader (The Comedian) and takes it upon himself to warn his retired costumed brethren of the possibility of a "Mask Killer" stalking their disassembled ranks. But they apparently have their own issues:

• Dr. Manhattan is feeling more and more removed from the problems of humanity, given his ability to see the universe with a dispassionate, scientific perspective.
• The Doc’s main squeeze, Laurie Jupiter, a.k.a Silk Spectre II (Malin Akerman), senses her mate’s removal from the human realm, and seeks comfort with …
• Dan Dreiberg, a.k.a. Nite Owl II (Patrick Wilson), a one-time Batman-like hero now resigned to living in the past.
• Adrian Veidt, a.k.a. Ozymandias (Matthew Goode), is a super-intelligent industrialist (and retired hero) on a mission to save the world from itself, with Dr. Manhattan’s help.

All play a part in what turns out to be a mind-boggling conspiracy, necessarily simplified from Moore’s original story, but still impressive in its epic-scale treachery.

As with The Dark Knight, the tone is more savvy and mature than superhero movies of the past, built on the understanding that people who dress up in elaborate costumes to beat up on criminals are probably not the most emotionally balanced individuals.

But unlike Nolan, Snyder adds a layer of cinematic stylization to the proceedings, including his penchant for bouncing between fast and slow motion in the many action scenes. It is not unwelcome, given the film’s two-and-a-half-hour running time and its massive scale (including a sequence, lifted intact from the book, set on Mars).

With the exception of Akerman and her flat line readings, the main cast is excellent, particularly Haley, who powerfully embodies the psychopathic Rorschach.

Even so, Watchmen is a flawed film. The one way Snyder departs from the graphic novel is to pump up the violence to an unnecessary degree. Apparently, it is not enough to hear bones break. We also have to see the bone jutting out from a malefactor’s triceps during a fight scene.

Given the novel’s respected place in the comic-book realm, this stuff feels like it is pandering to the Ultimate Fighting Championship crowd instead of the book’s true fans, which the movie otherwise respectfully serves.

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

 

MovieReview
Watchmen
Starring Billy Crudup and Jackie Earle Haley
Garden City, Grant Park, Kildonan Place, Polo Park, St. Vital, Towne.
18A
★★★★ out of five

 

Other voices

Selected excerpts from reviews of Watchmen.

 

Decidedly not for kids, Snyder’s Watchmen is a must-see art film, textually dense, visually rich, provocative work and a contribution to the neo-noir genre in conveying the culture of fear, paranoia, and revenge.

— Emanuel Levy, emanuellevy.com

 

A mesmerizing and brutalizing experience, and will be, for some at least, more than worth the wait.

— Kevin Maher, Times of London

 

Watchmen isn’t boring, but as a fragmented sci-fi doomsday noir, it remains as detached from the viewer as it is from the zeitgeist.

— Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly

 

The real disappointment is that the film does not transport an audience to another world, as 300 did. Nor does the third-rate Chandler-esque narration by Rorschach help.

— Kirk Honeycutt, Hollywood Reporter

 

A work that’s easier to ponder than enjoy.

— Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel

 

They’ve made the most reverent adaptation of a graphic novel ever. But this kind of reverence kills what it seeks to preserve. The movie is embalmed.

— David Edelstein, New York magazine

 

The movie is ultimately undone by its own reverence; there’s simply no room for these characters and stories to breathe of their own accord, and even the most fastidiously replicated scenes can feel glib and truncated.

— Justin Chang, Variety

 

Incoherent, overblown, and grimy with misogyny, Watchmen marks the final demolition of the comic strip, and it leaves you wondering: where did the comedy go?

— Anthony Lane, The New Yorker

— Compiled by Canwest News Service

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