I’m sure, by this point, that people are at least passingly familiar with history of this project. Based on the seminal comic released in 1986 by luminary Alan Moore with art by Dave Gibbons, the movie has been in preproduction purgatory for two decades.
I am, as you may have guessed, a fan. Full disclosure at a moment like this is essential :-). The story is important to me. I grew wiser on its morals. Knowledge of this esoteric pop culture icon was , to quote another blogger, ‘the handshake of my youth‘. So I went into this with the pedantic eye of a purist. Surprisingly it was not a departure from the text that disappointed.
Zack Snyder cut his teeth directing Frank Miller’s 300 and, unfortunately, he brings the same aesthetic to bear on Watchmen, perhaps assuming this is what a mature comic looks like. Miller, while a writer I very much enjoy, tells brutal tales often accused of glorifying misogny and facistic violence. It is an irony that his aesthetic creeps into a fable designed to harshly critique these very things. The violence of the comic is made more extreme and dwelt upon in almost pornographic slow motion. It is lurid, unnecessary and fantastical. This is the directors most telling error. The characters on the page are frail, pot-bellied, impotent, easily-tired, and importantly all too human. The fantastical nature of their violence on the screen removes them too far from their human weaknesses. I have difficulty reconciling the sure-footed superhuman who can crash through ceilings and dispatch 20 foes with casual ease with the aging impotent man who sits worried for the world amid his dusty trophies. This dichotomy is, of course, central also to Moore’s text but here all subtlely is lost to Snyders puerile leering gaze. And this is perhaps my central point. The facts of the story are there, Jon’s difficult distance from humanity, Walters horrible past and Eddie’s view of the world terrifying due to its alluring accuracy but… I feel that Snyder misses these themes and all he sees are ‘cool superheroes’.
It is this approach that grates. At times the the adherence to the book is too slavish. A line that that compels in a cartoon text box falls flat and conceited onscreen; “What happened to the American Dream?” “It came true”. The difficulty most of the cast, with it has to be noted some real exceptions, have with this acting thing also disturbs the audiences involvement. The variations in Rorschach with and without mask are gone. The villains accent teeters further and further toward that of a camp nazi, climaxing as the denouement is reached. The differing philosophies of the heroes are lost as all veer toward ultraviolence and ‘comic book cool’.
When we left the cinema I made the point that ‘It was like a badly told joke’. In retrospect this is a bit unfair and was a rude comment hastily made. It’s not a bad film. It’s entertaining and the source material is intact enough for great lines (‘I’m not locked up in here with you. You’re locked up in here with me’) to shine and some of the themes of death, age, fear, impotent rage, and nihilism to peek through. But I felt that Snyder was retelling a great joke passed to him by a friend. He got every detail, remembered all the lines, but just can’t deliver a well-timed punchline. Here, all the details are lovingly enshrined but the point, I feel, is lost.
Good soundtrack though 🙂
Waxy's all about the Fromage 