A Review of Watchmen

It's been over a week since I saw Watchmen. In that week, I have been running the whole film experience in my head, analyzing every aspect of it. I went into the film with pretty high expectations, being a huge fan of the original graphic novel by Alan Moore (which is well documented on this site). Before the movie started, I was so nervous and excited that not only was I sweating holes in my clothing but I was also basically hyperventilating. 

So, with all of this pressure and anticipation riding on this one single movie, one may be wondering: what did I think? I have to say that, after everything, I really enjoyed Zack Snyder's film adaptation of Watchmen. It was incredibly flawed at times but I enjoyed it seeing it unfold in front of me so much that I was able to let most of these things slide (well, at least most of the time). It was exciting, incredibly faithful (surprisingly, at times), intense, violent, inspired, creative, complex, challenging, mature and pretty ballsy. It was, in my opinion, the best kind of filmmaking present in Hollywood today. It never compromised its source material (at least till the very end) and it put out a dark vision that most filmmakers could not create if they tried their hardest to.

I'll be honest- I'm not sure if I would have enjoyed this movie as much if I wasn't so familiar with the original graphic novel. The movie is so faithful to the original source material that, when certain things get cut for time, it feels like a gap in the film. It hurt to see certain sequences shortened (I wanted more of Rorschach in therapy sessions) or let go altogether (Hollis Mason's omitted death hurt... but I understand why it got cut). However, because I read the original source material, I was just able to fill in the gaps by myself in my head. It wasn't as if these omitted or shortened scenes didn't happen- it was just as if they couldn't be put on the screen before me. So, I just filled in the gaps myself. Many things were not explained to the unfamiliar (for example- Ozymandias' genetically engineered cat still appears at the end of the film without any explanation once so ever). I don't see how someone who hasn't read the graphic novel can be into this. However, I went to see this movie with people who hadn't read it and they still seemed to enjoy it a lot. So maybe I'm wrong on this point. It just personally feels like the movie is mostly made just for fans of the graphic novel, specifically catering to them 90 percent of the time. It almost feels like supplemental material to the graphic novel, fleshing out certain scenes that may have given you trouble the first time around and letting you see how cool it would be if Watchmen were actually a movie.

While we're on the faithfulness issue, I wanted to say that I really don't feel like I've seen a movie this faithful to its source material before aside from Sin City (which was absolutely as faithful as you could get). Snyder somehow manages to create a movie that is as faithful as possible to the Moore's difficult source material while also managing to make it distinctly his own filmmaking vision. This is still a Zack Snyder movie. It has his directorial staples and his style. But it is also Watchmen. I was always worried that these two styles would not work together but, for the most part, I believe that they do. Luckily for me and other geeks around the world, this in fact did not turn out to be 300 with superheroes. And thank God for that.

I was really impressed with Zack Snyder's direction in this movie. I, for one, have not been a fan of Snyder in the past. I was really against everything he did with the much-praised Dawn of the Dead remake (I still don't get why people think this was a good remake). I enjoyed 300 the first few times but time and over praise really killed a lot of it for me. I felt that Snyder's only real selling point was with action and that he even over did that. Luckily, the action is kept to a minimum in Watchmen. This is a good thing because Watchmen isn't a superhero story filled with action- it's a character study at its heart. 

However, when Snyder does do action in Watchmen, it's not sugar coated. In fact, it's pretty brutal. I've read a few reviews where people point out that Snyder's film is more violent than the already fairly violent graphic novel. I would have to agree. This thing is nasty. Still, I would not say it is gratuitous. Snyder is simply showing that violence in this world, from "good" and "bad" people, has a consequence. It is supposed to be hard-hitting, disturbing and off-putting, not fun. I felt that Snyder achieved this feeling. However, in my screening, many people seemed to get off on the violence, which disturbed me and left me feeling even more disappointed in the human race than I already am (in case you're wondering, I'm pretty disappointed). It is obvious when violence is being used for a certain purpose in a film as opposed to another. Violence and gore can actually be used for entertainment (see Final Destination 2). Snyder was not using it for entertainment in this film. He was showing how awful it is and for stupid people to not get that angered me beyond belief. Not only did I have someone giggle at a character attempting to rape someone but I also had multiple people cheer and clap when another character threw boiling grease on someone, horribly burning them. It was a little saddening. Still, I truly admire what Snyder was trying to achieve. It's not his fault people are idiots.

I felt like Snyder really did some spectacular things in certain sequences. The way he filmed the Comedian’s death was nothing short of beautiful. The whole thing sort of played out like a brutal ballet before me, set perfectly to “Unforgettable” by Nat King Cole. I loved every second of it. Snyder also showed his creativity in the very inspired opening title sequence, which goes through a forty-year history of heroes and shows how they changed history itself with their existence. As the film went on, Snyder managed to nail the atmosphere of the alternative 1985 universe, the feeling of all of the scenes in the graphic novel, along with the emotion of these sequences. As I stated earlier, I was really worried that Snyder would turn this completely into an action film. This is not the case in any way. Scenes that were emotional in the book got to me just as much in the film (the ending of the sequence with Laurie and Manhattan on Mars almost makes me cry). The scenes that were horrific in the graphic novel are just as horrific (Rorschach’s origin story). Snyder even managed to pull off the chapter about Dr. Manhattan on Mars, thinking about his entire life up until that point. One could claim that that chapter alone was unfilmable and, yet, there it is on the film. And it works almost as well as it did in the original graphic novel. In fact, I would argue it makes Manhattan even lonelier than he was in the original text. 

Snyder also manages to get some solid performances out of his actors. Jackie Earl Haley is Rorschach. I remember once I had heard that he had been cast I got excited. I had just seen Little Children, in which he gave an incredible performance. I knew that he would be perfect for the character and I’m glad to report that I was right. His performance is nothing short of Oscar worthy in my opinion. He’s scary, strangely likeable and even a little humorous at times. You could feel the audience falling in love with him as the film unfolded in front of us. The level of emotions that Haley managed to reach at times took me back. His stuff outside in the snow at the end almost had me tearing up. Jeffrey Dean Morgan also really stands out as The Comedian. He manages to be really charismatic, cold, evil and badass all at the same time. Morgan manages to tackle to the incredibly complex character with ease, making sure we get to see all of his multiple sides before his time is up. He really made me actually kind of like the guy at times, which is strange considering how awful of a person he is. He absolutely nailed the scene in Moloch’s bedroom. Billy Crudup was a pretty solid Dr. Manhattan. I was very critical of the use of Crudup’s unaltered voice for Manhattan initially but, after seeing the finished film, I liked that decision. Crudup made Manhattan seem so vulnerable and sad. In the end, I feel like I identified with and sympathized with this film version of Manhattan much more than I did with the version of him I perceived in the graphic novel. Patrick Wilson was also great as Nite Owl II. Nite Owl was always the character I identified with the most in the graphic novel so it was nice to see Wilson bring him to life and make him even more likable and human than he already was. I’ve been a fan of Wilson since I saw him in Hard Candy and Little Children. As far as I’m concerned, he just keeps knocking them out of the park. People need to keep their eyes on this guy. He’s probably one of the best male actors in Hollywood right now. I was nervous about Matthew Goode as Ozymandias as he didn't really look like the character and because so little footage was put out concerning him initially. I'm happy to say that those concerns were unfounded. I really enjoyed Goode's interpretation of Ozymandias. He's probably the hardest character in the whole bunch to play but I felt like he was subtle and really shined at the end. Out of all of the heroes, Malin Akerman as Silk Spectre II was definitely the weakest. Still, after much thought, I wouldn’t say her performance was bad. In fact, I felt that the emotion she reached on the Mars scene with Manhattan was pretty heartfelt. However, compared to all the other solid performances around her, it wasn’t hard to get a little swept away. I didn’t really buy Carla Gugino as the original Silk Spectre a lot of the time. She did well with the 1940’s era stuff but her retirement home scenes fell a little flat for me. I’m not sure why this is. She just felt off.

Despite all of these great things going for Watchmen, there are many things that Snyder did that had me scratching my head. I have to say that I’m torn over his use of music in the film. While I felt that his use of Nate King Cole’s “Unforgettable,” Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changing” and Simon and Garfunkle’s “The Sound of Silence” were all pretty brilliant and inspired, other choices kind of bothered me. I wasn’t crazy about his use of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” in a certain sex scene. I felt like it made the whole scene kind of a tonge-in-cheek joke of sorts and I didn’t really appreciate that. It took me out of the scene and kind of had me cringing a little bit. I also didn’t like how he used Jimi Hendrix’s “All Along the Watchtower.” I understand the significance of the song’s usage (and the fact a quote appeared from the Dylan version at the end of Chapter 10) but I just didn’t feel that it meshed very well with the images that Snyder had filmed. It just didn’t feel right. Also, My Chemical Romance’s cover of Bob Dylan’s “Desolation Row” is terrible. I don’t understand why they just didn’t use the Dylan version. It would have been a much classier way to end the film.

My biggest problem with the film would have to be the changed ending. I’ve been complaining about this for months now and I have to say- I still don’t think it plays as well as the original ending. The new ending works in the film but it just doesn’t have the shock value, insanity or raw emotional impact of the original one. I’m confused on the fact that Snyder was incredibly faithful to the source material accept for this one vital point. I guess he was trying not to completely isolate a mainstream audience. The new ending works but I just didn’t like it as much as the one I feel in love with the first time around. I did like a few things he did with certain characters and their reaction to what was happening in this new ending though. Despite it lacking the rawness of the original ending, I did appreciate some of the emotion that was added in some moments with both Dr. Manhattan and Rorschach.

In the end, Watchmen is a pretty amazing film experience. It’s incredibly faithful to its source material to the point of isolating anyone who isn’t familiar with it. It’s a brutal film to experience but also manages to be immensely entertaining. It manages a great balancing act with some of the most complex source material that one could get their hands on. After much thought, I’m not sure a better Watchmen film could ever be made. The amount of effort, love and faith that went into this thing is astounding. It managed to get out all of the things that I loved so much about the graphic novel and then some. It’s emotional, challenging, political, ideological, satirical, fun, painful, beautiful and everything else the graphic novel was. To me, it’s a piece of art. Is it as great of a piece of art that the original graphic novel was? No. As far as I’m concerned, Moore’s original graphic novel is untouchable. However, in the medium of film, Watchmen is damn impressive. It’s a force that must be reckoned with. It’s in your face, abrasive, ballsy filmmaking. It’s its own form of art. Sure, it’s flawed and it sacrifices certain elements that made the graphic novel a thing of perfection. But it’s just so close to being a masterpiece of filmmaking and adaptation that you just can’t help but admire the hell out of it.

If you go into Watchmen and don’t admire what Snyder and his crew were trying to do, there’s something wrong with you. If you can’t enjoy or invest yourself into this film in some way, you should stay away from film altogether. I've heard many people say that Watchmen is the Blade Runner of our generation. That's a bold statement but, after much thought, I think I'm starting to agree with it (ironically, one of Manhattan's speeches towards the end echoes Roy Batty's infamous "Tears in the Rain" speech). Watchmen is everything it should have been. It falls short from being perfect but I absolutely love what I got from it. I just wish more movies were made this way. 

8/10