Watchmen: Murex

Murex's Journal, March 6th, 2009: Hot dogs in heater this morning, sweet relish on burnt frankfurters.

This theater is afraid of me. I've seen its true facade. Impressive. Very art nouveau. The trailers are all extended teasers and the teasers are full of explosions and when they're over all the fanboys will drown in their sweat. The accumulated filth of all their candy wrappers and popcorn buckets will foam up around their feet and all the film buffs and comic-lovers will shout "Start the movie!" and the projectionist will whisper, "No." but then the manager will have a stern talk with him and he'll change his mind.

Watchmen, in case you have somehow missed it or are some night-clubbing cool kid with no nerd friends whatsoever, is a graphic novel. Many would argue that it is in fact the graphic novel. If you are new to Watchmen, do not approach your resident comic-book-reading friend to learn about it. They will gesture wildly and begin foaming at the mouth in an attempt to both explain what the premise of the novel is and to express their ardent fervor for its brilliance, which may result in a mild stroke.

The setting of the film and novel is an alternate 1985 America, where masked heroism has been outlawed. Reaching its heyday in the forties, the moral quandaries of allowing "masks" to take the law into their own hands finally reach their peak and Congress forbids it. All heroes retire—except for the misanthropic Rorschach, an over-the-edge masked avenger with an inflated sense of justice and a belief that morality is an absolute value.

It is this aspect that makes the property so engaging—all the characters are so astoundingly human, with all the problems and personality disorders you'd expect someone who punches guys while dressed up in tights to have. Even the godlike Dr. Manhattan has problems with being immortal, indestructible and omnipotent. All of this comes through via the (mostly) capable performances of the film's actors. Some stilted acting, however, comes close to ruining certain moments, and while the performances are mostly decent, there is a certain robotic feeling to it all, that it's an adaptation, not a work by itself, and the movie suffers from it.

The action sequences in the movie are stylized, and a bit over-the-top in classic Snyder tradition. Making extensive use of slow-motion and kung-fu flick-esque choreography, one gets the feeling that these segments are there for the benefit of everyone who came to see Watchmen: That One New Comic Book Movie, as opposed to Watchmen: the Adaptation of Said Comic. I'm not saying that Silk Spectre never kicked ass, just that I don't remember her turning a guy upside down and slamming him bodily into a wall. The same goes for a lot of the violence in the film. I really don't remember that many stray entrails. Don't bring the kids. Seriously.

Visually, the movie is candy. As close to the novel as a movie made in this era could possibly be, Zack Snyder's love for the source material is shown in beautiful still shots and slow pans, letting the viewer take it all in. His eye for detail is unmatched as well, cramming as much as he possibly can into every frame. In a way, though, it proves Alan Moore right: even with all the loving detail in the world, a movie is a ride on rails rather than a walk in the park, and the viewer can't stop and admire and examine the little things as one could with a comic book. Having said that, the film does its damnedest and succeeds for the most part on translating the still panels into moving images.

Some things had to be cut, however. The Tales of the Black Freighter comic-in-comic is nowhere to be seen, and several smaller scenes were taken out, dampening the impact of events like the unmasking of Rorschach. The climax of the novel has been changed, but before you storm angrily out the door, it was tastefully, even brilliantly executed. While I do enjoy Moore's version, I think it would have (ahem) alienated many moviegoers, leading to confusion and lots of what-the-fuckery. A hilariously subtle nod is made to the novel—possibly for the Watchmen faithfuls like me—during the movie's version of the climax, something I sadly missed and had to have a friend point out to me. Luckily in the case of the deleted scenes, Snyder plans on releasing a ginormagantuan three-and-a-half-hour director's cut version of the film on DVD, and if we are good fanboys and it sells, there are rumors of a theatrical release of this version as well. Fingers crossed, mates.

All in all, it's a good movie. It's not a fantastic, mind-altering experience. It's Watchmen: The Ride, the essence of the novel brought to life as vividly as it can be. Its flaws are apparent, and serve to show the stark contrasts between mediums, and how a positive aspect in one can be a pitfall in the other. Its obviously painstaking recreation of its source is its biggest shortcoming, and fails to attain a real level of greatness and soul as Christopher Nolan's Batman reboot and sequel did for that series. A gem to be sure, but a flawed one.

(I feel I should also mention that there is a penis in this movie. A blue one. I feel I should mention this because every single other review in the godforsaken universe thinks it's important. I mean, yeah, sure, it's obscene. That's kind of the point. Can we grow up now?)