After all of the hoopla surrounding Zack Snyder’s adaptation of Alan Moore’s seminal graphic novel Watchmen, it’s rather ironic that the film peaks during it’s opening credits sequence. The rest fails to recreate the sense of wonder and
emotion contained in these five minutes. Set to Bob Dylan’s “The Times they are a Changin,’ ” viewers are shown a series of living dioramas, dramatically rendered scenes
that show us the rise and fall of the superheroes at the film’s core. We see them compromise their principles as the world around them goes to
hell. It’s a bracing representation of failed heroism, and brilliantly encapsulates one
of the book’s great themes. With this sequence, Snyder achieves a sense of urgency, wonder
and fun that the ensuing two hours and 35 minutes never achieves again.
Hardly a traditional Superman tale, Watchmen not only subverts the superhero genre, but questions society’s need for heroes. It’s a grand, sweeping saga that takes place in an alternate history in which
Richard Nixon is still president in the mid-1980s, thanks to his success in
Vietnam, and the world stands on the brink of annihilation, as the Cold War
between the U.S. and Russia has reached a fever pitch. This sprawling story,
filled with pop culture allusions, lengthy flashbacks and extensive back
stories for each character, was long thought to be unfilmable. This version may
be proof of that.
Faithful to the comic to a fault, the film quickly establishes the story’s grim tone as we witness the brutal murder of the Comedian (Jeffery Dean
Morgan), a former member of the superhero group, the Watchmen, and an ex
government assassin. His teammate, Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley), a vicious
vigilante with a mask decorated with an ever-shifting inkblot that mirrors his
mood, sets out to solve this crime and tries to recruit other ex-heroes to
help. However, now that caped do-gooders have been outlawed, he finds the Silk
Spectre (Malin Ackerman) and Nite Owl (Patrick Wilson) reluctant to help, as
they’re both dealing with emotional hangups stemming from their superhero days.
Meanwhile, Ozymandias (Matthew Goode), the brains of the group, has gone into
hiding, having made billions from merchandising his own persona, while Dr.
Manhattan (Billy Crudup), a walking atomic bomb and the only one with any true
powers, has exiled himself on Mars, having grown weary of those on earth and
their troubles.
As Rorschach unravels the mystery behind the Comedian’s death, the film tries to build a head of steam but proves only to be
sporadically engaging. Snyder is crippled by his own insistence on duplicating
the look and feel of the book and winds up sacrificing a sense of urgency in
the bargain. While it would be unfair to say that the film plods along, it
never really catches fire with the sense of joyous momentum found in Iron Man or the degree of urgency in The Dark Knight. The story’s episodic nature prevents this, and while the individual plot threads devoted
to the origins of Dr. Manhattan and Rorschach are arresting, so much of the
rest of the film’s plot seems to be simply filling time.
Without question, Snyder’s film is a success visually as it presents an incredibly dense tableau replete
with allusions to a wide variety of pop culture icons and happenings while
creating a world that fanboys will have great fun deconstructing. This is
required big screen viewing and will elicit more than a few “wows” from the audience. I only wish the story itself would generate the same
response.
This article appears in Mar 5-11, 2009.
