Most of what’s good about Zack Snyder’s Watchmen was already
good about Alan Moore’s graphic novel. But give credit: For a generally
faithful adaptation, Snyder commendably lets Watchmen feel like
a movie.
Comic book fans can be as bad as Harry Potter fans for
flipping a lid whenever a film adaptation deviates from its source.
Since Watchmen is one of the most beloved works in the comic
medium, the movie presented a can’t-win scenario. If it replicates the
book exactly, it pacifies, but big deal. To be a great movie,
Watchmen would have had to let down loyalists by being
surprising and new—the film medium equivalent of the fresh feeling
the 1986 tome possesses.
Having only first read the Watchmen comic two months ago, the
film wasn’t something I was anticipating or dreading too much. It’s not
like I’ve lived with this story for 20 years. But Snyder, fresh off
bringing Frank Miller’s 300 to screen in
literal-translation-bloodshed, tackles Watchmen‘s complex
tapestry with moments of style. The opening credits (the first 10
minutes of Snyder’s movies are always their best) present the exploits
of past superhero team the Minutemen in fascinating still frames with
elements, like gun smoke, still in motion. Other shots, such as the Sam
Raimi-style move up the side of a skyscraper, show the director at
least doing what he can to make the movie its best.
Watchmen stands nobly among recent comic-to-movie adaptations
by virtue that its source has an intricate multi-sided approach to
which the director feels in debt. The melee of present reality with
flashbacks, and of fantasy with altered historical events, makes the
movie weird, thus worthwhile. But Snyder’s technical skill surpasses
his creativity. He doesn’t find a way around the most difficult traps
Moore sets for him. What resonates in the comic is its placement of
human realism within the pop genre. The movie never gets that far with
its characters. They deliver lines and are photographed in noir
artifice when they should have been observed more naturally. This
particularly grates in long scenes between Dan Dreiberg/Nite Owl
(Patrick Wilson) and Laurie Jupiter/Silk Spectre II (Malin Ackerman).
In their superhero outfits, the crime-fighting gig looks as serious as
a Halloween party.
The writing is good enough (again, virtue of the source) that it
often engages anyway. Too bad Snyder takes Moore’s adolescent “Woe unto
us all” theme more seriously than the comic’s superior attention to
character. When Snyder feels unsure he amps the violence. Sawing off a
goon’s arms gets the expected response, but a fetishistic recreation of
JFK’s head exploding leaves a bad taste.
By scoring a sex scene to Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” and the blue
mutant Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup)’s victory in Vietnam to “Ride of
the Valkyries,” Watchmen the movie has a sense of humour, even
if it’s not a good one. Giving Dr. Manhattan’s origin story the tone of
a monster movie is a highlight, but the film betrays the creature’s
professed detachment from humankind. Always looking about to cry, Dr.
Manhattan never comes across as stoic. But the will to go places that
might not work is what works for Watchmen. It steps off the
beaten superhero path. It trips up a lot. The last hour is mostly a
drag. But its best moments resonate of a blockbuster that’s taking
risks.
For showtimes, see Movie Times, page 45. Be a hero,
just for one day at palermo@thecoast.ca.
This article appears in Mar 12-18, 2009.