Watchmen

3.5/4 stars

Comic book films took some time to make their way from geeky popcorn entertainment to a major part of the mainstream cinematic sensibility, and if the snubbing of The Dark Knight from a well deserved spot in the Best Picture category at the recent Oscars is any indication, they may have some way to go. Still, the fact that movies like it are being made at all is testament to a change in perception, and Watchmen is a landmark achievement to that end. Alan Moore’s graphic novel Watchmen has been acknowledged as a major work in superhero literature for many years, but in addition to the technology necessary to make a successful adaptation, there was also the need for an audience. The movie-going public has seen the superhero parody before, but Watchmen demonstrates that they are finally ready for the superhero deconstruction.

There is an important distinction that needs to be made here. Watchmen is unlike most comic book movies (but not unlike 2005’s V for Vendetta, also originally by Moore) in that it is a true adaptation of a story, not just its characters. The film, like the novel before it, seeks to challenge an audience that is largely accustomed to being simply entertained. At this it is hugely successful. The questioning themes of the novel are faithfully realized: its take on complexities of the superhero genre, its search for a cause for optimism. The major characters are deftly illuminated through flashbacks that always seem to have something more of the story to tell us than merely what is relevant to that particular character. The big screen also enables certain devices that the page does not; in particular, the addition of era-appropriate music (often the same songs that Moore quoted as chapter epigraphs) does tremendous work in creating mood. The opening credits montage, which shows us the various subtle differences in the history of the film’s world and our own, is also outstanding. Where the story is altered from the original, it is actually made cleaner, more symmetric, a rarity in film adaptations.

Many of the performances in Watchmen are virtuoso level, though they work so well together, and are so faithful to the source material that they become somewhat invisible. Patrick Wilson hits all the right notes as Daniel, Malin Akerman brings both allure and a sense of reality to the second Silk Spectre, and Matthew Goode captures the cold moral certainty of Ozymandias. Billy Crudup’s Doctor Manhattan will be long remembered among cinema’s great aliens, characters that looked at humanity from outside with human faces. Rorschach, played by Jackie Earle Haley, is such a perfect deconstruction of the vigilante archetype that I wonder if he will make all future Batman films obsolete (how will we witness Batman’s conviction without recalling Rorschach’s madness?). Jeffrey Dean Morgan is also a revelation as The Comedian; scary, charismatic, compelling.

The place where the film suffers may be its director. I’ve heard stories of Zack Snyder saving the project from lobotomizing studio executives and truly awful early drafts, seen interviews in which he shows a great reverence for the source material, and an enthusiastic vision for the film. What he has done would have required these virtues, as well as great craft and patience. But I’m afraid that Snyder’s affinity for intense and graphic violence has brought an unsavory character to much of the film. Watchmen was a violent graphic novel, to be sure. Praised for being gritty, it challenged its audience by showing them things they would rather not see, made them consider the dark side of their superhero fantasies. The violence in this movie is not grimly realistic however, but joyfully indulgent. The unfettered machismo of 300 has no place in this story, but Snyder remains true to the style that made him successful there. This, along with a problematically meandering ending, is the gnawing fault of an otherwise excellent movie.