geekent’s stuff’n things

There was a moment - a series of moments, in fact - where I thought to myself “I cannot believe this movie got made.” It wasn’t any of the more gruesome moments involving saws or cleavers, nor was it the sex scene or rape scene or dangling blue penis. It was the quieter moments, the moments that take their time, the moments that delve. The first biggie was the Comedian’s funeral (if you haven’t read the comic, that “the Comedian” dies isn’t a spoiler, fyi), where the movie segues into flashbacks of the different characters’ interactions with the grandfather of anti-heroes. It’s the the sequences where the movie abandons “plot” or forward moving narrative to provide background and understanding for Dr. Manhattan or Rorschach that had me shaking my head in amazement that a major motion picture, a studio-backed movie, a fingers-crossed R-rated superhero blockbuster is taking time out from action to actually deconstruct and rebuild the superman and the dark vigilante.

I’m a few years’ removed from my last reading of the source material, but the impact of the story hasn’t left me. What I felt the first time I read it, what I understood each subsequent time, there it is, as accurately as possible, up on the screen. Visually, it’s a bit more day-glo, but no less, the world is familiar. Flashes of panels, poses, though moving for the first time, just as alive. The words, the words snap back like an elastic from unconscious memory… there’s fewer of them but so many of them just strike out the moment they’re uttered, as if to say “remember me?” I do. In so many respects, the film recreates the story, the character and the meaning, as well as understands the many different subtexts that Alan Moore, disassociated, embedded in his superhero masterpiece.

If a deconstruction of the superhero movie - a much shorter-lived genre in its field than the superhero comic was when the text was published - was what director Zack Snyder wanted, and I know that it is, than it is what he’s achieved. He’s managed to, somewhat surprisingly, retain the spirit of dissemination that made Watchmen such an important part of the comic book fabric, just as relevant on screen, which, frankly, I’m not certain the general viewing audience is ready for yet.

With blue balls hanging out in the open Snyder has honestly put together a primarily source-faithful work that succeeds in its own medium. Though bursting at the seams with only 70% of the original’s complexity, given the nature of the work, having it at 100% would make it a marathon which only the faithful or determined could enjoy. Retaining Moore’s Cold War nuclear paranoia, but filtering it gently with the afterglow of a brutal Republican presidency and steeping it in the fears of global instability, the context may have changed but the relevance hasn’t completely been lost. That a billion-dollar box-office was earned by The Dark Knight and Iron Man fared strongly with about half that, Watchmen casts superheroes in a darker spotlight, humanizing them from their out-of-touch with humanity roots, just as it did in the comics. To delve into the mind of Dr. Manhattan or Rorschach is kind of maddening, reflecting alien thoughts that are all to familiar.

Is the general audience ready for such depth from a comic book movie? Months removed from The Dark Knight, the Godfather of comic book movies, is it too soon for a movie that doesn’t dumb it all down, that doesn’t excise the moments for momentum? Although friendly with the source, I couldn’t help but try to see the story and the characters through fresh eyes. Knowing that it took me multiple reads to fully understand certain aspects of the story, I have to wonder how many unfamiliars, how many non-genre enthusiasts are going to put in the time and the repeated viewings to truly understand the story that’s being told. But I shouldn’t worry. It’s their loss if they don’t wish to invest. But going into the film cold, it’s not going to be an easy journey.

Watchmen is about a perfect a cinematic transposition of its source that one could even hope for. The panels come to life and kick ass, make love and shout in one another’s faces, the set design captures nearly every nuance, the costuming takes a life of its own but stays true to the spirit. The effects are top notch, with Dr. Manhattan a surprisingly effective CGI character and everything from the Owlship to the surface of Mars feeling natural within the world. The action is superheroic, sometimes comic-bookish but sometimes brutal and bloody, the oomph really getting felt. It’s at times far too clean, and at times uncomfortably and precisely dirty.

Indeed, Watchmen is nearly a perfect cinematic transposing of a brilliant comic book, and it’s a good film, with a great story, but it’s not a perfect movie. I could quibble about bad aging make-up jobs and a pathetic (in the wake of Frank Langella) caricature of Nixon, and I could expand upon the flat acting of Malin Akerman, but they truly fade amidst the weight of the production. Where Watchmen fails, if you can say such a thing, is in its heart.

In presenting such a brilliant story with such incredible characters and with such a rich pool of meaning, and trying to do it not just faithfully, but with precision, Snyder has put the comic on screen. It’s Alan Moore’s words (mostly) and Dave Gibbons’ visuals (mostly) with so very little Snyder to be seen. His slow-mo flourishes and action-movie action/sex from 300 aside, Snyder spends so much time trying to recreate the panels that he misses out on bringing his own heart into the proceedings. It’s obvious that he loves the comic, but on screen all that fanfare comes across as cold, often lifeless. The pacing of comics doesn’t necessarily agree with the flow required for film, nor does the movement of figures in action or the staging of people as they deliver their dialogue transfer from page to screen directly. Actors are limited in how they move to capture a panel-as-storyboard, restricting their performance, distracting them from obtaining a comfortable naturalness. their actions stop-starting so that you get that almost freeze-frame freel, sets that feel precise and beautiful, but betray a sense of reality’s touch. A sequence like the jail fight with Silk Spectre and Nite-Owl versus a bunch of prison goons gets no flair. What could have been presented like the one-on-many hammer fight in Old Boy feels showy but as lifeless as the bodies falling down around them. On the flipside, the omission of the finale’s “splash pages” which reveal the havoc and destruction caused, showing the real grim toll, sucked away a potent possibility for injecting some much needed humanity. Although, perhaps by design, the only real source of life is in a chilling, affective, and impeccably cool performance by Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach, bringing the character truly to life and not just a moving figure and live voice. Haley actually brought a passion to the character in his preciseness that revealed him in a way that I hadn’t even thought about in the graphic novel. This isn’t to say the other actors weren’t good performers, but few could escape Snyder’s need to be panel specific to really let loose a performance.

Honestly, despite this failing, (which given Snyder’s track record so far, perhaps we don’t really want him to inject too much of himself into his movies), I loved this film. As a fan, I reveled in the specifics, I couldn’t help but smile, a lot, at how much the movie reminded me of the book, and even the modified ending felt logical (though I prefer the source ending, I understand why it wasn’t presented for the masses). The film cannot replace the comic, and any expectation that it should would be ludicrous, but it provides much of the experience only in a new way. Not that I’m tired of Moore and Gibbons’ work, but breathing new life into old material can on rare occasion make you love it more.

4 out of 5 Vikings