This is less a full-on review and more of a conversation-starter and a placeholder for our future discussions of the film in the comments sections. But, a couple of scattered thoughts:
1. I thought there should have been a credit somewhere that said “Watchmen: Adapted from a 9th-grader’s book report on the graphic novel!” Not a dumb 9th-grader, mind you, just one who had to finish that book report in a hurry and so, in the time honored tradition of procrastinating 9th-graders everywhere, summarized the plot and just decided to ignore all the stuff that was over his head.
2. The generally dull, hamfisted*, and episodic nature of the film would not have been such a disappointment if it weren’t for the really outstanding title sequence chronicling the rise and fall of the superhero fad. This 5 or 10 minutes gave me hope that the film would be stylish and clever, if nothing else. Oh, it was not.
3. That sure was a lot of blood, huh? Like, a comical amount of blood? Something approaching the amount of blood you might see in a Saturday Night Live sketch parodying a hit horror movie called The Bloodletters? Is there an interview with Zack Snyder somewhere in which he says he wants to bring the realism of video-game violence to the superhero movie?
* OK, one example: We don’t need to see the bathroom door swinging open to reveal Rorschach pummeling the Big Figure in there. WE GET IT.
Professor Fury—Just saw the film last night and was going to post after others had seen it, so I wouldn’t be spoiling anything, but you have posted, and that is very good. Now I don’t need to.
Agree with you totally on the violence. I think Zack Snyder just loves gore. For all the repulsive and horrifying images and ideas from the comic, it never insulted us with gratuitous breaking bones, splattering guts, and so on. It really irritated me that Dr. Manhattan explodes people instead of just disappearing them, leaving blood and guts and bones hanging from ceilings, and that he apparently wins Viet Nam by exploding fleeing Viet Cong. He has been made into a far more bloody being than the comic imagines, and for one thing, aside from being disgusting, it undercuts his role. As for Nite Owl—I just cannot believe Dan Dreiberg would remorselessly shatter arms and legs the way he and Sally do in the prison. I mean, I like seeing Nite Owl in armor, and glossy with superhero power—he has to be capable in order to be a hero, it would seem to me, but this just goes way too far.
Finally, Zack Snyder seems to me to veer toward the Frank Miller notion of the hero—his “masks,” though supposedly not superhuman, seem capable of far more advanced physical feats than even superbly gifted physical specimens are capable of. Rorshach can scamper up the sides of buildings, they all appear to have learned martial arts from Crouching Tiger, Sleeping Dragon, and they can all jump down from heights that would kill even the most superb athlete in the world. In the burning building, Sally Jupiter falls something like forty feet and lands unharmed. Uh-uh. No way. So let’s get it clear: Is she a superhero, or simply a fantastically well-disciplined ordinary human?
Veidt is the most believable, at least in the comic. We can imagine that with his intelligence he has discovered a set of physical disciplines that lead to extraordinary abilities. I still don’t really credit his powers in the comic. Sorry, but it don’t work that way. But it is more believable than the movie, which doesn’t even try to explain Veidt’s abilities.
And on and on. Your comment about the bathroom door was exactly right. The one piece of brutality I think was wise was when Big Figure had the henchmen cut off the fat guys arms at Rorshach’s cell. In the comic, I was always puzzled by why they had to kill the fat guy because he was in the way, when killing him didn’t move him out of the way.
Maybe it is the hamfistedness I am thinking of, but I noticed that though I appreciated the realizations—it was nice to see the spots actually moving around on Rorshach’s mask—I found the movie, although more or less enjoyable, left me flat. At first I thought maybe because it was more than twenty years later and hard for me to recapture the zeitgeist. But I reread the comic frequently, and it always works for me. I think now it is just that Snyder is inferior to Moore, hugely inferior conceptually. I love your description of the movie having been made from a book report by a 9th grader. Just flat, flat, flat.
Interestingly, my son-in-law, Alex, a naturalized El Salvadoran who grew up hiding from the Reagan-sponsored death squads, and who still flinches when a helicopter goes over, hates the character of the Comedian as much as I do. The Comedian was not intended to be likable, I understand. I am not complaining. I think he is an accurate representation of that sort of man. He justifies his brutality and slaughter by claiming that life is all a joke and morals and kindness are meaningless. The truth of the matter is, it seems to me, that people do not choose such behavior because philosophy drives them to it, but because there is something in them that enjoys it. In other words, because they are despicable.
I enjoyed Tom Spurgeon’s thoughtful review.
Woop! Posted that link just as I saw your great comment, Jack. I like the remark about everyone seeming to be from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: One scene that drove me crazy in that respect was Rorschach’s escape from Moloch’s apartment; in the comic, when he dives out the window and hits the pavement, he injures his leg and goes down screaming—as one would if one jumped from the second floor of a building. In the movie, he gets right up and starts kicking ass again until the cops overwhelm him with sheer numbers. My point here is not that I wanted Snyder to be exactly faithful to that original scene, but that the effect of the alteration he’s made is, as you note, to make Rorschach more of a conventional superhero-movie superhero. I almost laughed out loud when he got up and started sweeping legs, and not in a good way.
And, um, so Dan and Laurie kill a bunch of those muggers? The movie seems perfectly OK with this.
C’mon, be nice
! You high-brow purists! Okay, so I can’t be the only dissenting voice in the room here who thought that the movie wasn’t THAT bad. Your joke about the 9th grader’s book report is hilarious, though.
I actually enjoyed the movie and the stylistic nods to the graphic novel. I tried to be as open as I could about my expectations, realizing that one of the things that makes Watchmen such an outstanding comic is the way it capitalizes on the comics form – so some things aren’t going to work on film. I found myself enjoying Snyder’s attempt, however much he missed the mark.
I was pleasantly surprised by the guy who played Dan. I also thought Dr. Manhattan’s character and the questions he raises were conveyed well. And wasn’t the comic pretty gory too? That didn’t feel out of place to me. And I’m not sure that Moore passes judgment on Dan and Laurie killing the muggers either…. would it have been better if they started groaning on the ground just to confirm that they’re down but not really dead…
What’s also funny about this is that the first reaction from most of the people I know who have seen the movie and haven’t read the comic is that it was boring. I suppose my one criticism would be that it tries to be too faithful to the comic (out of fear of angering fans) but perhaps Snyder should just have taken liberties and pieced the story together in a way that would have flowed better on film. Alan Moore wouldn’t care… he’s not going to see it anyway.
Have you ordered The Black Freighter DVD yet?
?!
[...] PrettyFakes, Professor Fury opines: I thought there should have been a credit somewhere that said “Watchmen: [...]
I was never a huge fan of this sacred cow. I appreciated it, but was not a a fan of the art (layouts and composition aren’t enough if I don’t like what is drawn). I can’t recall, did the movie ever actually admit that no one has powers (to the audience)? Maybe we should pretend we didn’t know! It was ok. The violence was a bit of a shock, but I didn’t mind. One thing that I did notice was how disconnected I feel from the political message of the story (and movie). They feel less than timeless to me. I am glad I didn’t try to figure which long box those comic books were in. I dunno if I wanna re-read again. I liked it ok (and like the movie) once was maybe enough.
Now that I’m thinking about it, I may enjoy everything Moore did better than watchmen and V for Vendetta. I guess I should re-read and see if they really creak that bad.
Claudia, the comic is gory, but the gore is—I hesitate to use this term—more realistic: someone gets their face cut open with a bottle and they bleed, someone gets shot and they bleed, people get blown up by a giant squid (OK, the last one isn’t so realistic). So, there’s gore, but it’s not that characters are dismembering people with a single blow a la the movie.
But I do agree with you that I wish Snyder had taken more and more interesting liberties with the film; I have to wonder what the canned Darren Aaronofsky adaptation would have been like.
Oh, and you can see that whole opening credit sequence online here.
Polly, I dunno, some of the political themes from the book seem intensely appropriate to the last few years—the idea that Someone Who Knows Better is going to take care of us all, so don’t ask any questions about the bodies and what-not, seems pretty relevant.
So, there’s gore, but it’s not that characters are dismembering people with a single blow a la the movie. Okay, checkmate, you’ve got me there. The one scene that I actually though – wow, is this really necessary? – was when Rorschach was hacking that guy in the head during the flashback scene. That was more “Kill Bill” than Alan Moore.
Thanks for sharing the link to the opening credits!
Oh yeah, C, no, I haven’t ordered the Black Freighter yet—have you? The clip I saw online looked pretty interesting, and plus it comes with the adaptation of Under the Hood too, right? Should be worthwhile.
I was thinking more about your comment about Snyder’s liberties: I really liked all the viral video promotion stuff that they put out before the movie—the 70s-style newscast about Dr. Manhattan, the PSA about watching out for vigilantes, etc. I thought it was all very smart and well crafted; I wish they’d made room for more of it in the movie to provide some texture (which is one of the reasons I love that credit sequence so much). Then again, 12 issues of any comic, even one not as dense as Watchmen, is tough to compress into 2.5 hours, so it’s no surprise some of that stuff went out the window.
Prof, perhaps it’s my sensibilities, but the Nixon (Reagan) of the 80s just seemed less about big brother than about the way that the public was WILLING to have that. that it was a small number that saw the real deal and thus the sentiment behind the line where he says “No” when they (society) asks to be saved. That he feels the sheep get what they deserve.
That, to me is the old “granddaddy” paradigm of Reagan mixed with Nixonian “Law and Order”. To me, that’s not today. There is a ‘we know best’ theme to Bush, to be sure, but that’s tempered with half the nation (then later, the majority) rejecting this harshly and finding him no agreeable protector, but an incompetent bumbler from the get-go. The story just doesn’t connect for me there and (i mean this in a nice way, perhaps capturing another time) feels dated.
That said, i enjoyed the movie fine.
Hey, Dan and Laurie don’t kill those muggers in the book…!
So from these reviews, I see that Wired magazine was correct. Watchmen is a production designed to get us in touch with our inner barbarian.
@plok – oops! sorry….! should have consulted the source first.
No trouble, Claudia…heck, I haven’t even seen the movie yet, but I find myself suddenly very protective of “my” Dan and Laurie…
Kind of unreasonable of me, I think.
And yet!
I’m still working through what I think of the film. There is a lot that could be said but I want to focus on the political point for a moment.
When I came out of the movie I was disturbed by Veidt’s position and the acceptance of it by the other heroes, whatever their reasons (the more I think about it, the more the acceptance rubs me wrong). Perhaps I am supposed to be disturbed by his (final) solution. But given the contemporary discussions about government versus market control and what the two sides take as a base for their beliefs, I’m mildly worried that many will see Veidt’s attempting to fix humanity as an example of the view that liberal intellegentsia think know better than everyone else (especially since there are many obvious criticisms of the conservative side).
Which is why I was surprised to see Polly attach the “we know better” position to Bush (but I see why he would).
Amusingly, I actually woke up this morning thinking that Veidt, at least in the film (need to return to my source material), stands as a pretty good example of what Ayn Rand misunderstood.
[returning to the earlier post about Veidt, is there a bigger instance of naive school boy heroism than attempting to solve all the world’s problems by making energy free?]
I think maybe I’m required by nerd law to put this up:
This was funny until it reminded me of Turbo Teen. As I was saying to Claudia, I do not believe anyone who tells me that show wasn’t meant to be the most disturbing thing on Saturday morning.
Hud, I had the same concerns that you did about people taking the film as a screed against big-headed libruls. To be sure, there are elements of that in the book as well—the New Frontiersman turns out to be a more reliable source of news than the Rolling Stone-ish Nova Express—but Moore greater care, it seems to me, to make clear that the book isn’t about any particular political philosophy or party (defining “political” narrowly, I guess).
But I attached the “we know better” position to Bush as well—his administration really seemed to embrace a kind of paternalism—one hand patting our heads, the other hand clenched into a fist—that said we just didn’t need to know what they were doing to keep us safe. The Obama crew seems to be deliberately avoiding that tactic as a matter of style and (mostly) substance—with the important exceptions ably noted by Salon’s Glenn Greenwald—and pushing for a more engaged electorate.
Then again, maybe I only perceive it that way because I’m a big-headed librul; as my occasional glimpses of Fox News reveal, some folks do see Obama as a scheming Big Brother Antichrist Hitler.
My problem was with the irony of Snyder and crew needing so badly to change the ending of the graphic novel for the adaptation. So let me get this straight:
A giant killer squid= too strange
Mythical, gentically engineered lynx= just right.
Uhm, okay.
(shame over still not having seen it)
I just now read Anthony Lane’s review (ha! ONLY A WEEK LATE ON DELIVERY), and all I can think about is him pining over “where’s the comedy [in the comics],” and how Tales of the Black Freighter is soooo comic booky, in that EC way, and how there was no comic in that, either.
He’s only 60 years behind the curve!
Professor Fury, Claudia, Polly, Hud, Gorjus: I haven’t check my comment, but I believe I said Sally Jupiter when I meant her daughter, Laurie Juspecyk.
Prof, I am with you almost completely. Claudia, the point of the gore in the movie is clearly that it appeals to those who like violence and gore. I hated it. The comic book IMPLIES that horrible things take place, but does not appeal to our barbarian nature by actually bringing them to conceptual existence. It does not, in other words, glory in the gore. Its point is that people certainly do these things, but that is bad, not good.
Interestingly, the one exception is the New York deaths. The comic presents piles of bodies, a horrible sight. The movie gives us a nice clean scene of wreckage, no bodies.
Hud, Professor Fury, Gorjus, and I carried on a discussion about Veidt in comments on some posting months ago, I forget which, but one that is probably in Comixx. My contention is highly similar to yours. I pointed out that human society does not work deterministically, so it is impossible to predict the outcome of any event accurately. Who would have though, when H Bush, was so popular, that BC would be the next president? (Well I did, predicting in 1988, but you know what I mean.) Or that a zero like W could succeed Clinton?
That being the case, Veidt has no way to guarantee the outcome of his plan, the unity of the human race. Therefore his is killing millions out of hubris, the certainty that he knows best. I think this is best shown in the comic when he throws up his hands to celebrate and yells “I did it!” Very egoistic, very human. Not something a man who has just slaughtered millions of people and is supposedly haunted by the decision should do.
My point is also that the nondeterministic nature of human society is a fundamental limit—that is, no amount of genius is sufficient to overcome it, just as no amount of genius allows anyone to violate Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle.
As for the question of the believability of the politics. Interestingly, again, I found the comic intensely believable, and disturbing. Perhaps this is a function of having spent six years as a young adult with Nixon as president, and having been deeply dismayed by the war thirst of my country during Viet Nam, and the lies and oppression of the government.
Is there not, even now, talk—and I hope that it stays that—about a constitutional amendment so that Arnold can run for president?
But I found the movie absolutely unconvincing. The politics came across as just a backdrop to permit the story. So in my opinion, something went wrong between the comic and the movie. I do NOT think it is because the political realities have changed so much. With Professor Fury, I think politicians and people are pretty much the same as they were then, and the insights into human behavior are as germane as they were then.
I’m just re-reading it now…I guess it’s been a long time, but it didn’t feel like it had been until I cracked it open. Had to wait ‘til I got my hands on a new copy, unfortunately I am always finding ways to give my old ones away! Very interesting re-reading with all these new critical thoughts in my head, sparked by the movie I haven’t seen yet. Some folks have said remarkable things: one person said the great thing about Watchmen is how quiet it is, and you know I am really noticing that consciously this time around. Doubtless the movie is anything but quiet, anything but subtle.
Somebody else said they didn’t like the Veidt in the movie, because he was too arrogant: they said the book’s Veidt was motivated by love, compassion, and understanding…to save the world. I confess, I just didn’t expect to read an opinion like that. Jack nails it, as does the Prof in that great Ozy-as-fanboy post…Veidt’s a child, who thinks only genius is sufficient to the hardest problems, but really the thing about the hardest problems is that nothing is sufficient to them, and it takes a brilliant fool to convince himself otherwise…takes a genius that only the stupid can have. I don’t know, who wouldn’t take a solid failure over a hollow victory, any day of the week? I think Moore and Gibbons are at pains to show us the fruitless inconsistency at the heart of Veidt’s plans…though interestingly, I’ve also read people saying that the world is saved. Jack, doesn’t it remind you of that bit about the grandiose conceits of the youthful artist we were talking about?
One truly appalling thing I read was that the squid was a stupid idea, because as we all know nuclear war didn’t happen after all. This took my breath away: the casual implication that everybody was just behaving hysterically all that time, not knowing (one presumes the opiner meant) that all anyone had to do was sit tight for Reagan to “beat” the Soviet Union. Astonishing! Horrifying! One would think we all didn’t come within a butterfly’s wing of dying in fire…oh, but that easy cynicism of youth is a blackhearted thing, ain’t it? But I guess determinism is a comforting illusion, for some.