I went and saw Watchmen this weekend. I'm going to talk about the film at length. If you don't want to know what goes on in the movie, stop now. If you haven't read the book, stop now since most of what I have to say about it will be in reference to the book. Also: I'm going to refer to the character names, not the actor names.
Just to fill in some space: Acting ranged from mediocre (Laurie Jupiter/Silk Specter) to exceptional (Walter Kovacs/Rorshach). Special effects were, as expected, fantastic. Story follows pretty much the through line for the book so if you liked the book, it's likely you'll like the movie.
That said, now let's go below the fold.
After this lurk the spoilers.
The Good
The realization of the tone of the book and the nature of the world of the book is pretty good. The special effects are great and, what's more important, are integrated into the book. I have some quibbles with the Doctor Manhatten character in that I think they could have toned him down somewhat, but it's a quibble. They got Rorschach down right down to the undone epaulet on his left shoulder.
The ending in the original Watchmen is pretty lame. Ozymandias contrives an alien invasion that will unit mankind in the face of certain Armageddon. Okay. Like we haven't seen that a million times before. But the book was essentially built as a series of character studies and the ongoing plot was the armature around which these studies were wound.
In the movie, they completely rewrote the climax. It is not a contrived alien invasion and destruction that becomes the scare tactic by which humanity is unified, it is a contrived attack by Doc Manhatten himself-- much more believable. In the story, and the book, the relationship of the world to this God figure is uneasy and this confirms deep suspicion. Moore should have done this instead of the other.
And this choice drove out much unnecessary material. The Black Freighter subsequence was a morality tale on the dangers of obsession-- which was then played out on a grander scale across the rest of the book. The ostensible role of the subsequence, the author having been coopted into writing scenarios for the grand invasion, is now removed. The inset extractions of books, movies, psychological profiles which further illuminated characters, were reduced to side dialog of television shows or the book on a shelf.
The change to the climax removed even the merest hint of needing that stuff.
They got Dan Drieberg down. They got Doc Manhatten down (mostly). They got the comedian down. They dropped the cops looking for the murderer of the comedian and concentrated on the masks. All good.
The violence was beautifully choreographed. It was very violent (more below) but there were layers to it. Normal violence could not be stopped by hero violence-- hero violence was just too powerful. But then normal hero violence was topped by Ozymandias' violence. This is pretty much in keeping with the book and reminded me of Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven.
The Bad
They trivialized the subplot of Laurie finding out the Comedian's her father down to the point it was meaningless. It was a little station of the cross that had tobe observed to the religious faithful. Laurie, herself, was not well realized.
One problem was with the script itself. When Moore wrote Watchmen, back in 1985, he took pains not to have any comic dialogue in it. So, phrases like "arch-enemy" just didn't happen or if they did happened in situations that showed they were seen as rediculous. The script writers for the film just couldn't keep away from them.
They got Nixon completely wrong. From a failing president who agonizes of impending nuclear war-- like any president should-- they created a war monger.
There was also a continuing sense the director thought we were stupid. (Which may have been the source of the comic book dialogue.) For example, when Eddie Blake is buried, the camera shows over the graveyard. Hundreds of tombstone. Camera pulls back out through the gate and rises until we can see the writing over the gate: CEMETARY. Okay. I think we got that. If it was in the book, they still should have cut it.
Also, in the comic, Jon's dick was just a little squiggle. In the movie, he's four stories tall and you can tell if he's Jewish or not. There were points in the film where I wanted to bleach my eyes.
Going with that, the movie earned its R rating. The sex was just short of pornographic-- not that I don't like pornography. I just don't like to be surprised by it. The violence was, well, violent. It was as if Zack Snyder said to himself. Heck. That's violence? Let me show you violence. That's sex? Let me show you sex. The sex and violence of the book were points to be made. Here it was just unnecessary sensationalism.
Further, the violence didn't fit with the characters. There were scenes, for example, in the fight between the knot-tops and Dan and Laurie where some moves were clearly fatal. Killing was not something that Dan and Laurie did.
The Mars discussion between Jon and Laurie was anticlimactic.
While the change to the climax was very, very good, the post climax ending was just... well, wrong. The book tail off was far superior and could have been used.
The movie was 2 hours and 43 minutes and it was just about 30 minutes too long.
The Ugly
My friend David once described monuments as going like this: the first generation does something. The second generation lionizes the first generation and builds a monument builds it to show what they did. The third generation thinks its funny and the fourth generation has forgotten all about it.
Moore is 1 year younger than I am.
Watchmen is a morality tale about how the world was made different by the introduction of just a few things. Doc Manhatten wins for us the war in Viet Nam. At one point, Eddie Blake says "it was good that we won the war. If we hadn't, it might have driven us crazy as a country."
Which, of course, it did.
When the book was written, we had an evil empire, Ronald Reagan as president and Richard Nixon trying desperately to rehabilitate himself.
After the book came the fall of the Soviet Union, the first Gulf War, the Clinton Impeachment, 9/11, the War in Afghanistan and the War in Iraq-- Bush's successful attempt to recreate Viet Nam.
The points Moore was trying to make are irrelevant. (As opposed to V for Vendetta which are just as relevant now as they were then-- and which was made into an unspeakably vile film.)
This said, Watchmen is now a safe movie. Those that fund movies had nothing to fear from it. As opposed to V which is still pretty radioactive and therefore had to be castrated before it was ever put on the screen.
The Bottom Line
If you go see it, be prepared for some pretty rough stuff. See it on the big screen. The special effects will be wasted on the little one.
But it is more of historical interest than anything else.
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