I'm watching the Watchmen...

Today I partook in a little cinematic history by heading over to the local multi-plex and watching a a seminal comic book of the 80's turned into celluloid. Yes, you've guessed it - it was Watchmen.

It's amazing that this movie (maligned and hotly anticipated in equal measure it seems) ever made it to the Silver Screen considering the various aborted attempts, claims by the author Alan Moore that it was 'unfilmable' and the multifaceted legal wranglings over distribution rights and copyright ownership.

But here we are at March 6th 2009, and the official UK release date for Watchmen is here at long last.

I read the Watchmen graphic novel not so long ago actually and I don't really count myself amongst its many self-proclaimed aficionados and superfans. I haven't analysed every page, nor do I laud it as the greatest and most important work of graphic fiction ever to be conceived. I don't even think it is a paradigm for the modern comic industry of today.

I loved it, though. The sheer array of panels, the scope, depth and the daunting prospect of the plot was staggering, alluring and disturbing all at the same time. It's not that pretty; it has to be said. The art and colouring is antiquated by today's standards and it hasn't aged that well. It's actually kind of grimy and even smells a bit funny, which is sort of fitting given the dystopian milieu of Nixon's paranoid, Cold War America explored within its oh-so-grey and murky pages.

It's a beast of a book, a super thick volume with a blood-spattered smiley face on the front (at least the one I read was; not my own, I hasten to add, but a friend's), suggesting its bitter sweet tonality and wry sense of black, black humour.

Watchmen is a story about super heroes, plain and simple. It's about what happens when you take off the mask and just become a normal person; and what about if you can't take off the mask, or if the mask is the real thing and the person is actually the cover for it (a la Batman). I won't go into all of the details, as anyone reading this has probably read Watchmen or at least knows the rough story by now.

Fast forward twenty or so years then and I shifting uncomfortably in my seat waiting for what I'm hoping is cinematic gold. It's always exciting to witness the immortalising of characters you've experienced in another medium coming to the big screen; there's no better in your face expression than that in my opinion.

From the outset, you realise that Watchmen is darker than any other 'hero' flick you've seen before. Even the Punisher (the Thomas Jane version) wasn't this brutal and uncompromising. It's full of noirish touches and the paranoid angst of a society gone bad (not that you really get to see that much of this in the movie). In the, by now, iconic opening scene, the Comedian (as played by the excellent Jeffrey Dean Morgan) buys the farm i.e. he gets thrown out of a plate-glass window (after having the living crap kicked out of him in bone-crunching, blood-spewing fashion by a 'mysterious' assailant - all fans of the book will, of course, know who this is, but that doesn't spoil it).

This then sets off the movie's coolest character (by several miles) Rorschach, and his investigation into who wanted the Comedian dead.


There's actually a wonderful montage of the halcyon days of the heroes, the Minute Men (of whom the characters in the story descend from or were once part of), during the opening credits with some fairly astute music choices backgrounding scenes in ultra slow-mo of the 1940's 'capes' apprehending villains, foiling crimes and generally doing good. The optimistic mood soon sours however as the years roll on and heroes get old, get killed, go mad or simply disband.

This was actually one of my favourite moments of a film that is a definite slow burner, pretty sparse on the action and big on the intrigue and dialogue (nothing wrong with that).

Overall, it was cast pretty well, even if Patrick Wilson, who played Nite Owl, reminded me of Chevvy Chase on more than one occasion. Of course Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach absolutely kicks ass and is in fact the biggest and baddest mutha ever to grace celluloid - the scene were Rorschach attempts to escape a a cruddy old tenement building, when he's framed for murder and surrounded by cops, is fantastically brutal. I really wanted him to get away, but knew he wouldn't as that's not the story.

Most of the best moments in the movie are when the uncompromising Rorschach is on screen. He has that paranoid, conspiracy theorist, detective noir going for him, whether it's during the beat down of a bunch of inmates that make the mistake of threatening the unmasked ginger schlub or his throaty, rasping journal entry voice overs; Rorschach is just awesome.


I've read that both Malin Akerman and Matthew Goode, who play Silk Spectre and Ozymandias respectively, were a little ropey in the acting department. I'd say that was certainly true of the latter (thankfully, his screen time was limited) but Akerman did a pretty fair job, and let's face it, you're not analysing her acting skills...


What I found reassuring about Zack Snyder's take on something of a comic book classic is that he made such sterling efforts to stick to the heart of the book, as it were, and does not compromise because this movie (somewhat erroneously) falls into the 'super hero' genre bracket: men get torched, bodies get exploded, bones are broken and people are shot and killed - the Dark Knight has nothing on this in the hardcore stakes.

I'm not a fan of gratuitous violence, and it isn't gratuitous violence that pervades in Watchmen. I found it quite refreshing that punches weren't pulled and in some instances I was genuinely shocked by what I saw and experienced, but wouldn't have changed it in spite of that. Films are supposed to elicit an emotional reaction, even it that reaction is sometimes unpleasant.

Beautifully shot and with a dark line of humour running throughout like a flat line that beats into sporadic life every so often, I really enjoyed this movie. In fact, I'm going to watch it again tomorrow (just doing the rounds of folks who want to see it with me). The special effects were very solid, too. Dr Manhattan (played by Billy Crudup) looked disturbingly real and Snyder didn't even shirk on having the good doctor's manhood on display in several scenes, as it was in the graphic novel. Archimedes, Nite Owl's equivalent of the Batwing, was also stylishly put together and looked great on screen.

Light on action, yes; the odd stint of dubious acting, okay; I was even scrabbling a little for its relevance given the Cold War resonance at its heart; but that doesn't get in the way of the fact that Watchmen is a great movie. Compare to the graphic novel too closely at your peril; that's not what this film is about. It is merely the expression of the same core story in a different and exciting medium. I tire greatly of the worked-up fanboys laying the hammer down against this film, reaching for their well-thumbed copies of the book. It's not a direct script, okay? And if you think you're not going to like because it can't compare or you're hoping for a direct translation then I suggest you give it a miss. If, like me, you have a great fondness for the graphic novel and generally like well put together, edgy movies then you'll love this.

Personally, I think the way the story wraps up in the movie (the most noticeable departure form the graphic novel) is actually better (or at least neater) than Moore's original text. Easy now, that's just an opinion, don't send in the graphic novel police on me.

Keep an open mind, go see it - even if you've never read the graphic novel. You'll never think about super heroes in the same way again.