Birthday Present… Wrapped In Black


I don’t know what it is about director Zack Snyder and my birthday; two years ago, he and Warner Brothers gave me 300 for my birthday… this year he and Warner Brothers (and Paramount) give me Watchmen.

Not for nothing… but in these hard economic times, a gift card from J Crew would work just as well. :)

Based on yet another “graphic novel” - or indeed, what’s being called one of the “classic” graphic novels of all Watchmen_xl_04--film-A
time - Watchmen arrives loaded with baggage (an enormous lawsuit between Warners and Fox over rights that nearly killed the whole project, as well as one of the book’s co-creators removing his name from the film) and expectations. The “comic book movie” has suddenly moved from being merely part of the “tentpole” story of big studio Hollywood to these days being just about the only tent in town. And Watchmen, it seems, will be the first to be held up to Dark Knight level expectations of quality and success.

Count me among those who are not entirely thrilled with the idea. Though I’ve yet to see The Dark Knight, I see what it has wrought - the need for grim, downbeat worldviews amidst crushing violence is all too apparent. I am realizing that the YouTube superhero parodies of It’sJustSomeRandomGuy aren’t just genius, they’re also prescient commentary on a world where we expect all superheroes to have dark twisted psyches… even when it just makes things absurd.

Watchmen is just that - dark and absurd. Draining pretty much any joy or kick from the grim proceedings, Watchmen lurches along, relentlessly beating the audience into submission, even as it grows further preposterous with every moment. Watchmen isn’t an indictment of film’s growing grimness; but it is an indication that you can do grim wrong… and in a way that’s utterly false.

Unlike others, I suspect it may be the twenty five year old source material - Watchmen is set in 1985, as the book was, and envisions an alternate reality in which America has “won” the Vietnam War, and Richard Nixon has gone on to five terms as President. Winning Vietnam is accomplished by the participation of two “heroes”  - The Comedian, a sarcastic mercenary for hire; and Mr. Manhattan, a physicist transformed into pure electricity by a nuclear experiment gone terribly wrong.

They are just two of a number of heroes in the story, which is chock full of costumed wonders with names that are not entirely memorable. The heroes have been outlawed and run underground after a series of incidents where they became uncomfortably vigilante-ish in their actions, beating up people they were meant to save.

The film opens with The Comedian’s murder, in a violent fight in his high rise apartment that has him thrown out a plate glass window to his death. His death becomes the passion of Rorschach (a muttery, guttural Jackie Earle Hailey), a faceless inkblot (his costume is a wonder of CGI) who was also part of the Watchmen. Rorschach in turn attempts to enlist Nite Owl (Patrick Wilson, trying to shed his youthful studliness), Mr. Manhattan (a very naked Billy Crudup) and Silk Spectre II (Malin Akermann), to little avail.

There’s a lot going on here, too much really for any one summary; yet the busy-ness and sprawling approach to history (I’m not even sure how to thread in the part about the black-clad lesbian who winds upWatchmen-minutemen
recreating the famed photo of the sailor and the nurse kissing in Times Square after World War II) tends to mask, badly, the overall narrow, claustrophobic feel of the proceedings. Despite a lot of big, noisy set pieces and diversions into past history (Silk Spectre’s mother was part of a first generation of heroes that included The Comedian as well), there’s really less going on than meets the eye, and eventually, the film has to face that.

And therein lies the problem; by the time we’re trapped at the South Pole with our main characters, including the supersmart and strong Ozymandias (a blonde-wigged Matthew Goode), much of what propelled Watchmen along has ground to a halt, and we are left with what is supposed to be a dark, cynical view of humanity… that feels utterly manufactured and false.

Where does Watchmen go wrong? I think the mistake lies in the source material, and in Snyder’s fealty to it; it’s the premise that’s the problem, but that can be hard to see. For me it came together in a throwaway moment, when Nite Owl and Rorschach confront each other over years of bitterness and bad actions, the sweetly burnt out Nite Owl accusing Rorschach of being too violent, too intense, too much shoot first and ask questions later. And Rorschach holds out his hand in apology… with Nite Owl saying “It’s Okay, Man” in that late seventies way of finding common ground.

Well, it’s not okay, man… and I suddenly found myself massively irritated at the reminder of post-Vietnam, boomer generation self congratulation. We couldn’t “win” Vietnam, because “losing” is not what happened in Vietnam either. The fundamental problem with Watchmen is that the premise simply doesn’t work - it’s a re-imagining of history that’s not thought through or fleshed out fully enough, and the problem isn’t what’s in it… it’s what’s left out: the quirky, left field details and developments that really make individuals part of history. We have no idea who these characters are, little sense of their “real” lives (though there’s much attention to period details… they don’t add up)… and it leaves them as cold ciphers, with no real way for an audience to connect or care.

I don’t “blame” Snyder so much as I see, now, that he’s willing to utterly commit to a comic book reality - 300 worked as well as it did, and felt completely different from Watchmen because Snyder was keying off of Frank Miller, who really celebrates and thrills to the possibilities of what comics can do and be. Watchmen’s darker, cynical worldview is just as loyal to the source… it’s just that it doesn’t work. And I suspect knowing that it didn’t entirely work was what kept Watchmen in development hell for 20 years. And, apropos of the recent discussion over “conservative” films, it’s not that Watchmen isn’t “liberal”… it’s that the film’s politics are too didactic and at the same time too muddled to be effective; to really succeed with its grim worldview, Watchmen would need more light and more air - a better defined sense of the good vs. evil, even within its own characters, and more attempts to let in a wider sense of the world around those characters. As it is, we get shadows… and ink blots, signifying nothing.

Snyder’s continued visual emphasis on the male form remains disconcerting - I don’t think there’s another movie, except maybe the Ocean’s series, with such an overload of the guys who get hired for their looks. Wilson, Goode, Crudup, Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Comedian… even Jackie Earle Hailey has a body of death - it’s an overload of eye candy, and Snyder works in more male frontal nudity than I thought the ratings board would ever approve… ever. And somehow, against this, the fetish-y nature of the women’s costumes - all thigh high boots and garters and corsets and bras pushing breasts skyward - seems positively chaste. Snyder also continues to work out his frustrated ambitions to work in the adult industry too obviously - the sex on display here is gratuitous, mechanical, and forced (and not least because the age difference between Patrick Wilson and Malin Akermann is so obvious, and disconcerting… oh wait, and that covers Crudup and Akermann as well).

Little is helped, either, with the scoring - heavy handed, also obvious, also forced (among the many ways I felt for AO Scott and his muddled review was his spot-on point that Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” needs to be off the movie song list). And while here’s a lot to praise visually… oh, um, that’s back to the male nudity… mostly the film is a muddy jumble of images that don’t add up. As much as the dense visuals may be true the novel’s graphics… they often lack the sweep of 300’s stark backgrounds and bold colors, and really Watchmen is only visually satisfying in starts and fits.

It’s easy to pan Watchmen as no fun… but “no fun” is only the beginning of where it goes astray. Which is a shame really - I tend to think somewhere in there is a compelling, interesting musing on the nature of heroism, the conflict inherent in “doing what is best” for others… indeed, it strikes me that “Heroes“on NBC may be partly what Watchmen intended (and, lately, gets just as muddled). Because I think that’s the real secret of the allure of comic books - that despite the knocks for being simplistic, the stories of superheroes resonate because they are so archetypal, so necessary as myths and legends. I still believe in comic books and superheroes and superhero movies… I’m not sure Watchmen does… or ever did.

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March 7th, 2009
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Viewing 19 Comments

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    Well when I became 18 I received a new move and after hearing about it, quickly called the moving company and just hauled my stuff out of there to my new home in Boston.
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    I thought Watchmen was a great movie. I particularly liked the costumes.
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    Watchman is good movies. I already view it . Rate 7/10
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    I watched watchmen a lot of times, it was a nice film indeed.. the creativity of the author was so great.
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    Watchmen started well in the first 5 minutes but my interest for the film died down after that.
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    Watchmen is not a great movie...comic book of Alan Moore were much better. I`m glad that i didn`t spend my money on ticket.
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    I really didn't like the screenplay.. and the way the characters were introduced was kind off track..could have been even better
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    All the characters in the movie are very good. Enjoyed a lot watching the movie.
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    I have seen Watchmen. Its so nice & interesting movie. One can see it many times. Every time it seems nice.
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    Watchmen is really a great movie.. you can see the difference between the movie in the past and the movie now...
    Great post.. I love reading your post.. Keep posting buddy!
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    The Watchmen was a great movie and I can't wait for Halloween. I wonder if they have that skin-tight, black clad outfit in a plus size womens costume.
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    Among the characters that Watchmen has, the one that got my attention the most was Rorschach. He may have died in the end, but his never ending quest for truth and justice lives on.
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    I actually loved the way the film was set out, having watched it 3 times. Jackie Earle was amazing and the prison scenes could of lasted much longer! recommended film
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    Well when I became 18 I received a new move and after hearing about it, quickly called the moving company and just hauled my stuff out of there to my new home in Boston.
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    The title of the post is thought provoking because of the word birthday that's why I want to suggest to give food hampers, wine, vegetable hampers beautifully wrapped not in black but in a wholesome package. LOL....Anyway, yup, I don't totally go with movies that I thought was wholesome but in totality was not. But the whole concept of "Watchmen" was just enough to amused the "audience". Hmmm, speaking of war, there is no winner - all are losers and this is the reality.
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    The biggest problem with "Watchmen" is at the screenplay level. The story, as adapted by David Hayter and Alex Tse, just plain isn't told very well, and the introduction of both the characters and mythology are extremely difficult to follow for anyone not
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    I recently re-read Watchmen and this film is very faithful to the story and its characters. I must respectfully disagree with most of this reviewer's comments on Watchmen. I think it's in the running for the best comic book film ever made. I do not say that lightly. They had to cut some corners on the back stories and side characters, but that didn't take away from the narrative strength of the film. Watchmen makes the Dark Knight and Ledger's Joker seem like tiny fish in an enormous sea. What we are dealing with here is a "superman" (Dr. Manhattan) who is not a flag waving, boy scout who always knows what's right and wrong, or always feels compassion for humanity. This reviewer wants the "superman" with a heart of gold to rescue the young lady in distress -- but that ain't the world of Watchmen. Sure, there's a place for that traditonal comic book hero, but haven't we moved beyond it? And I suppose it's troubling to him that the only true hero of Watchmen is an abused, violent and cynical vigilante turned detective named Rorschach who is the real driving moral force. The ending leaves the viewer with an uneasy feeling, an ethical puzzle that has no simple answer. Do the ends justify the means, even if that lets the egotistical 'bad guy' off the hook? Obviously, some people are unable to allow that sort of ambiguity to exisit in their pre-conceived comic book hero universe. The very reasons why this reviewer does not like Watchmen, is the very reason why it's considered a great work of fiction. It's the story -- not the art that made Watchmen the greatest graphic novel ever. This film, while not perfect, does the work justice. I cannot wait to pay my ten bucks and see it again. Who watches the watchers? Indeed.
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    I'm happy to have ambiguity and I'm happy to have imperfect antiheroes; if I didn't make it explicit, I happen to think Jackie Earle Hailey's Rorschach is the best thing in the film: dark, anarchic, and a reminder that "hero" covers a lot of ground. I'd remind Ralph (and i warn you, it's a spoiler) that by the end of the film, Rorschach's dead and we're left with Patrick Wilson's far more muddled, far less interesting Nite Owl, teamed with Akerman's dull Silk Spectre.

    This isn't about what I "want" - ultimately, a film can convince me that what I think I want isn't in fact what I desire; indeed, 300 made me realize I'd never decided whether leather clad swimsuit boys were my cup of tea. I came to Watchmen well aware of its place in the graphic novel pantheon, and ready to be wowed. Unfortunately, it simply fell short; as I said at the end of my review, I think there is an interesting, dark story to be told about the downside of heroism, and the kind of psyche that says "I know what's best for the people I am trying to save." Watchmen, really, offers no payoff (which is why it doesn't leave an "ethical dilemma" - I had no problem seeing Ozymandias as wrong and pretty much psychotically misguided): even if you buy the premise (which I didn't), you're left with a pretty morose take on human nature overall, and heroism in particular. It's an approach... but I think the appeal is limited, and I think you could do better trying harder, and setting a clearer sense of what "good vs. evil" means. In order to make the story work, "heroism" is basically defined downward... which is a cheat, not a stroke of brilliance.

    And PS, I'm not getting sucked into "best comic book movie ever" debates... that's the province of fanboys and comic cons. There are a lot of good ones... and there are a lot of bad ones.
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    Ugh. Another comic book writ large. You would think comic books or graphic novels were tailor made for film given the endless assembly line of features in production by the major studios. I think the reason for their dominance in the market, and their ability to suck all the oxygen out of the system, which would otherwise go to more interesting features, is because the form is, in a sense, a highly refined form of pitch/story board, so that the studio deciders are prone to picking projects so expertly presented. Expert presentation of a pitch/story boards doesn't necessarily translate into a fullsome feature though, as any number of plumped up comic books duds aught to have established.

    The film treatments are almost always TOO DAMN LOUD, and also suffer in comparison to the source material because the economy of line and script inherent in the form requires the reader to imagine the story beyond the frame, to a greater degree than in a novel, screenplay, etc. So you have the probability of a great many fans being disappointed by the "realization" on the screen, as paling alongside the countless variety of rich, intense personal visions of the material. In my experience, the more sucessful interpretations are from comics/graphic novels that are obscure, because the majority of viewers don't bring a heavy load of expectations. I suppose a kind of example of this is the Indiana Jones series, which aped but was not directly derived from some comic/graphic novel. The series was also derivitative of old timey movie seriels, but its heart lay with the comic artists.

 

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    May 7, 2009 at 7:19 pm

    [...] that quality with Watchmen, Wolverine is more frustrating because the joyous, fizzy buzz of comic book adventure is much ...

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