Watchmen by Zach Snyder (2009)
7 March 2009I have been looking forward to this adaption of the seminal Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons 1986-1987 comic book for years, and when Zach Snyder the director of 300 and the dawn of the dead remake was doing it, I couldn’t have been happier. And for most of the movie I was really with it, at least as a fan, the lack of exposition I felt really made this a companion piece to the comic book, and not feel like it’s own entity, and the lack of exposition left Kelly, and I have a feeling many others completely out in the cold. And the film is a visual feast, really bringing the world of watchmen to life, with casting to match, as these people really look, act and seem like the comic characters. Of course this film is extremely violent, much more so than the comic and to the point of gratuitousness in the extreme. It also has a pretty explicit sex scene, and other breasts shown, so this is certainly no kids film. My personal biggest problem came with the change of the film McGuffin, which as a huge fan of the comic, really threw me, because it did not improve anything for me, and just seemed to be an arbitrary change. I have an idea I think could have been more true without being completely true, that I will discuss at the end. The change of endings also seemed to come out of left field because of the fact that so much of this was a slavishly accurate adaption up to that point, and then it changed, not for the better, and also left out a couple of lines from the comic that I think were really necessary that were cut out of the film, and also hurt the film. If they had stayed accurate (as accurate as you can be when adapting a series to an under 3 hour film) this might not have been popular, but at least the fans would have absolutely loved it, and stuck with it forever. The fact that they changed it, and gave so little extra exposition makes me feel that this will not only not be huge with the general populace (sure it got a 55.7 million opening weekend, but it will go down) but also the fans will not like it, and the film’s box office will suffer because of it. Honestly I was loving the film as it went, it really seemed like an accurate adaption of this hard to adapt comic, and loved the little details including the ends is nigh guy, and the newstand and kid reading the comic, and the opening which showed elements of the history of this alternate world, though again didn’t explain them enough for the general populace. Honestly a noble try, but ultimately a failure, and I am sure it will not do well after this opening weekend.
Watchmen begins in an alternate 1985, in the apartment of a man named Edward Blake, also known as the superhero the comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). An intruder comes in, and fights Blake, easily beating him even though he fights back, and gets thrown out the window to his death, dropping his smily face button with blood on it. We then get a montage showing the alternate history of the US from World War 2 through 1985, showing the rise of costumed superheroes, the shooting of JFK by the Comedian, RIchard Nixon (Robert Wiseden) using the one true powered super hero Dr. Jon Osterman also known as Doctor Manhattan (Billy Crudup) to win the war, and get himself a 3 and 4th Presidential term, in the 1970′s the Keane act which outlawed masked superheroes, and the rising cold war tensions which seam to be leading to inevitable nuclear war with Russia. A costumed vigilante named Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley) who has defied the Keane act is continuing the investigation into the Comedian’s death, and goes out to warn his retired comrades. First is Dan Dreiberg formerly known as the second Nite Owl (Patrick Wilson), and Dr. Manhattan and his lover Laurie Jupiter formerly the second SIlk Spectre (Malin Akerman) who work for the government, working on development alternate fuel to give free energy to the world, with a fourth former superhero Adrian Veidt formerly known as Oxymandias, the smartest man in the world, and the most successful businessman. Dan goes to Veidt to try and see what he thinks about the conspiracy, but is rebuffed. Dr. Manhatten and Laurie are not doing well as Jon becomes more separated from the human race, and she leaves him before he is to go to a talk show. Laurie ends up going to Dan, and ends up staying with him, and he obviously cares for her, though he tries to hide it. Manhatten goes to a talk show, when a man in the audience questions him about his former coleagues who have all gotten cancer, including his former lover Janey Slater (Laura Mennell) who confronts him. Reporters sense blood, and press in, and Jon teleports himself away, and exiles himself to Mars, which is so much easier for him, without difficult human interaction. Jon’s departure loses the US it’s ultimate weapon, so the Soviet’s push it and invade Afghanistan, pushing Nixon ready for a pre-emptive nuclear strike.
REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…
Damn that’s a lot of posters!!!!
Rorschach continues his investigation confronting his former enemy Moloch (Matt Frewer, also known as Max Headroom) who he finds out has cancer, and it is all linked to a company called Pyramid. When Rorschach learns more he goes back to confront Moloch, but he is already dead, and the police are outside, and they arrest him, and find out he is Man called Walter Kovachs, and he is sent to prison with many of the people he put behind bars, all who have a grievance with him.
Viedt has an assassination attempt on him, but the assassin commits suicide before he can say anything.
Dan and Laurie now living together attempt to have sex, but he can’t do it, and instead end up going out in costume to play superhero again, and end up saving people from a building building, and making passionate love (to Hallelujah, ha! and with Akerman quite topless). Dan and Laurie decide to break Rorschach out of prison.
At the prison a riot has broken out, and the prisoners want to take out Rorschach, but he is much better than them, and takes them out, and leaves with Dan and Laurie to continue the investigation of the costumed heroes killings.
Jon returns to Earth to take Laurie to Mars to have a conversation about trying to save humanity. He tells her he can’t see the future because of some catastrophic events, and denies her requests to have him save humanity, but when he goes into her head, and it is realizes that the Comedian who once tried to rape her mother, is in fact her father, that Jon’s interest in humanity is rekindled and he agrees to go back to Earth.
Rorschach and Nite Owl break into Viedt’s office, and find evidence proving that in fact he killed the Comedian, and is behind everything, even having John exiled from Earth, so they head to his Antartic retreat to confront him.
When they arrive Veidt tells them that he is using Dr. Manhatten’s powers, which he has been synthesizing with Jon for years, to carry out a plan to unify humanity (The big change which I don’t like) and he is going to use the new energy generators to destroy many cities around the world and make them think Jon did it, and unify humanity and stop the nuclear destruction. He beats the hell out of them, and then tells them he had already done it 35 minutes before, leaving 15 million dead.
Jon and Laurie return to the ruined New York, and when Jon sees his own energy signature realizes it is Viedt and they go to Antartica. Veidt tries to destroy Jon, but he just brings himself together, but when Viedt shows what he has done to unify humanity Jon decides to exile himself. Rorschach refuses to shut up though, so Jon kills him before he leaves.
Dan and Laurie agree to be quite and live a life together.
We see the world united, but a right wing newspaper gets Rorschach’s journal, which schlong plots the whole thing, and leads it to Veidt, which would destroy the truce.
••••
Now I was really liking it up until the big change. In the comic Veidt sends a giant squid “alien” to New York to make humanity think Aliens invaded, and it kills all of New York (they only show New York being destroyed in the movie anyway, just mention the other destructions and show some more bombs getting ready to go off). The change to it being Dr. Manhatten wasn’t necessary, and if they had made it an alien spacecraft, if they didn’t want to show the squid thing, I could have accepted it, but this wasn’t necessary, and for me they also took out the part where Veidt asks Jon if he had finished it, and Jon tells him nothing ever ends before leaving to go create life someplace else, that gave Veldt some humanity, and showed that Jon knew he was probably wrong in what he did, even if it had temporary good results. Overall the movie looked great, and was so close to the comic, except the big change, and some addition of scenes with energy executives, like Lee Iakoka, as well as some extra scenes with Nixon (in the war room from Doctor Strange Love, much like the Vietnam scene had flight of the Valkyries like Apocalypse Now) and that made the changes stand out so much more, and made them even more jarring. Yes I can see that they didn’t want to explain the back story of the squid and the missing comic book artist, so they took something from the story, but it is weird to be so accurate to the book, and then change in a big way.
Now the actors were amazing, and perfectly cast, all the way down the line. It really felt like the comic come to life, and it was shot very well, with great effects, though the extra violence wasn’t needed, and neither were the continuous shots of Jon’s digital which we only saw once in the comic, but is here again and again. Again changes that were not necessary, and seemed added just to push the bounds of ratings.
The opening montage is amazing, telling the story of the history in images, as well as some inside jokes, and some added elements that all fit perfectly and i really loved. I also liked that they called the energy device the squid, and had Rorschach walking around sans mask with his The End is Nigh sign, though they never really connected it to him, and that they showed the magazine stand and comic book reading kid, even if they really weren’t in it. It was all gifts to the fans, even if those same fans would be pissed by the changes.
I will see this film again, and want to see the director’s cut to see how much more there was, but I still feel that this film missed out by not being totally accurate, as it seemed to be. I think if they had been less accurate throughout maybe I would not have reacted so badly to the changes, but because of it, it seemed especially jarring.
This is an interesting companion piece to the comic, and a strange, though well done adaption of the comic, but it would have been better as a cable series, that could have told more of the story, and done the whole thing justice, for probably the same amount of money.
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