Watchmen (2009)
March 12th 2009 13:43
Watchmen is the most recent comic book film adaptation and it hits all the right buttons. In saying that, it's not at all a masterpiece, and doesn't command the reverence as last year's The Dark Knight. But I don't think that's Zack Snyder's intention. He wanted to make a faithful crowd pleaser. And please it did.
I watched Watchmen with fresh eyes. I wasn't familiar with the graphic novel and am in general not a reader of comics. But I am familiar of comic book films - Spiderman, Batman, X-Men, etc. They idolise the vigilante and good overcoming evil in a dark world. Watchmen seems to take these generic conventions and piss all over it. It's like an overwhelming punch in the face you take a while to recover from, but once you do you appreciate what Watchmen dishes up instead - vigilante hell. Let's face it, if superheroes were real, this is what they'd really be like. - angry and disgusted with having to always save the world from its own self destructiveness.
In a dystopic 1985 where Nixon is still President, The Cold War is ongoing and masked vigilantism is outlawed, The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) brutally murdered. Believing there is a conspiracy to destroy what's left of The Watchmen, Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley) begins his investigation to track down the killer. Along the way we are introduced to Daniel Dreiberg (Patrick Wilson), the awkward retired Nite Owl II, Adrian Veidt (Matthew Goode) also known as Ozymandias, the smartest man in the world, Laurie Jupiter (Malin Akerman) also known as Silk Spectre II and her lover Dr John Osterman (Billy Crudup) or Dr Manhattan, a man who was transformed into pure energy and is now a big blue naked man. As Rorschach continues to unravel the mystery, bigger things are revealed that will ultimately change the world.
Yeah, big stuff. And way too many characters to be able to follow in one sitting. Still, rather than get overwhelmed by the massive jolts of non-linear stories of all of these characters, you can tune out a little bit and just appreciate the intricacies of all these interesting characters, told almost lovingly but always with its biting sardonism. The performances were all great, Jackie Earle Haley is exceptional as the noirish Rorschach. For such a small, insignificant looking man, he is at times utterly frightening and you can't take your eyes off him. Ackerman and Wilson bring much needed warmth and personality to this otherwise detestable group of supposed heroes.
Visually, it takes a bit of getting used to. You never get the comforting feeling that this is a world we are in any way familiar with. The colours, the sets, even the physical movements seem of another world with different rules to our own. The violence is beyond cringeworthy, it is unabashedly gruesome and appears to take immense pleasure in making its audience squirm. The music also made sure we never fully settled in, using an unconventional soundtrack with Bob Dylan and Simon And Garfunkel. Just in case you didn't already know this isn't just another comic book movie. It really went out of its way to be different.
Verdit? Critically speaking it's nothing special. It succeeds in being different in comic book conventions and separates itself from the likes of X-Men and Spiderman, but in the end it looks and feels like another example of the dark graphic novel adaptation overall, in the same area as Sin City or V For Vendetta. But entertainment-wise it's a real treat. 7/10
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