Review: Watchmen

Indifference Made

For those who consider themselves serious fans of the famous Watchmen graphic novels by mastermind Alan Moore, I will give you a word of caution at the start of this review. I am someone who has not read the source material for this film, has no idea how faithful the intentions are to that source, and until a few months ago even had no idea what Watchmen was. I say this not to make you feel as if this review will be so ignorant that it will cause a polarizing emotion from reading it. I say it because I feel it is necessary to explain how I judge this movie. Like all of them, I judge them by how they function as a film that exists within its own world, not necessarily how much they remain faithful to the original source. On that scale, Watchmen has many good things that clash with many not so good things, making the film a tough call for me.

The present day for the film is an alternate 1985 where Richard Nixon is still the president (and in his fifth term), Congress has outlawed masks and nuclear war between the US and Russia is imminent. The film begins with the murder of The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), one of the original members of a superhero group known as Watchmen who have been involved in many of the American politics and actions since World War II. One member, the psychotic Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley) is one of the few who believe the murder is connected to a conspiracy.

His investigation leads into tangent storylines of Nite Owl (Patrick Wilson), a reluctant superhero trying to discover his new path, Laurie Jupiter (Malin Ackerman), the daughter of another superhero trying to make sense of the crazy world around her, Adrian Veidt (Matthew Goode), a self-outed superhero who has turned to a global energizing tycoon, and Dr. Manhattan (part Billy Crudup, many parts CGI), a shape shifting, blue hazed experiment gone wrong who can work wonders with his mind.

All of these characters circle around an ambitious plot concerning international relationships and the high stakes involved when dealing with the human condition. Perhaps in the original graphic novel, these ideas seemed fresh and worked well with the source. For a film, the scope seems to broad, and David Hayter and Alex Tse's script tries too hard to be an all encompassing salute to the comic without fulfilling the needs of a workable story. Sometimes the story feels like it only needs to lose little things, like some dream sequences or gratuitous, and completely unnecessary, violence and sex scenes. Other things are a little bigger, such as Dr. Manhattan's trip to Mars. However, there are times when you can recognize what the movie is trying to be, and you can appreciate that effort.

Still, the movie doesn't really carry its theme of being a sort of "anti-superhero movie" all the way through. Director Zach Snyder seems as if he started the film like it was something that tried to be that type and dealt with issues bigger than ordinary comic book movies. But then, it feels like the film starts to devolve and it begins to include action set pieces that are wonderfully staged, but feel like their in a generic comic book movie and not really in this "anti" film. Toward the end, with one line (and you'll recognize it), the film turns around but it's a little late and doesn't forgive all. Still, Snyder's vision as a director is one that is very similar to the one we saw in 300, and this movie is not without its pervasive use of slow motion and spraying blood that is both stimulating and annoying.

The acting the film has to offer left me with a curious set of thoughts. Haley, as will probably be the consensus, is marvelously talented and he pulls off this character well. Yes, Rorschach is pretty much one note, but Haley plays it to perfection, both with and without the mask. Next to him, the only other one I would try to pick as a standout is Goode. He's someone who physically changes himself in nearly every role and while there were times I thought the story wasn't doing his character justice, I managed to see that he was portraying him as best he could and elevating the material some. Other actors, like Morgan, Crudup and Carla Gugino, who plays Laurie's mother, are good enough, but it felt like there was always a personality trait in their characters that kept them from becoming well rounded and believable. They are acted alright, but never mindblowingly good.

However, I have to say that Ackerman is just downright awful. It's acting that is working at a level that is well below even the most one dimensional and limited characters. Even the Nixon impersonator with the ridiculously enhanced nose and jowles was more convincing than her in this film. Not only is it bad acting, but it is a character that I never felt was much use other than to reveal for sex appeal and serve as one important plot trigger. Other than that, it is a waste of screentime, and in a two hour and forty minute film, one should be careful of waste.

In the film, Dr. Manhattan gives a speech about life's contradictions. I could have cared less about what he had to say, but I recognized that I was contradicting myself a bit while watching it. So much so that I had to see it a second time. With the first viewing, I saw a film that was very bloated with okay acting but still warranted me saying I liked it enough to recommend it. Oddly enough, the second time I found myself pointing out more plot elements, liking the acting even more but feeling the film wasn't as good. I don't know what exactly changed that second time, but I think it might have been that I started to see how much Snyder wanted to make this like a comic book movie and not like a film, which is bad news for me.

Last year, we had a once in a lifetime phenomenon known as The Dark Knight. I loved that movie, and the reason was because it felt completely divorced from the source material. Sure, it was still a Batman film, but Christopher Nolan was thinking how this story could work in a real setting. Snyder doesn't seem to have that same mindset. He does some good things, as he gets a wonderful performance out of Haley and the visual spectacle is spectacular, especially as Alex McDowell's sets and Michael Wilkinson's costumes are enhanced tenfold by Larry Fong's lighting. But the movie is very bloated with an broad plot that makes the movie sluggish. Ultimately, I don't know if I can really say that Watchmen has the cinematic appeal to carry you through all the way to the end. It is a noble effort, but falls just short of becoming a true screen presence. **1/2 / ****; GRADE: B-