WATCHMEN
[Theatrical Cut]
(Review)

Now, so this review will have some larger historical context…

I first read Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ deconstructionist masterpiece Watchmen a little over a year after its initial chapter was released in the fall of 1986. I read all 12 issues in pamphlet form in one go (as opposed to my usual “reading issues as they’re released, with that sweet, sweet one-month gap between installments”).
To say that the manner in which I regarded superheroes and comic books was forever radically altered by that mind-blowing first encounter would be a ridiculous understatement.
As Adam Rogers put it in his Wired article, “Filming the Unfilmable: Behind the Scenes of the Watchmen Movie”: After a lifelong diet of stories about garishly clad people with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men, reading Watchmen changed the way I thought about comics. It was like a bar mitzvah—all my childhood stories acquired new significance and texture. It has been 20 years, and I've never read comics the same way since. None of us have.
So say we all.


Now, even as early as the initial stirrings of the protracted flirtation Hollywood has had with the piece, I’ve always had a bizarre mixture of apprehension and excitement at the prospect of seeing Watchmen in a live-action setting.
As with much of Moore’s comic work, Watchmen always seemed too complex and intricate and sprawling to be comfortably contained on the big screen, but when names like Terry Gilliam and Darren Aronofsky would be mentioned in the same breath as Watchmen, well, the film geek in me would invariably squeal like a little Twilight-addled tween and try to distract the comic geek in me with promises of silver screen glory.
And just when it looked like Watchmen would continue to be “that notoriously unfilmable comic book,” in swoops Zack Snyder, who took David Hayter’s* reportedly 324-page draft (which updated the original 1980’s setting to the present-day) and, with the help of Alex Tse, did some major reconstruction, reinstating the Cold War backdrop, among other things, to give us the movie we have today.


So, after having blissfully lived in the shadow of Manhattan for some two decades, I’ve just seen the 2 hour 43 minute theatrical cut of Snyder’s Squidless adaptation, and the question of the moment is, So is it Watchmen, or has Hollywood skewered another perfectly fine comic book?
Well… it is Watchmen, and it isn’t.
I mean, we all knew the film wouldn’t be the comic, that it was virtually impossible to replicate that singular piece of art in an entirely different medium. Clearly, Watchmen was written as a comic book, it was meant specifically for that medium (as opposed to any number of more recent comic books which feel more like illustrated pitches meant for Hollywood bigwigs than anything else).
Perhaps the most ideal outcome would have been one of those cases where the movie isn’t the original work (whether comic or novel), but is equally stirring and effective, like a Silence of the Lambs or a Lord of the Rings trilogy.
And is that the case here?
Sadly, I’d have to say “No.”


But don’t get me wrong.
I love what Snyder’s done with the piece.
Do I love love it? Maybe not. But I do love it, and even if this isn’t the most ideal outcome, given its long development history (and its more recent legal entanglements), this is quite possibly the best Watchmen film adaptation we could have gotten.
And though that may sound like faint praise, I repeat: I love what Snyder’s done with the piece.


That initial sequence—which doesn’t exist in that form in the comic—and the opening credits, which effectively—and rather poignantly—compress key points in Watchmen’s alternate history (orchestrated to Nat “King” Cole and Bob Dylan, respectively), are just a couple of the bits that work in Snyder’s adaptation.**
Impressions of Snyder and his scriptwriters, taken from the original work and filtered through the elements of cinematic language, both general (the moving image, sound, music) and particular (much of the slow mo and ramping flourishes deployed in 300 are in attendance here), give rise to fresh and stimulating visions.
It’s when Snyder tries to cleave too closely to Watchmen, particularly Moore’s brilliant prose, that things get a tad sticky.


You would think though, given the truly astounding prose Moore employed in Watchmen, that the key to not screwing it up would be to take the words, not change a line, hell, not a punctuation mark, and you’d be good to go.
But part of the beauty of comics (as with film, in fact) is the interplay of word and image, and in shuffling around some of the prose, some sequences in the film don’t work quite as well as they do on the printed page; some of Rorschach’s journal bits suffer from this fate, having their visual context changed.
Certain key sequences also pale in comparison to their progenitors: Dr. Manhattan’s Mars reverie (an astonishing example of non-linear storytelling, and one of the comic’s stand-out issues), for one, is here reduced to a fraction of its former self, a pale, nearly listless spectre of the original, which was not only a crackling bit of narrative, but also filled in Manhattan’s pre-superpowered existence, and effectively painted his current experience of the temporal: that past, present, and future are all one, that this god-like being knows only a singular—yet all-encompassing—frame of reference: the Moment, where everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen, is Taking Place Right Now.
I really don’t think that comes across in the film, which then, of course, mutes by just that much, the overall effect the character of Dr. Manhattan should have on the audience.


The intercut sequence of Manhattan’s disastrous television interview and Dan and Laurie’s back-alley fight is also problematic, with the word-image interplay of the original skewed to accommodate the now-altered Manhattan section.
What we’re left with is a sequence that now seems to be intercut only because that’s the way it was done in the original, when, given the interests of the adaptation’s narrative rhythm, they may very well have been completely divorced, to arguably better effect.
But perhaps I’m bordering on nitpickery.
A more significant element of the film’s narrative that has me perplexed is the subplot used to replace the previously mentioned Squid.


Now, for the record, I love the Squid, but I also understand the nature of adaptation, and the need to change some narrative elements to better suit the medium into which the work is being translated (note the manner in which the look of the superhero costumes have been informed by the nearly two decades worth of evolution since Tim Burton’s Batman changed the rules of the cinematic spandex game).
Yes, I miss the Squid, but it’s what they’ve replaced it with that I’m not so certain about, the effectiveness of this new plot element in relation to the whole.
Actually, it may just be down to a few more moments at the tail end of the film’s third act, some lines here, some character bits there, just to properly flesh out the ramifications of said new plot element, which has some undeniable post-9/11 echoes.
(For those of you who haven’t read Watchmen, that previous passage will, in all likelihood, be meaningless, but frequent Iguana visitors will know I do my best to review films without spoilage. For those of you who’ve read Watchmen, you’ll know to what I refer.)
And I don’t think it’s as cut and dried as “It worked better in the comic.”
I mean, yeah, it—“it” being the Squid and all its narrative paraphernalia—probably does work better there, but this tack Snyder chose might have worked too, if there was a little more finesse used in the handling of it.


Which is, again, not to say that Snyder’s theatrical cut of Watchmen is without merit.
The cast of the film alone is commendable, in that none are household/tabloid names (and for someone who shuddered during that period of time when names like Tom Cruise and Keanu Reeves were floated as serious contenders, believe you me, even with a few quibbles, I’m ecstatic with this line-up) who largely deliver the goods.***
I could point out Patrick Wilson (the first actor to be cast for the film, and who packed on the pounds for the role), or Matthew Goode (who’s gone from Match Point to The Lookout to this; wow!), or of course, Jackie Earle Haley (who has to act through the squidgy sock over his head, people), but that would take away from the likes of Billy Crudup (did we really see this as a possibility when he did his “I am a golden god!” bit in Almost Famous? I think not!) or Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who’s given the unenviable task of essaying the most unsympathetic lout of the costumed lot.
Nearly to a man (and woman), this cast fittingly embodies Moore and Gibbons’ cast of fractured heroes, and if they may seem perhaps “not exactly right,” I’d venture to say one should look elsewhere for the culprit.


It’s a paradox that for a medium that requires as active a participation as reading does, one has the luxury to linger, on a choice word or turn of phrase, or in the case of comic books, on particular details in the meticulously drawn panels as well, while in the passive medium of film, we are made to rush through the constantly moving stream of images without pause.
In film, we are only allowed to linger as much as the director (and his running time) allow us to. (Moore has also said something to this effect in the past.)
So, if Dan’s feeling of helplessness and impotence without his suit seems more potent in the comic, it’s not because Wilson—who so gets Dan Dreiberg—doesn’t capture the moment, I think, but rather that, in reading the comic, we’re allowed to linger, to savour that pain and taste of its ash, while in the film, it stays on the screen just long enough to register, but then is quickly pushed back, as another sequence comes on to keep up the movie’s narrative momentum so the audience doesn’t begin to squirm in their seats.
But that’s the nature of the beast.


Which brings me to this point: I may love Snyder’s Watchmen, but having seen what a 2 hour 43 minute running time does to the material, I think the only way to get closer to that ideal outcome I mentioned above, is to do Watchmen as one season of an HBO or Showtime series: 12 hour-long episodes.
An hour devoted to each issue. Even then, the material may still prove to be too complex, but that much more time affords the work a better chance to survive the process of adaptation, not so much intact, as true, to itself, and its original intent.


When all is said and done though, Snyder and company have done themselves proud. They’ve clearly brought Watchmen to the screen with a great amount of love and passion for the original comic, and as a humble fan of the work (and a massive live-action superhero nut), the best I can do is to thank them, one and all, and then to tell you, Go forth and, ahem, watch Watchmen, whether you have, or haven’t read the comic. (I am, actually, rather curious to hear what someone who’s never read the comic has to say about the film.)
And then, after you’ve watched the film, and if you haven’t read the comic, please do, because the film isn’t Watchmen, not really. The comic is. Borrow it from a comic geek friend, if you must, and read it.
Then see how it changes the way you look at superheroes and comic books… and quite possibly, comic book films as well…


* Hayter’s a minor personal god of mine. He may not be on my list of Best Screenwriters Out There, but he’s been Guyver, Solid Snake, and Captain America. In some circles, that’s way too much geek cred…

** There are also some other great musical moments in the film (the Comedian’s funeral, and Dan and Laurie’s first dinner, to name a couple), and great accompaniment to the end titles, courtesy of My Chemical Romance and the one and only Leonard Cohen.

*** Jude Law, I would have taken, gladly, as I would Kate Winslet, even if that had only been someone’s bit of wishful thinking so the Little Children reunion could be complete.


Parting shot: I’ve repeatedly stressed throughout this review that these are my thoughts on the film’s theatrical cut.
There will be two more subsequent cuts, both to be released on DVD, a 3 hour 10 minute cut (the version that Kevin Smith raved about, if I’m correct, and the version that Snyder had to trim down to reach the 2 hour plus cut the studio wanted for the theatres), and a 3 hour 25 minute cut, which integrates the animated Tales of the Black Freighter bits into the film itself.
The Tales of the Black Freighter (a vital thematic component in the comic’s narrative) is also being released separately as a DVD tie-in, which will also include the documentary based on Hollis Mason’s autobiography Under the Hood.
Also to be released on DVD is Watchmen: The Complete Motion Comic, which is, I believe, basically the original comic, but with dialogue—done by actor/audiobook narrator Tom Stechschulte—and moving bits.
Now, aside from Under the Hood, it’s that intermediary Watchmen cut that I’m most curious about, how the viewing experience will be changed by those 27 minutes that ended up on the cutting room floor when the theatrical running time was brought into question. (I know a secondary character’s death—an emotional high point in the comic—is shown during those minutes, but what other bits are in there, I’ll have to wait and see; hopefully, that intermediary cut will bring us even closer to the ideal outcome.)

(Watchmen OS courtesy of cinematical.com; images courtesy of ew.com, latimes.com, nytimes.com, cinematical.com & io9.com.)

AFTERTHOUGHTS (98)
EMPIRE’S! 50! GREATEST! COMIC! BOOK! CHARACTERS! [4 of 5]
THE BATMAN EDITION


With Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight just around the corner, we see the Bat take the #2 spot, and his archnemesis, the Clown Prince of Crime, take #8…


8 Joker (aka Jack Napier)
The greatest comic book villain ever, and as versatile a character as his nemesis, the Batman.
The Joker has been a merry prankster of crime (poisoning all the fish in Gotham Bay so they sport his literally trademarked grin, then suing fishmongers for copyright infringement) and a gleefully sadistic bastard (responsible for permanently crippling Batgirl and temporarily killing at least one Robin), and always done his best to get under the ultra-grim Batman’s skin by taunting him with sick jokes.


There’s a sense that Joker is the only one of the rogues’ gallery Bruce Wayne really hates—many comics (eg: Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, Alan Moore and Brian Bolland’s The Killing Joke, Grant Morrison and Dave McKean’s Arkham Asylum, Michael Green and Denys Cowan’s Lovers & Madmen) revolve around Batman and the Joker as opposites or mirror images.
The original look of the character was based on Conrad Veidt’s fixed grin in the silent picture The Man Who Laughs.
FIRST APPEARED IN BATMAN # 1 (1940)
CREATED BY BILL FINGER AND JERRY ROBINSON


2 Batman (aka: Bruce Wayne, The Dark Knight, The Caped Crusader)
It’s a fair bet that when Bob Kane came up with the idea for a billionaire playboy who, by night, dressed up like a bat and fought crime, he had no idea where it would lead.
Almost seventy years later, and we’re jumping up and down—with good reason—about another Batman film, while The Caped Crusader (or Dark Knight, whichever you prefer) remains one of the most famous and iconic comic book characters of them all.
What is the appeal of the Batman? Well, he’s undeniably cool, for one thing. Visually striking, for another.
There’s a wish fulfillment thing going on there, too—unlike most heroes, Batman has no powers and relies only on his wits, cunning, and hard work to hone his body and fitness.
He’s got a great rogues’ gallery.

And he’s been exposed more on TV and in film than any other hero, which helps keep him in the public eye.
And, of course, the character has been through so many iterations over the years, from camp crusader to Frank Miller’s very, very dark knight, that there’s a Batman for everyone.
FIRST APPEARED IN DETECTIVE COMICS #27 (1939)
CREATED BY BOB KANE AND BILL FINGER

The above write-ups are from Empire’s list.
For more on the above characters, just click on their names; the entire list will be accessible from there.

Wrapping up in Part 5—Afterthoughts (99)—we note some characters from DC’s Superman franchise.

Parting shot: A review of Nolan’s Batman Begins (as well as a review of The Prestige) can be found in the Archive.

(Images courtesy of cinematical.com [Christian Bale and Heath Ledger as Batman and the Joker]; about.com [the Joker]; dccomics.com [Batman, art by Matt Wagner]; and impawards.com [The Dark Knight OS’s, designs by Intralink Film Graphic Design].)

AFTERTHOUGHTS (95)
EMPIRE’S! 50! GREATEST! COMIC! BOOK! CHARACTERS! [1 of 5]
THE OVERVIEW EDITION


As you can probably surmise by the above image, the septuagenarian Man of Steel took the #1 spot on Empire’s list, and we take a closer look at him in the fifth part of this series—Afterthoughts (99), in the Archive.
For now, we look at the list in general, and a few of the notable names on it.

On the plus side, it’s a nicely inclusive list that features more than the average spandex-clad superhero.
On the minus side, no Grant Morrison characters. Not. A. One.
This kills and disappoints me, as I truly love Empire. The Morrison oversight—considering some other comic book names manage to get two or even three of their characters in there—is such a crime…
(If memory serves, Morrison is only mentioned twice in the entire list, in the Emma Frost entry [#30], making reference to his New X-Men reinvention of the character, and in the Joker entry [#8].)

To distract myself from the horrible slight, I’ll take a look at some welcome names on the list…



35 Hellboy (aka: Anung Un Rama)
There are few characters more original or striking (literally—Hellboy punches first, asks questions… well, almost never) than Hellboy, the genius creation of Mike Mignola, who uses the character as the outlet for his obsession with pulp comics, Lovecraftian horror and tales of ancient folklore and the supernatural.
Enhanced greatly by Mignola’s artwork—pitch-black shadows and popping reds—Hellboy is a lumbering but lovable giant of few words (although, “aw, crap” is usually high on the list) who interacts with talking corpses and giant tentacled horrors while trying to deny the destiny he was created for.
For the movies, Guillermo del Toro gave Hellboy more inner turmoil and emotions, but the comics version is a blast as he investigates the paranormal in much the same way Gene Hunt investigates crime—fists first!
FIRST APPEARED IN SAN DIEGO COMIC-CON COMICS #2 (1993)
CREATED BY MIKE MIGNOLA


22 Hunter Rose (aka: Grendel)
The original and best in Matt Wagner’s long-running series of masked anti-heroes, Hunter Rose was a young genius gifted with extraordinary physical and mental prowess and just a little too much time to spare.
Finding that excellence breeds boredom if not channelled correctly, Rose set about becoming a crime kingpin, hired killer and all-round roguish gadabout before dying at the age of 21 by the hands of his lycanthropic nemesis, Argent.
More Grendels have followed in Hunter Rose’s footsteps but few have done the job with such an innate sense of style.
FIRST APPEARED IN COMICO PRIMER COMIC-BOOK ANTHOLOGY (1982)
CREATED BY MATT WAGNER



16 Rorschach (aka: Walter Kovacs)
Choosing just one of the Minutemen—the stars of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ classic comic, Watchmen—was tough. But from a purely iconic point of view, it had to be Rorschach.
Who was in the first picture released from Zack Snyder’s upcoming Watchmen movie? Rorschach.
Who dominated online casting debates? Rorschach.
Like The Punisher, Rorscach can be easily dismissed as a fascist whose belief in moral absolutes—there are no shades of grey; only black, white, good and evil—drives him to take the law into his own hands.
But in the hands of Moore, the freckled, ginger Walter Kovacs is a taut, tortured, complex creation who, as well as being at the centre of some of Watchmen’s most memorable sequences (the prison riot, for one), ends up being perhaps the most pure out of the graphic novel’s characters, the only one who—SPOILER WARNING—isn’t interested in compromising himself for the greater good.
FIRST APPEARED IN WATCHMEN #1 (1986)
CREATED BY ALAN MOORE AND DAVE GIBBONS

The above write-ups are from Empire’s list.
For more on the above characters, just click on their names; the entire list will be accessible from there.

In Part 2—Afterthoughts (96)—we note some characters from Marvel’s X-Men franchise.

(Images courtesy of dccomics.com [Superman; art by Carlos Pacheco]; empireonline.com [Hellboy, art by Mike Mignola; Rorschach, art by Dave Gibbons]; impawards.com [Hellboy II: The Golden Army OS [design by Crew Creative Advertising]; darkhorse.com [Grendel limited edition print, art by Matt Wagner]; and watchmenmovie.warnerbros.com [Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach].)

AFTERTHOUGHTS (77)
NEIL’S NEW CLASSIC MONSTERS

Amidst all the “New Classic” craziness currently going on at ew.com, Neil Gaiman has a list of his choices for 10 New Classic Monsters. (And by “New Classic,” they mean anything that saw the light of day from 1983 till the present.)
Among Neil’s choices:

9. The Pale Man from Guillermo del Toro’s El Laberinto Del Fauno (Pan’s Labyrinth)

7. The Nightbreed, from Clive Barker’s Nightbreed

6. Eugene Tooms, from The X-Files episodes “Squeeze” and “Tooms”

5. Grendel, in Gaiman’s words, “The first and the best,” seen most recently in Robert Zemeckis’ Beowulf (which Neil co-scripted)

4. Hannibal Lecter (though Gaiman specifies the Lecter from Thomas Harris’ novels Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs, “… back when he wasn’t quite human and was all the scarier for it.”)

2. Max Schreck, as portrayed by Willem Dafoe in E. Elias Merhige’s Shadow of the Vampire

And at the top spot…

Swamp Thing. As Neil puts it, “The 1984-87 Alan Moore/Steve Bissette/John Totleben revival. The best muck-encrusted monster in the best comics.”

You can find the entire list here.

Parting shot: Reviews of El Laberinto Del Fauno, Beowulf, and Shadow of the Vampire, can be found in the Archive.

(Images courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com [El Laberinto Del Fauno and Shadow of the Vampire]; amazon.com [Clive Barker’s The Nightbreed Chronicles cover art]; fredfarm.com [The X-Files]; and dccomics.com [Swamp Thing Vol. 1: Saga of the Swamp Thing cover art].)

AFTERTHOUGHTS (57)
WATCHING THE WATCHMEN

So Zack Snyder’s film adaptation of the seminal and groundbreaking deconstruction of the superhero comic, Watchmen, has wrapped and it’s all post from here on out till its release next year.
For anyone who’s looking forward to this with relish, five pics of some of the Watchmen in full costume are up at the official website.
Alternately, you can just click on the names below for the embiggened images.

The Comedian (Edward Blake) is being played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who horror geeks may recall as the Sheriff in Dead & Breakfast. Different sections of the TV audience may also know him from Weeds, Grey’s Anatomy, and Supernatural.

Nite Owl (Dan Dreiberg) is being played by Patrick Wilson, who came to widespread attention from the HBO adaptation of Angels in America. He subsequently appeared in the film adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera, but really impressed me with his work in David Slade’s Hard Candy and Todd Field‘s Little Children.

Ozymandias (Adrian Veidt) is being played by Matthew Goode, who I first saw in Woody Allen’s Match Point, and who was fantastic in Scott Frank‘s The Lookout.

Rorschach (Walter Kovacs) is being played by Jackie Earle Haley, reunited with his Little Children co-star, Patrick Wilson. (If you haven’t seen Little Children, I highly recommend it.)

And Silk Spectre (Laurie Juspeczyk) is being played by Malin Akerman, who played Tori on Entourage, and co-starred opposite Ben Stiller in The Heartbreak Kid.

Parting shot: A review of Zack Snyder’s 300 can be found in the Archive, along with the article “Revelations (Getting At The Truths of Apocalypse Cinema),” which discusses Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead remake.

(Images courtesy of rss.warnerbros.com/watchmen.)