I am a comic fan. I read this comic when I was younger. The film adaptation was something I was very excited about. My goodness what a let down. Because of the many different elements to this movie, I’ll break down each area. Let us begin with storyline.
What a convoluted catastrophe. Perhaps the script was actually several sci-fi TV shows written by different people and mashed together. Or maybe there were too many re-writes of the script and pages got mixed up. Either way the storyline, or should I say story lines, never quite come together. There are so many flashbacks and nearly no explanation. For example, Nixon was in office for three terms? Explain this? Those of us who’ve read the comic know why, but for someone who had no clue about what was going on, it made no sense. And there are too many stories playing out at once that you can’t stay with one to care long enough about the characters. You have the story of Dan and Laurie, the story of Laurie and Dr. Manhattan, the story of Edward Blake’s life and death, the story of nuclear war and the story of the anti-superhero law. All jam-packed into 2 hours worth of movie. There was a reason the comic book was spread out over several books. There is too much going on. Hayter, who wrote the screenplay for X-Men and Scorpion King, and Tse, who wrote Sucker Free City, try so hard to recreate “Sin City” style storytelling. All they accomplished was removing any of the passion and power of the story. It needed to be broken up into several movies, or at best a mini-series.
This brings us to issue two, the cast. You had some really great acting from the likes of Morgan, Haley, Goode, Wilson and Gugino. No one could have pulled off Rorschach the way Haley did. Brooding, angry, uncompromising and unassuming, he captured the true bones of Rorschach. Wilson was great as the noble yet naïve Nite Owl. He reminded me of Guy Pearce’s character in “L.A. Confidential”. Goode was truly believable as Ozymandias, the smartest man on earth. He is both arrogant and sincere at the same time, and his motives for his actions are truly conflicting. Morgan is the stand out for me here though. He creates a truly despicable character in the Comedienne and yet you understand and sympathize with him. His storyline, which coincides with Gugino’s, is perhaps the most compelling. Gugino is brilliant as the over the hill, past her prime original Silk Spectre. Her hard drinking, sad portrayal of Sally Jupiter is reminiscent of Taylor in “Who’s afraid of Virginia Wolf?” But sadly, the rest of the cast just bores. Billy Crudup brought nothing to Dr. Manhattan. He was void of any personality. It seeps through a bit at the end but not enough to make him worth anything. Crudup is truly an overrated actor. Granted all you had of him was vocal, but still, you can bring a lot more than he did. Look at Gerard Butler’s vocals in “Watchmen: Tales of the Black Freighter”, much more expressive and effective. Malin Ackerman was devoid of anything as well. She treated this role with all the melodrama of an evening soap. Perhaps it’s because most of her early work was on nightly soaps like “Witchblade”, “Earth Final Conflict” and “Relic Hunter”. She was just plain awful and I couldn’t care less about what happened to her.
Issue three, Zack Snyder. I was so freaking’ stoked to find out Snyder, who helmed the awesome “300” and great remake of “Dawn of the Dead”, was directing. He did his best with what he was given. A bad script, mixed bag of actors, and as much CGI as he wanted. But not even he could save this. He tried. He got great performance out of the few actors who were capable of acting and he tried to organize the story as best he could, but in the end the movie was a little more than a hot mess.
All in all, this movie was a disappointment for not only the fans of this epic comic, but to the creators as well. To see their work diluted and distorted like this shows a lack of respect on the film community.
For starters I want to agree that this movie did not live up to its expectations. I’ve never read the comic books, but the preview alone made me excited; however, I did fear the fact that Zack Snyder directed it, which brings me to my first disagreement with your analysis. Snyder always hides behind “eye candy” as an ability to direct. The only reason 300 even reached a reasonable length for a feature film was because Snyder put a significant amount of the scenes in slow motion. Unfortunately Snyder seems to constantly take on projects with weak stories. As a viewer, I’m starting to see a pattern that will make me avoid his projects.
Snyder also fails in other areas. In recent history he has not coached a cast of actors to greatness. In Watchmen, many characters appear flat. Malin Akerman and Stephen McHattie failed to convey strong emotion when a scene called for it. Akerman did not convince me as upset on the moon, and McHattie’s failed to convincingly scream with agony when Rorschach dies. Most importantly, Snyder missed many opportunities to actually demonstrate real directorial insight and ability. My friends who have read the graphic novel celebrated the section in the book where the TV interview with Dr. Manhattan coincides with muggers attacking Night Owl and Silk Spectre II. In the graphic novel both of these “fights” are drawn parallel with seemingly identical frames, yet Snyder didn’t shoot it this way. When I left the theater I felt disappointed that great shots like this didn’t make the movie.
I also must disagree with you as far as how they arranged the story. For starters, I agree it was bad but for different reasons. I don’t want them to waste time on explaining why Nixon is president. I understand that this is an alternative past, and I can make general assumptions to why this alternative 1980’s exists (for example maybe the people elected him again because he ended the Vietnam War). When I watched the movie I did not leave wishing I knew why he served a third term. I did leave the theater wondering why the flashbacks of the heroes’ back history ran on so long. The Silk Spectre storyline could have been truncated to one flashback when Dr. Manhattan learns the identity of Laurie’s parents. All of the clips leading up to this moment seemed to waste time or deflate the impact of the reveal because earlier flashbacks hinted to it. I don’t understand why we see half of the flashback of Silk Spectre arguing with her husband, when later the entire scene plays out. Another problem comes from the fact that the film loses focus of the spine of the story. The core of the movie deals with the following problems: impeding nuclear holocaust, who killed the Comedian, and more importantly what the heroes will do about each issue. The Comedian’s death acts as the catalyst and the connection because all the people involved. When everyone’s flashback about the Comedian happens at the funeral, he disappears from the film for far too long. As an audience member I literally forgot he died and that the heroes’ were actually investigating his death.
One final note: the soundtrack for this movie sucks. Besides the opening credits with Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are A-Changin’, every song choice makes almost no sense. The movie continued to choice songs just because they sounded cool, but had no relevant substance to the scene; furthermore, since the world takes place in an alternative past, some songs choices create some continuity errors because they might not even exist in the Watchmen universe. In general the music that appears in the movie draws attention to itself in a negative way, because it either doesn’t make sense in the scene or tries to distract from an already boring scene.
While I do apprecitae your comments I have to disagree with your opinion of Snyder. Snyder is a good director who treats each shot like a painting. He likes dimension and emotion. The fault of this movie does not lie with him in any way. He can only work with what he is given. In this case it was a poorly written script and extremely bad acting. I made my film class watch and review this and sadly, 65 film student’s hated it. There are opnly 67 students in the class. The average score was 2.5 out of 10.
P.S. – It is NOT McHattie at the end. McHattie, who is genius in his own right, plays the original Niteowl. It is Patrick Wilson who screams at end.
My apologies on messing up the actor names. I almost did it by confusing the two Silk Spectre actresses. In my previous post I intented to name the actor who plays the younger Night Owl. Thanks for pointing that out, brennal.
I’m not surprised your class scored Watchmen so low (I also couldn’t help but laugh out loud at the statistics). The movie wastes anyone’s time who watches it. The only people I have ever met that enjoyed the movie love the graphic novel, and they just enjoy the fact that they see their favorite characters on screen.
I don’t expect us to see eye-to-eye on Snyder. I could tell from your initial review that you love his work. I disagree. I also don’t expect to change your opinion either. I just wanted to add a different perspective. I know plenty of people that enjoyed 300 and the remake of Dawn of the Dead, both of which I can’t stand. Snyder’s excess use of slow motion in 300 bothered me. Quite frankly, it has been too long since I saw Dawn of the Dead to name specifics pertaining to his directing ability.
I’d like to find out what your students think of Snyder’s other movies, and if they reacted the same way they did to Watchmen. Even putting aside his ability to direct, I still think he worked on several movies that suffer from weak stories. When the story doesn’t perform, everyone else’s job increases dramatically in difficulty.
You are %100 right. If the story is bad it is almost certain all else will be too. And I do agree about Snyder. I said he is a good director, but by no means great. I may just take your advice and make my class watch some other works. Just for Gits and Shiggles.
Brennal, I must say that I agree with you that Stephen McHattie is infact a genius in his own right. Pontypool, possibly the most underrated movie of the late 2000’s, should have scored him an Oscar nom.
And about Watchmen, I thought it was a terrible adaptation, but it used good film techniques and editing, but the comic was very good. I feel like had it been a more contemporary director it would have been worse, but if it had been a more extreme director, such as Michel Gondry, it could have been a masterpiece. Snyder is good, but his style has some problems. Every movie he does the same shots and editing, in almost clockwork fashion, and though most directors are known for instances such as this (my favorites Aronofsky and Nolan are prime examples), they diversify their shots, though the angles and everything are often very similar. Snyder always had that kick, which is slow motion as a person falls back yelling (this can even be seen in the SuckerPunch trailer), and I must say that though it is fun, it still gets old and makes the audience want something more, something dynamic that would make them say “Wow, how did Snyder do that,” or “I’m seeing his next movie just because he did this,” like so many did with Shyamalan for his twist or Aronofsky for his AMAZING cinematography and editing, or Fincher for both of these.