Watchmen movie review

It's disappointing how average Watchmen the movie is, though the film itself isn't necessarily disappointing; After all, it's already a given that no film will ever come close to the masterpiece (but not necessarily perfection) that is Watchmen the graphic novel.

The film starts out with the death of the Comedian, adequately played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, followed by the opening sequence - if there's any sequence that could sum up my opinion of the movie, it's the opening. If you love the opening, odds are you loved the movie, and visa verse. I didn't particularly care for the opening; granted, I enjoyed the idea of doing a "historical summation" of the characters, but it failed to impress me, particularly with the music - this being the first offense that is the mostly horrendous music selection in Watchmen. Continuing with the idea that this sequence is the defining sequence of the film, director Zach Snyder's now trademark time manipulation is solidly present (a tactic, as done in 300, is present throughout the whole film; again, this is love/hate, however, it's much more tastefully/efficiently done in Watchmen than it was in 300).

Roughly the first half hour of the film was nigh unbearable. The acting (Nixon was absolutely terrible), pacing, dialogue and general direction were all shoddy, over-the-top or just poorly done. One example of a problem I had was with the scene about the Comedian's funeral. It's a long take that starts with a medium shot of a cemetery, then slowly zooms out to reveal a caravan of limos and hearses. This long take was completely unnecessary and failed to use the abilities of the medium; a problem that occurred throughout the film. I have no problem with long takes, but it seemed too much as if Snyder was trying to pay respects to the panels drawn by Watchmen artist Dave Gibbons, rather than move the film at an appropriate pace.

The film finally starts to turn around during a flashback that featured Night Owl II (hammily played by Patrick Wilson) and the Comedian controlling a riot in NYC - one of the best scenes in the film. In this scene, nearly everything meshes together: the acting, directing, dialogue, pacing, music selection, and time manipulation. While it made me hope that the film would pick up a lot of steam, it unfortunately didn't, instead alternating between scenes of complete mediocrity, ridiculousness (Dr. Manhattan's "revelations" and the Night Owl/Silk Spectre sex scene), faithful adaptation but still not amazing (scenes towards the end of the film, particularly Antarctica), and of brilliance (Dr. Manhattan's origin).

However, there are several more major problems with the film: the aforementioned poor music selection, the plot holes/writing, and the general lack of interest for the characters. In regards to the last one, the film on the whole feels like a parody or big budget homage to the source material, rather than trying to become something entirely its own. While the inclusion of music could have helped differentiate itself for the better, it instead did the opposite, often selecting pop songs that were neither relevant to the time period, trying to take advantage of dissonance (e.g. classical music set during a Vietnam War, a la Apocalypse Now), seemed more along the lines of an in-joke (All Along the Watchtower towards the film's climax), or just generally out of place. In all, the music choices brought too much attention to themselves, distracting from the important messages found within the film, and generally trying to be much more inspired than they actually were.

As for the writing and plot holes, that can also be combined with a rather poor sense of pacing. Watchmen moves at a pace that just plateaus/flatlines from beginning to end; there is no buildup whatsoever. To put it one way, what happens in the beginning bears little impact on what happens in the end. Indeed, during roughly any scene in the film, it only feels as if you need to know what happened in the previous 10 minutes to understand what's going on (either that, or have already read the source material). There also doesn't seem to be any actual importance placed on any of the plots (death of the Comedian, rape of Silk Spectre I, Dr. Manhattan's distance/loss of humanity, and the Cold War, to name a few). Everything just jumps from point A to point B, and if anything important/relevant needs to be introduced, then it's done in the previous scene (again, the 10 minute rule). There is little to no foreshadowing whatsoever; which itself wouldn't be a problem if the attachment to the characters or emotional/psychological impact of the plot were present. Whether or not the story is convoluted or easy to follow isn't even a question, since the importance doesn't matter at all. Which raises the question: What was the point of this film? Was it the visuals? The time-manipulated fighting sequences? The music? To add another notch on Snyder's list of accomplishments? Or to simply show that Watchmen is film-able?

Any and all of those questions, and even the reasoning behind it, is very subjective. In regards to the last question, I'd like to think that Watchmen is indeed film-able, but it has to be done under much more competent hands that utilize that medium; it has to be a proper adaptation and not just a poor translation. If anything, I would love to see Watchmen done again in 10 years time as a 6-episode miniseries on HBO. This way, the serialization will give more impact to both the plot and characters, and severely improve the pace and structure of the story. While I will readily acknowledge that there are several scenes of brilliance, the general mediocrity and haphazardness of the rest of the film far outweighs those few moments of transcendence. Granted, I'd be curious to see the movie again, this time on Blu-ray, but if I had a choice between that and reading the over-sized Watchmen: Absolute Edition, I'd choose the latter any day of the week.

Things liked: the action sequences, Dr. Manhattan's origin, Night Owl II/Comedian NYC riot flashback, the visuals, the trailers/marketing
Things disliked: a big portion of the acting, the camera work, the sex scene, Dr. Manhattan's wardrobe (or lack thereof), the direction, a majority of the music selection

Rating: R
Runtime: 2 hrs, 43 min.
*Special thanks to the LA Times for the advanced screening