Insert Lame “Who Watches the Watchmen” Joke Here
The film version of Watchmen does its level best to stay true to the look of the graphic novel. They expend considerable effort getting the costumes right, having the characters look like their drawn counterparts, perfectly duplicating the props, even framing some of the shots to match the panels in the book.
It’s just everything else they get wrong.
Don’t misunderstand, they’re mostly faithful to the story. Events happen, by and large, as they do in the book. All the main story elements are hit, all the main plot points are covered. But, like a young music student banging out his rendition of Beethoven’s 9th, they hit all the notes, but can’t capture the melody.
The story feels forced along, scenes merely happening after another instead of one leading to another. As I feared, a lot of the subtleties and nuances of the book are gone, leaving only the framework of the story, with scenes no longer having any resonance, only appearing in the movie because they happened in the book. Rorschach’s interaction with his psychiatrist, one of the highlights of the graphic novel for me, showing the working of his character, the very why of him, here come across as a brief interlude, with none of the depth, power, or revelations of the book, and with a needlessly gory finish.
Even at nearly three hours, there’s not enough time to get everything from the book into the film, and events are sped along, trying to get everything possible into the running time with no time for reflection or consideration. When the master stroke of the plot is finally explained, it comes abruptly and feels not like a culmination of the story, but as an anecdote that’s somewhat related to the events previously witnessed. “I did it thirty-five minutes ago” was a line that gave me chills when I read it and blank indifference when I heard it.
With the depth gone from both characters and plot, what remains feels ultimately hollow, lacking any sort of the power found in the original book. I know, I know, a movie is not a book. I understand that. But if you’re going to make a movie out of a book, it needs to function as its own medium. I found myself during the movie thinking, “Is this entertaining at all? Does this even work as a movie?” I suppose it does, as the three hours didn’t feel like six, but in the end it felt like someone telling me about this great book they read, without being able to describe what made it so great. They related all the main points of the story, but the magic simply isn’t present in the retelling.
I suppose I shouldn’t complain too much. The film is handled skillfully, the source material treated with a great amount of respect. It’s a much better film than it could have been: a cheap Hollywood cash-in on an established name by a director and cast just in it for the paycheck. Maybe I’m being too hard on the film, being a fan of the book. My fiancee, who has never read the graphic novel, was mostly fine with the movie, although she thought the pacing was uneven and didn’t much care for Dr. Manhattan’s reedy voice (although I heard no complaints about his glowing blue junk). Not knowing what was missing or changed, she was content to roll along with it.
Me? I missed the melody.
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Tags: Movie Reviews, Watchmen
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3 Responses to “Insert Lame “Who Watches the Watchmen” Joke Here”
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March 9th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
I think the difference here is the amount of emotional investment you had in the material vs where I was coming from. Some of your major concerns are extremely valid, most notably how “disjointed” story plays out on screen. I spent some serious time trying to figure out whether this movie, for someone that has no exposure to the source material, makes any real sense as it’s presented in the movie. My initial thought is that it probably was a hard sell for new eyes.
In that respect it’s an oddly structured story to begin with. In the film, we have a set up with Veidt early on and his yearning to “solve” the world’s problems, and then the film just meanders through half a dozen stories and subplots before the final act brings up back to this as his motivation for his “final solution” so to speak.
I think one of the films failures, that I didn’t mention in my review was with Doctor Manahattan. That was probably the character in the book that most intrigued me. I loved what Crudup did with the character, but in the comic series I just really keyed in how this character’s non-linear life experience played into his character. My favorite sequence from the series was his “soul searching” so to speak when he first arrives on Mars and how the book didn’t present it really as a series of flashbacks but how the character had no presence in linear time and that he was at all times experiencing his entire existence not unlike the protagonist in Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five. That just didn’t really come through in the film, and it suffered because Osterman’s Musings ended up playing like a series of flashbacks. I probably took that to heart the way you did the treatment of Rorshach.
Ultimately, the film has it’s flaws, but I really did accept it as an exceptional piece of cinematic art on the visual and story level.
March 9th, 2009 at 8:15 pm
I don’t think it was so much the emotional investment I had in the book, but the fact that I had zero emotional involvement with any of the characters or events in the movie. Think about it: Did you feel anything for any of the characters? Did any of the events have any impact on you? Shouldn’t the destruction of New York have more weight than it did? Shouldn’t you have a much clearer understanding of why [VILLAIN] did what he did, or why they all chose to remain quiet about it? Laurie’s debate with Jon on Mars–for the fate of all humanity, no less–comes across as completely bland and hollow. Her discovery of her parentage is equally lacking.
I’ve heard the book described as “cold” and “bleak,” but it has emotional resonance. The characters have depth. The events have power. The film has none of that.
March 10th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
As boring as it sounds, I can’t seriously counter any of your criticisms because you’re actually right on target with them. I still loved the film. I guess what this says is if the film did for me emotionally what it did for me artistically then I would be hailing it as a masterpiece. As it stands. Great art. Good Movie. I thought it had enough strokes of brilliance that I enjoyed it immensely. Your points are valid though, there real was an emotional detachment from the characters in the three hour shuffle of trying to squeeze it all in. It would have been interesting to see what they could have done with this as a 12 part mini-series on a premium network.