Sometimes excess is just that, excess. It serves no purpose whatsoever, and that’s my biggest problem with Watchmen. It presses the outer boundaries of an R rating for no reason other than to make you cringe; it doesn’t serve the story, it distracts and detracts. In a different age this film would have been rated NC-17. It’s a sad commentary that Watchmen makes A Clockwork Orange appear tame. The irony is that Watchmen’s best character, Rorschach, would probably condemn a film like Watchmen.
Nonetheless, and here’s the twist, I think A Clockwork Orange is a brilliant film, and I’m beginning to believe that Watchmen is, too. The genius lies in creating a superhero, masked vigilante world and taking it serious. If The Dark Knight illustrates the high ideals such people would have to hold, Watchmen is their dark side. It illustrates what happens when some of those “heroes” fall prey to their baser instincts, the very instincts they claim to fight.
How well you appreciate this depends on how well you deal with genre fiction, and superheroes in particular. If you are generally dismissive of such things, Watchmen is not for you. If, on the other hand, you either embrace such things are at least given to speculating, “Hey, what if there really was a Batman...?” then you should find Watchmen a challenging experience. (This is a generality; Kyle Smith, who openly disdains comic book films, loved Watchmen from first viewing.)
The premise of the film is straight-forward. In an alternate time-line, masked vigilantes, are real and have been fighting crime for decades. One of them, Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup), is even a genuine superhero, possessing extraordinary powers and abilities. But in a world that sees Richard Nixon elected president of the United States fives times, the time of the masked vigilante has passed and they are banned. All, supposedly, slip into retirement.
If you buy that premise, the rest is relatively easy. The plot of the film starts with the murder of the Comedienne (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), one of the retired superheroes. Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley), a superhero who has refused to quit and is therefore always on the run from the law, begins his own investigation into the murder. In doing so, he begins contacting his old allies, upsetting their quiet, retired lives.
As he did with 300, director Zack Snyder brings much of the original graphic novel to life on the screen. Here, he’s not as slavish to doing so, which improves the film. Variances from the novel are also, for the most part, smart alterations. Unfortunately, some of Alan Moore’s less brilliant moments made the transition. His, and Snyder’s, portrayal of Nixon and his staff are ludicrous, and the entire build-up toward nuclear war isn’t convincing.
Those are quibbles, though; they’re all background material and it’s the foreground material that dominates. In general, the acting is all right. Some lines are delivered with all the verve and emotion of a high school reading, but they do okay.
On the other hand, two of the film’s central characters are played brilliantly. As the Comedienne, Morgan is at once evil and sympathetic. He’s clearly a sociopath, but watching him come undone, and to his ultimate undoing, is a marvelous performance.
And Haley as Rorschach...? Words almost fail me. His performance of a man who only sees the world in black and white, who can’t compromise or quit, “not even in the face of Armageddon,” is just brilliant. Whenever he’s on-screen he owns the screen. His climatic moments are simply gut-wrenching.
The director’s cut adds little touches here and there. Above all, they illustrate how skillfully matters were edited in the theatrical release. They really don’t add to (or subtract from) the plot, but for the most part they are intriguing expansions on the characters. If you want to obsess over such things, pay the extra change for the director’s cut. The least the film will be at least as good as the theatrical cut, not something that can be said of most “special editions” or “director’s cuts.”
Excesses, some weak performances, and the silly backstory elements aside, the film rocks. I was engaged from the first frame, mesmerized by the brilliant title sequence, and held at attention to the very end. Is it perfect? No. In addition to the issues I’ve already raised, the biggest change from the novel is in the ending, and it doesn’t really hold up under close scrutiny.
But as a work of genre fiction it expands what the genre is capable of. It’s the only film I can think of that comes close to challenging the brilliance that is The Dark Knight, in several regards actually surpassing it. Much like the better animated features we’ve seen, such as Spirited Away or even Up, it challenges the box that genre films are often put in. Watchmen deserves to be measured against any sort of film out there.
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