Watchmen – 2009
I don’t know if it the fanatics trying to adequately defend their beloved piece of pop culture, or the haters trying to justify why they dislike the ‘hype’ film of the year, but every review I have read thus far has been a sprawling three page snore-fest that is more demanding than Watchmen itself. So to that affect, I will be brief and succinct as I too try and unravel this vastly complex but ultimately rewarding crime drama.
I cannot think of many more directors working today that could have handled Watchmen better then Zack Snyder, whom I am growing to love more with each film he completes, from the zombie masterpiece Dawn of the Dead to 2006`s surprise hit 300, Snyder excels at creating action pieces with underlying moral messages and hidden meanings.
With his third crack, he draws deep into his self-proclaimed passion of the Alan Moore Watchmen graphic novel, and essentially anchors it upon the screen, almost panel for panel. And it is too long. That being said, Watchmen is never boring and certainly never uninteresting. The opening act is visceral and tantalizing, but the following 45 minutes is muddled and ultimately unnecessary. Literature, because there is not a complimentary visual medium, must describe every element and while a graphic novel can half that effect, a movie should still leave more open to interpretation then they did ultimately. The final third is by far the best, and includes the films best scenes and dialogue which take place in a prison.
The prisoner? A vigilante by the name of Rorschach (Jackie Earl Haley), who draws his name from the infamous ink blot test, personifying it by a shifting black and white mask. He is but one of a group of second generation vigilante superheroes including Silk Spectre II (Malin Akerman), the godlike Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup), the proclaimed “worlds smartest man” Ozymandias (Matthew Goode), The Comedian (Jeffery Dean Morgan) and Nite Owl II (Patrick Wilson). In retirement and in an alternate reality where Richard Nixon is still president and the American’s won Vietnam, the group is haphazardly forced back into action after The Comedian is killed, and a deeper running plot is revealed. Jackie Early Haley is fantastic as the cold, unrelenting Rorschach whose quest for the absolute truth is society’s blessing and his curse.
While demanding during the initial viewing, I found myself pondering the morals at play and further respecting and enjoying what I had seen. I suspect this is a film where a second viewing would be advantageous, if not to understand more fully, to again admire Snyder’s crisp and engrossing visuals and wholly original mystery that unfolds.
© 2009 Simon Brookfield
