Mine isn't the most original title, but when talking about DC's Watchmen, no other title fits. What many experts considered impossible to bring to the big screen, visionary director Zack Snyder (Dawn of the Dead, 300) grabbed by the horns and wrestled into a masterpiece worthy of the novel. To describe this as anything less than a labor of love would take away from the awe-inspiring brilliance ripped straight from one of TIME Magazines 100 Best Novels of All-Time.
The story is simple. Imagine an alternate universe America circa 1985. Superheroes have been outlawed for almost a decade, after a half century of service to their nation and to the world, due to a public outcry from events perpetrated in Vietnam. One of those now retired former heroes, the very definition of an anti-hero named the Comedian, is brutally murdered in his penthouse apartment and a set of events is set in motion that will bring some of the world's best and brightest heroes together to unearth one of the most shocking conspiracies ever concocted.
Many felt this movie would be impossible to make because you would not be able to include a lot of the writing devices used in the novel and still keep it under three hours. The first and possibly greatest difficulty in bringing Watchmen to the big screen would be being able to still develop the amazingly complex main characters to their full effect without the ancillary characters and chapter addendum devices used throughout the novel.
The novel gave convoluted psychological profiles from everyone from the man selling newspapers on the corner to Dr. Manhattan's former lover to the prison psychologist that has to analyze Rorschach when he gets taken into custody to help flesh out major plot points and character flaws in the heroes. The novel also had special addendums at the end of each chapter like excerpts from novels within the novel, shipping manuscripts, and other items that only make sense in the novel's thrilling conclusion. So would the movie still be able to portray the main characters' full spectrum of personality without these additional materials that could never be included in the movie?
The short answer is yes. The movie develops the main characters just as deeply as in the novel and compensates by keeping most major points from the original story and adding a handful of subtle moments to make up for the lack of these additional writing devices. This, along with some spectacular acting that made it feel like the characters had jumped right off the page, did pure justice to the characters of Watchmen.
Another problem that arose from the lack of extra writing devices was that without the ancillary characters and chapter addendums, the original story's ending would not make sense. Even though Zack Snyder did his best to be as true to the original novel as possible, several major plot points had to be tweaked or removed in order to make more sense and appeal to a larger audience, especially the ending. Some would argue that the movie's ending might have been better than the novel's because it more directly related to the main characters, but that is clearly up for debate. Still, for the most part, the movie of Watchmen is ripped straight from the novel's pages and it feels like the comic had come to life.
Another amazing aspect of the movie was the artistic style. From the perfectly emulated streets of the run-down 1985 New York City in the novel, to the colorful costumes and devices used by the characters, to the music choices made through many of the scenes from Bob Dylan's The Times They Are A-Changin' to Jimi Hendrix's rendition of All Along the Watchtower. Every visual and audio choice made by Snyder fit perfectly with the style of the novel and the music added so much more to the scenes than you could've hoped for.
There are only a couple of major critiques to this movie. I'm all for sex and violence in movies, but one major hang-up, especially amongst die-hard purists of the novel, is that Zack Snyder likes to step up the sensationalism in most of his movies and some of the gore and sex scenes were so amped up by Snyder's style that you felt some of the movie could have been at NC-17 levels. I know that Dr. Manhattan was naked most of the time in the novel, but it is a little different when you see a blue-man group reject naked on the big screen for almost three hours. Combine that with 10-minute long sex scenes and people being torn to shreds when they aren't having relations; it was all just too unnecessary.
Another major critique was that if you did not read the novel, you might not have understood or been able to follow as clearly everything that was going on. The plot is very complicated and even with the movie timing out at 2 hours and 43 minutes there are still some things you wish they could have expanded on to help the general audience. For example, if you did not read the novel, you'll have no clue as to why Ozymandias has a blue tiger as his pet in his Antarctic fortress. Without being explained in the movie, I could see how something like a blue tiger could bother people. I guess we'll just have to grab the 3 hour and 10 minute Director's cut when it comes out on DVD. Oh, those tricky marketing and merchandising departments.
In the end, this is not a movie that you can just check your brain at the door. If you have not read the novel (highly recommended before seeing the movie) and miss a moment here and there, you could very likely not understand some of the major plot points. So, be prepared if you're going to the theatre. Be sure to go to the bathroom, get your snacks beforehand, and get comfortable because if you miss any of the near three hours, the entire experience will likely be markedly worse. For this reason, along with the clearly unnecessary gore and sex, I have to dock my score some.
Watchmen gets 3.5 out of 5.
-Ray Carsillo