Watchmen
Don't believe the hype! As the marketing would have you believe, "Visionary" director Zack Snyder has filmed Alan Moore's "unfilmable" graphic novel...
Doesn’t it bother anyone that this is about as far from the definition of “visionary” as it’s possible to get? The visionary sees what others do not see. Mr Snyder – whose previous films were a remake (Dawn of the Dead) and another scrupulously faithful comic book adaptation (300) – is more in the line of a fancy photocopier, duplicating other artists’ imagery with a forger’s intensity. A visionary transforms the world. Snyder slavishly transcribes what’s set down five inches in front of his face.
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Top rated films View all 300 - HD DVD Version (2007) 
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Alan Moore, who has refused to have his name on the movie (ditto its predecessors, V for Vendetta and The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen) and who has declined all reimbursement to protest the entertainment industry’s fundamental lack of respect for intellectual property, counts as a bona fide visionary. His 1986 comic book is a landmark in the history of the form, a masterpiece of pop cultural angst, filtering Cold War nihilism and disillusionment through the inspired pulp idiom of mundane masked crime fighters and one genuine, possibly radioactive, superhero.
In Moore’s alternative 1985 the US has troops in Afghanistan (sic). Basking after victory in Vietnam. Nixon is still President. The Soviets are effectively neutered by America’s not-so-secret weapon, Dr Manhattan, a kind of quantum ghost in the machine capable of reconstituting matter (and nuclear warheads) at will.
Moore’s meta-comic switched back and forth in time with the same facility as Dr Manhattan morphed between New Jersey and Mars, cutting between a doomsday conspiracy threatening to engulf the earth and flashbacks relating the biographies of half-a-dozen “Watchmen”, a generation of intrepid masked avengers forced to hang up their capes and spandex when public opinion turned on them in the late 1970s. (It’s easy to discern the book’s influence on subsequent films The Incredibles and Mystery Men.)
Watchmen: Marlin Akerman and Patrick Wilson
With its parallel stories and virtuoso zooming and panning visual tropes, Moore and illustrator Dave Gibbons’ “Watchmen” always felt cinematic. You could sense Scorsese and Travis Bickle In Moore’s squalid New York City and vigilante anti-hero Rorschach, but putative movies by Terry Gilliam and Paul Greengrass failed to materialize, foundering on the sophisticated narrative chicanery that distinguishes the comic book.
The solution proposed by Snyder and his screenwriters David Hayter and Alex Tse is simply to ignore the problem and stick to the text. In fairness, this strategy has proved wildly popular in adaptations of the Harry Potter books and, for instance, Twilight and 300. The fans seem to demand it – just as there is now a common assumption that a longer, unexpurgated DVD edition is inherently superior to the shorter, tighter theatrical version.
Watchmen the movie provides ample evidence that more is more, but less might have been closer to Moore in spirit (that is, anarchic, witty and compelling). Clocking in at an exhausting 163 minutes even without the Tales of The Black Freighter comic book within the comic book sub-plot, the film forfeits momentum and suspense for a jerky succession of expository dialogue scenes interspersed with occasional flashes of grotesque ultra-violence (invariably filmed in Snyder’s spasmodic, stop-go trademark style) and a jukebox score that ranges from Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen to Nena’s “99 Luftballoons”.
On the few occasions where the filmmakers do exercise their imaginations – in a credit montage relating the glory days of the crime-fighters Weegee-style, and in a neat improvement on Moore’s climax – the results are actually ingenious and sharp. But too many key scenes ring hollow, undermined by flat staging and tone-deaf treatment, not least the ridiculous moment when Dr Manhattan’s faith in humanity is restored by the revelation of… Well, see it for yourself, and then compare with the infinitely more nuanced passage in the graphic novel.
The considerable limitations of Swedish actress Malin Akerman are cruelly exposed as Laurie, AKA Silk Spectre II, and if Matthew Goode (Adrian Veidt) is the smartest man in the world then we’re really in trouble. Jackie Earle Haley and his Little Children co-star Patrick Wilson fare better as the angry reactionary Rorschach and mildly conflicted Dan Dreiberg respectively, while it’s hard to take your eyes off Billy Crudup’s naked blue avatar – all three of him.
I guess an honest reproduction of a great comic book is better than the trivialization that often passes for adaptation, and in this case the material is so engrained with audacious ideas the movie can’t be counted a complete cop-out. But if it was really going to honour the original, Watchmen had to put the fear of God in us, to rekindle that prospect of imminent nuclear annihilation that haunted the Cold War world. And it had to remind us these rather sorry comic book characters were, as Moore insisted, more human than super. Snyder flunks that test. Yes it will hit the box office like a tidal wave, but ultimately the numb, enervating Watchmen is living.
Reviews
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Critics' reviews
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The most celebrated graphic novel ever written, Watchmen takes place in an alternate 1985 teetering on the brink... read more on Time Out
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Most helpful members' reviews (3)
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260 out of 271 people found this review helpful
[Highly rated reviewer]
Watch The Watchmen
So, it's finally here. After years in development hell, Zack Snyder finally delivers his take on Alan Moore's seminal graphic novel.
It's taken me two whole days to digest this movie, and I'm still wrestling with it. All I really know is this.
I love it.
Yet this is one that's going to plague me for a dozen repeat viewings - because I'm still trying to work out why I love it.
Calling it 'the Citizen Kane of superhero films' is a little rich. About halfway through I turned to a friend whom I watched it with and said 'This is the There Will Be Blood of superhero films.' Actually, I said 'This is There Will Be Blood with blue willies' but you get the point. The film's pace is one entirely of its own and I can fully see the criticism of it's too long, it's slow, it's episodic. It is all of those things, yes, but I never felt any of those were negatives. The traditional three act structure is negligable, too - the film feels very much like consuming the graphic novel in a single sitting.
High points? Where to begin. Well - at the beginning, with the astounding titles sequence set to Bob Dylan's The Times They Are A Changin' - a six minute sequence of real-life comic book tableau's and vignettes detailing the history of this alternate world that deftly sets up tone and character clues. Indeed, the music choices throughout give texture to the world and often combine to leave lasting impressions - Simon and Garfunkel's Sound Of Silence played over The Comedian's rainsoaked funeral; Philip Glass' Pruit Igoe & Prophecies scoring the flawless sequence detailing Doctor Manhattan's perception of time and exhile on Mars; Hendrix' All Along The Watchtower mirroring it's use in the book as Nite Owl and Roarscach pay the final visit to Antarctica.
Performances are uniformly excellent, subtle and nuanced in all the right places. Patrick Wilson's plays Nite Owl as the aging boyscout who always genuinely wanted to be a superhero and had it taken away from him. Malin Ackerman's Silk Spectre is a girl who never grew up, a surprising and believable take on the character. Billy Crudup's Dr Manhattan is austere, serene and stilted, having pretty much given up on the need for human communication, reflected in his voice and movements. Only Matthew Goode's Ozymandias doesn't quite hold up - he's a little too effete and distant at times, but he brings it when he has to.
The standouts are Jackie Earle Haley's Roarshach and Jeffrey Dean Morgan as The Comedian. The film's darker characters, both are sociopaths of a different breed. Roarschach is the son of a prostitute, led down dark paths during his life and finally forged during a missing-child investigation, an event that flips a switch in his mind and sets his moral compass to black and white, pure and simple. Evil is evil, crime is crime, and all must be punished - one broken finger and meat-cleaved head at a time. Haley makes the character utterly convincing and terrifying, and you're constantly left in the uncomfortable state of having to decide whether he's right or wrong. Much of the film is spent with him masked, but once it comes off in prison and you finally get a look in those eyes, no matter how brief, Haley sells every moment. Morgan, likewise, brings an odd humanity to a murdering rapist, particularly in the scene where he spills his heart out to a former enemy.
Changes? Yes, there are some, but none that I feel detract from the experience. In fact, and this sentiment was mirrored by several of those I saw the film with, the new ending to the film feels like an improvement over the book. It makes greater thematic sense, gives more character resolution and dammit, the squid was just plain daft. The outcome isn't different, but the means are.
Problems? The only thing that bugged me was the unnecessarily cheesy sex scene, which caused more titters than tittilation amongst the audience. Scored to Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, it's a late-night soft core rub fest that I can see the intention of - to show the fetishistic nature of dressing up in latex, while offering a potent payoff for a character - but it didn't need as much bare-ass thrusting.
The other 'problem' with the film is that it's so staggeringly uncommercial that I would be totally unsurprised if this flopped. Non-fans of the book are going to have a difficult time absorbing so much information because it doesn't offer the standard tropes of the genre - there are very few action sequences, the heroes are flawed, the moral outcome foggy and ambivalent. The film, much like the graphic novel, offers up the story and says 'That's it. Now deal with it.'
And that's where I am now. Dealing with it. I've never had a film experience quite like this - and I know this will be a film I treasure each repeat viewing of, dissecting it and deciding what each scene means. It feels like a multi-layered complex experiment, and I love it all the more for it. Chances are I'll back with a new review every time I see it.
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- Selfy from Newcastle upon Tyne
- Posted 08 Mar 2009 14:49
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69 out of 84 people found this review helpful
[Highly rated reviewer]
Zack Snyder doing his usual stuff
Zack Snyder is not an intelligent man.
This statement may seem controversial , but if you were to form an opinion of the man from his films only, it would be hard to come to any other conclusion.
I'd heard that Watchmen the movie was complex. Indeed it is; it's bad on so many levels.
The ideas (Moore's obviously) within Watchmen are rich, dark and fascinating.
The film of Watchmen made me embarrassed for all those involved. Snyder has no idea how to create tension or drama or humanity, things that are kind of important if you want human beings to get involved in your film.
The acting is laughably bad throughout, none of the actors managing to create anything close to a solid character (be it empathetic or antagonistic)....except for the character of Rorshchach, who is actually pretty compelling.
There is approximately 20 minutes of story in this piece, meaning that it is essentially 2 hours and 20minutes too long. Also not smart. Nothing against long films, with involved (even convoluted in the right circumstances) storylines, but something has to be happening (no matter how subtle or mood-based). For most of this movie, that is not the case. And Snyder is not subtle. Because the movie is not actually dark in the least, Snyder simply amps up the gore, thinking that violence can be a substitute for (or a path to) dread and depth.
There is nothing going on in this film essentially. It is about nothing other than itself. It has some grand issues being bandied about, but none of them are dealt with with any style or grace.
Additionally, the film looks dreadful, Snyder using that already hackneyed 'suddenly-slo-mo effect when there's really nothing else to fill his frame, and it fails to really create a world we can believe in. The music cues are also embarrassing (although they do help add to the several unintentional laughs, making the 4-year running time slightly more amusing). The music does nothing to add anything. IT is music that is already attached to other films, other stories, other events in your life as an audience member, and the film hopes to cadge on to the fact that you care about something else in the world and associate itself with it.
In essence, if you've seen the trailer, you shouldn't expect to gain anything more from the film itself. This has as much substance as watching 55 music videos back to back. Which is really all Snyder is capable of. He is not a filmmaker. He is a music video director. -
54 out of 59 people found this review helpful
[Highly rated reviewer]
Pants
Watched this last night and was litterally peed off i'd wasted 2 half hours of my life. visually it looked pretty fantastic. plot and cast seriously lacked the ability to want you to actually care where it or them was going. when you finally find out who is behind everything you feel relieved that the film might end soon. then it goes on for longer! Really wanted this to be great as i loved 300 but it was sh! ite!
I also felt they just added a sex scene to keep hold of the 18 cert. totally pointless! -
Most recent members' reviews (2)
View all -
13 out of 14 people found this review helpful
[Highly rated reviewer]
watch me fall asleep
Completely and utterly BORING. The director wouldn't know how to put emotion and humanity into a film if he went to Ethiopia on red nose day!
LONG LONG LONG, everytime i thought it was over...it wasn't.
I was fuming as I walked out of the theatre because of the complete lack of anything in this film other than beautiful cinematography. I was seriously going to ask for my money back as i feel i had been conned...I mean, the trailers really did look awesome!!!
Reasons NOT to see this film
A: because it's a massively huge pile of horsesh*t
B: well I don't need a B because A was so great!
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- lizturner from Milton Keynes
- Posted 22 Mar 2009 19:45
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20 out of 30 people found this review helpful
Watch the Watchmen
-
260 out of 271 people found this review helpful
[Highly rated reviewer]
Watch The Watchmen
So, it's finally here. After years in development hell, Zack Snyder finally delivers his take on Alan Moore's seminal graphic novel.
It's taken me two whole days to digest this movie, and I'm still wrestling with it. All I really know is this.
I love it.
Yet this is one that's going to plague me for a dozen repeat viewings - because I'm still trying to work out why I love it.
Calling it 'the Citizen Kane of superhero films' is a little rich. About halfway through I turned to a friend whom I watched it with and said 'This is the There Will Be Blood of superhero films.' Actually, I said 'This is There Will Be Blood with blue willies' but you get the point. The film's pace is one entirely of its own and I can fully see the criticism of it's too long, it's slow, it's episodic. It is all of those things, yes, but I never felt any of those were negatives. The traditional three act structure is negligable, too - the film feels very much like consuming the graphic novel in a single sitting.
High points? Where to begin. Well - at the beginning, with the astounding titles sequence set to Bob Dylan's The Times They Are A Changin' - a six minute sequence of real-life comic book tableau's and vignettes detailing the history of this alternate world that deftly sets up tone and character clues. Indeed, the music choices throughout give texture to the world and often combine to leave lasting impressions - Simon and Garfunkel's Sound Of Silence played over The Comedian's rainsoaked funeral; Philip Glass' Pruit Igoe & Prophecies scoring the flawless sequence detailing Doctor Manhattan's perception of time and exhile on Mars; Hendrix' All Along The Watchtower mirroring it's use in the book as Nite Owl and Roarscach pay the final visit to Antarctica.
Performances are uniformly excellent, subtle and nuanced in all the right places. Patrick Wilson's plays Nite Owl as the aging boyscout who always genuinely wanted to be a superhero and had it taken away from him. Malin Ackerman's Silk Spectre is a girl who never grew up, a surprising and believable take on the character. Billy Crudup's Dr Manhattan is austere, serene and stilted, having pretty much given up on the need for human communication, reflected in his voice and movements. Only Matthew Goode's Ozymandias doesn't quite hold up - he's a little too effete and distant at times, but he brings it when he has to.
The standouts are Jackie Earle Haley's Roarshach and Jeffrey Dean Morgan as The Comedian. The film's darker characters, both are sociopaths of a different breed. Roarschach is the son of a prostitute, led down dark paths during his life and finally forged during a missing-child investigation, an event that flips a switch in his mind and sets his moral compass to black and white, pure and simple. Evil is evil, crime is crime, and all must be punished - one broken finger and meat-cleaved head at a time. Haley makes the character utterly convincing and terrifying, and you're constantly left in the uncomfortable state of having to decide whether he's right or wrong. Much of the film is spent with him masked, but once it comes off in prison and you finally get a look in those eyes, no matter how brief, Haley sells every moment. Morgan, likewise, brings an odd humanity to a murdering rapist, particularly in the scene where he spills his heart out to a former enemy.
Changes? Yes, there are some, but none that I feel detract from the experience. In fact, and this sentiment was mirrored by several of those I saw the film with, the new ending to the film feels like an improvement over the book. It makes greater thematic sense, gives more character resolution and dammit, the squid was just plain daft. The outcome isn't different, but the means are.
Problems? The only thing that bugged me was the unnecessarily cheesy sex scene, which caused more titters than tittilation amongst the audience. Scored to Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, it's a late-night soft core rub fest that I can see the intention of - to show the fetishistic nature of dressing up in latex, while offering a potent payoff for a character - but it didn't need as much bare-ass thrusting.
The other 'problem' with the film is that it's so staggeringly uncommercial that I would be totally unsurprised if this flopped. Non-fans of the book are going to have a difficult time absorbing so much information because it doesn't offer the standard tropes of the genre - there are very few action sequences, the heroes are flawed, the moral outcome foggy and ambivalent. The film, much like the graphic novel, offers up the story and says 'That's it. Now deal with it.'
And that's where I am now. Dealing with it. I've never had a film experience quite like this - and I know this will be a film I treasure each repeat viewing of, dissecting it and deciding what each scene means. It feels like a multi-layered complex experiment, and I love it all the more for it. Chances are I'll back with a new review every time I see it.-
- Selfy from Newcastle upon Tyne
- Posted 08 Mar 2009 14:49
-
69 out of 84 people found this review helpful
[Highly rated reviewer]
Zack Snyder doing his usual stuff
Zack Snyder is not an intelligent man.
This statement may seem controversial , but if you were to form an opinion of the man from his films only, it would be hard to come to any other conclusion.
I'd heard that Watchmen the movie was complex. Indeed it is; it's bad on so many levels.
The ideas (Moore's obviously) within Watchmen are rich, dark and fascinating.
The film of Watchmen made me embarrassed for all those involved. Snyder has no idea how to create tension or drama or humanity, things that are kind of important if you want human beings to get involved in your film.
The acting is laughably bad throughout, none of the actors managing to create anything close to a solid character (be it empathetic or antagonistic)....except for the character of Rorshchach, who is actually pretty compelling.
There is approximately 20 minutes of story in this piece, meaning that it is essentially 2 hours and 20minutes too long. Also not smart. Nothing against long films, with involved (even convoluted in the right circumstances) storylines, but something has to be happening (no matter how subtle or mood-based). For most of this movie, that is not the case. And Snyder is not subtle. Because the movie is not actually dark in the least, Snyder simply amps up the gore, thinking that violence can be a substitute for (or a path to) dread and depth.
There is nothing going on in this film essentially. It is about nothing other than itself. It has some grand issues being bandied about, but none of them are dealt with with any style or grace.
Additionally, the film looks dreadful, Snyder using that already hackneyed 'suddenly-slo-mo effect when there's really nothing else to fill his frame, and it fails to really create a world we can believe in. The music cues are also embarrassing (although they do help add to the several unintentional laughs, making the 4-year running time slightly more amusing). The music does nothing to add anything. IT is music that is already attached to other films, other stories, other events in your life as an audience member, and the film hopes to cadge on to the fact that you care about something else in the world and associate itself with it.
In essence, if you've seen the trailer, you shouldn't expect to gain anything more from the film itself. This has as much substance as watching 55 music videos back to back. Which is really all Snyder is capable of. He is not a filmmaker. He is a music video director. -
54 out of 59 people found this review helpful
[Highly rated reviewer]
Pants
Watched this last night and was litterally peed off i'd wasted 2 half hours of my life. visually it looked pretty fantastic. plot and cast seriously lacked the ability to want you to actually care where it or them was going. when you finally find out who is behind everything you feel relieved that the film might end soon. then it goes on for longer! Really wanted this to be great as i loved 300 but it was sh! ite!
I also felt they just added a sex scene to keep hold of the 18 cert. totally pointless! -
32 out of 35 people found this review helpful
[Highly rated reviewer]
Don't Watch-Man!!!!!!!!!!
Don't be fooled by all the hype, this is two and a half hours of absolute rubbish. It may look good, but this doesn't hide the fact that this is 100% c**p!!!
Have rated this as half a star, if zero had been available I would have given it a big fat 0.
DIRE and PAINFUL
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- Maynard from Gillingham,
- Posted 18 Mar 2009 17:12
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34 out of 56 people found this review helpful
Watchmen...
Is going to be the movie to 'watch' in 2009.....
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23 out of 27 people found this review helpful
"Who's watching the Watchmen?"
'Who's watching the Watchmen?'... I wouldn't if I were you It's so bad I'd rather watch dog turd dry than $150 million flushed down the toilet! The starting credits seemed tad promising at first but that is where the plot ended-beyond which there were mindless loopholes throughout the the entire ordeal just shy of 3 hours which the mindless action and unnecessary sex could not even salvage! Seemed like a failed marriage between The Incredibles and Sin City. I've never seen so many people walk out of the hall so soon. Even my partner's snores drew more attention than the CGI effects. The biggest letdown given the hype knocking Robin William's Popeye off the top slot of the worst production ever in the history of motion pictures. DON'T BOTHER WATCHING THE WATCHMEN.
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20 out of 25 people found this review helpful
[Highly rated reviewer]
Id rather watch men watching men than watch watchmen again.
3 Hours of sex, violence, nudity, Superheroes, Nuclear explosions and prison riots. Plus more Pre relaease hype than you could shake a stick at. Who wouldnt want to see this movie!?
I hardly ever pre book tickets, let alone que up on the opening night, but after all the hype i was like a dog at dinner time. What an idea for a story. Down an out superheroes dusting off their capes for a final showdown with an evil mysterious nemisis. It worked on 'the incredibles' (on some level) so this adult version must be a shoe in!surely?
WRONG! Even with 3 hours of violence, sex and superheroes the film still falls way short. The rest of the story is so poor i was about to leave after discovering there was still an hour to go. However with the cinema being so full and me being £16 worse off i decided to give it till the end. And if you give it till the end, ask yourself this 'whats the point of the hideout being there?' I assure you this will be the 1st of many questions you may ask yourself. the tip of the iceberg, as it were.
'why does his mask do that?', 'whats that strange tiger thing?''christ i hope he's got pants on in this scene'. The whole film could easily have been a 12a, and it probably would have been better for it. But instead you find that everything is OTT (apart from a semi decent prison riot)with a flimsy story to fill the spaces between. I suspect that if you're more for comics than film and you dont get out much (not that im bunching those 2 together you understand) then you may like this for the sheer aspect of gore, laytex and nudity. But if your expecting even a patch on the dark knight then forget it.
Awful. just awful. -
19 out of 19 people found this review helpful
Kill me....Kill me now!!!
Now, I've got to admit that I'm not a big fan of comic books but I've always enjoyed comic book movies but this one is the worst one I've ever seen!!! The main plot line is very thin and the sub plot lines seem to be even thinner. I have to admit most of the acting is good, especially by The Comedian but I even struggled to stay awake through the whole film, even at the early showing. I thought the film was going to end on four ocassions and it didn't. It was at least 45 minutes longer than it needed to be. It was so drawn out that it became too stretched. And if I'd have known that I was going to be sat in the cinema with over a hundred other people watching pornographic scenes then I might have reconsidered my choice of film for the evening. There were also far too many scenes of gratuitous vilolence, I know it's 18 rated but I think it stretched the rating. And did Dr Manhattan need to have such over stated genitals?!?!
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19 out of 22 people found this review helpful
Hideous
I cant believe i had to sit through a torture for 2 1/2 hrs. Its got graphics but seriously how can you expect someone to enjoy something so horrible.
The Director seems to have lost the plot completely and instead trying to make it a movie that you walk out smiling , it has been made into a movie after which you come out laughing hysterically trying to contemplate why did you ever bother going to the cinema.
Please do yourselves a favour and dont bother watching it. -
20 out of 30 people found this review helpful
Watch the Watchmen
Critics' reviews
-
The most celebrated graphic novel ever written, Watchmen takes place in an alternate 1985 teetering on the brink... read more on Time Out