Honestly, if you were going to see “Watchmen,” you already have. It was the first big release of 2009, with more hype than the second coming of Christ (a bit of an exaggeration) and millions of loyal fans of the graphic novel (myself included) impatiently counted down the days to the film’s March 6 release date. Sadly, though, “Watchmen” did not live up to the hype.
It’s not that the film is bad. Actually, it’s pretty entertaining. But when comparing it to Alan Moore’s 1987 graphic novel of the same name, it just doesn’t match up. The main problem is that director Zack Snyder, in his desire to stay as loyal to the comic as possible, made a film that is a line-by-line, frame-by-frame reproduction of the graphic novel. Frankly, the material doesn’t translate that well between mediums.
The problem arises from the misconception that, because both film and comics are composed of individual frames, if you simply shoot the comic frame by frame, it will transfer equally well onto the screen.
It’s not that simple.
There is a fundamental difference in how one absorbs the frames (or cells) of graphic novels compared with the frames of a movie. Take dialogue, for example. There is little space within the frame to hold a lot of text, so each line of dialogue in a graphic novel has to be profound enough to stand alone – part of, but distinct from – the overall narrative. You can’t do this in film. Dialogue spoken on the big screen builds upon itself until it climaxes into something profound (ideally, see “Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li” to see how this paradigm can go horribly wrong). In following the dialogue of the graphic novel so closely, Snyder gives us such campy lines as: “Is this bean juice?” says Nite Owl, as he examines the stain on the Comedian’s happy face badge. “Human BEING juice,” Rorschach responds. Moore may have been able to pull that off in the eighties, but it doesn’t work anymore.
That’s not to say that all the dialogue in the film is camp-tastic. Rorschach does deliver a few gems (when he’s not spouting pseudo-noir gibberish). And who can forget: “The Superman exists, and he is American.” Great line. But again, these lines sparkle like diamonds in the rough because the movie is almost all rough. Take the superheroes. Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley), easily the tightest character, has the ideologies of a fascist. The Nite Owl (Patrick Wilson) is impotent, both literally and as a character. The Comedian (Jeffery Dean Morgan) looks and acts like Robert Downey Jr. after a week in Vegas while Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup) proves that even superheroes can be emo.
There are a few other minor complaints I have with the film. First: slow motion. “Watchmen” is two and half hours long. But if you were to speed up all the slow motion, the film would barely last an hour and half. Anytime a character does anything tight, they do it in slow motion. Just in the off chance that anybody in Hollywood reads this article (a kid can dream, can’t he?), take this into consideration: slow motion is like alcohol, drugs, food, pretty much everything good in life . it only works in moderation.
Second: the soundtrack. The movie sounds like it was scored by a classic rock DJ. There is no subtly here. When, in the opening montage, we see the evolution of this alternate reality, we hear Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin.’ ” When Rorschach and Nite Owl are approaching the villain’s Antarctic fortress, we hear “All Along the Watchtower” by Jimi Hendrix. And just as Jimi belts the line, “Two riders were approachin’/and the wind began to howl,” we see on screen Rorschach and Nite Owl literally approaching the fortress in gale like winds. Yeah, laying it on there a little thick, eh Snyder?
Finally, there is a lot of big blue penis. A note to Dr. Manhattan: being a demigod does not exempt you from wearing pants; even Superman wore spandex.
It may appear that I’ve spent the last 600 words just ripping on “Watchmen.” Well, this is true. But I have no doubt that in nine months the special edition DVD will be a part of my collection. It isn’t a bad film. It just embodies the phrase, “the book was better than the movie.” And it’s not really Snyder’s fault that the movie falls short (well, in a lot of ways it is, but he gets a gold star for effort) of meeting the standard set by Moore’s graphic novel. The original “Watchmen” was groundbreaking. It was also released over twenty years ago. A rehash is a rehash, anyway you cut it.