Les Jones

Watchmen review

Monday, March 16th, 2009 | A&E, Comic Books |

Here be spoilers

I had read Watchmen three times before seeing the movie. Going into the theater my biggest question mark was “how much will they tone down the comic book?” The answer is that they didn’t tone it down at all.

If anything the sex and violence is much more graphic owing to the nature of film versus drawings. In the movie when Night Owl breaks a guy’s arm in the alley scene you see and hear the compound fracture and it’s much more horrifying. You’ve seen movie violence before, but not like this. The violence is unapologetic and unrelenting.

The sex (between Dreiberg and Jupiter) is likewise more sensual and human than the comic book. No one holds anything back here.

Watchmen is now my favorite comic book movie, eclipsing X-Men 2. Lots of movies have good acting and action and gadgets, but not many have emotional impact. X-Men 2 had that and Watchmen even moreso - you can’t watch it without feeling powerful emotions for the characters.

One of the most fantastic scenes in the comic book is Dr. Manhattan’s time-spanning origin story. In the movie it was absolutely mesmerizing. You feel his innocent, careless love for his first wife and you feel her agony at the betrayal when he leaves her for a younger woman.

What follows are ratings by character portrayal.

Rorschach - A
Rorshach is someone who disregarded Nietzche’s admonition that “Whoever battles with monsters had better see that it does not turn him into a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.” This was a difficult character and they nailed it thanks to the director’s faithful rendering of the comic book and Jackie Earle Haley’s incredible acting. With the mask on he’s Rorschach. Without the mask on he’s Walter Kovaks, which is the hard part, the human part.

Night Owl - B
Dan Dreiberg’s a nuanced character. He’s alternately a nebbish and an ass kicker as he goes in and out of costume. The film captured that, but the tone wasn’t quite right. Overall the performance was too Chevy Chase for me. On the other hand the dream scene with Silk Specter was amazing.

(I think the movie flubbed two of the best scenes in the graphic novel involving these two characters - the early “You quit” scene and the later scene in which Dreiberg tells Rorschach how hard it is to be his friend. In both scenes the dialog is the same but the movie storyboarding isn’t as good as the comic book.)

Silk Spectre II - B+
She’s like Dreiberg - transforming from an unfocused mess to a laser as she goes into superhero mode. I think they got her mostly right, though I admit I didn’t pay rapt attention to what was a supporting character in the book.

Ozymandias - C
Nite Owl was a little too Chevy Chase and Ozymandias was way too David Bowie, and a too young Bowie at that. In the comic Ozymandias’s personality had a joie de vivre at one end and a certain sadness at the other. In the movie that all gets compressed into mindless arrogance. The movie suffered greatly from not having the scene in which Ozymandias has just murdered millions in the hopes of saving billions and then pleads to an omniscient, disappearing Dr. Manhattan, “Jon, wait, before you leave. I did the right thing, didn’t I? It all worked out in the end. Jon?” It humanized him by showing that he, too, had doubts that would never be extinguished.

Dr. Manhattan - A
As good as you could expect and as good as the comic book, if not better. Looking over the book again this weekend I think Manhattan works better on the screen than on the printed page. The Mars crystal palace scenes were great, too.

The Comedian - A
Jeffery Dean Morgan looked just like him and got his personality exactly right. Like the book the movie tracked Edward Blake’s life arc from  young and cruel to old and brokenhearted.

2 Comments to Watchmen review

Leave a comment