“It was all sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

-The Monarch, paraphrasing MacBeth

This quote is from an episode of The Venture Brothers [1].  In it, Monarch is describing a failed effort to void his bowels.  This quote resonated the entire time I watched Zack Snyder’s Watchmen film.  The more I considered it, the more I came to realize its relevance.  With Watchmen, Snyder has digested the source material, absorbed every possible bit of nutrition, and left a steaming pile for his audience to step in [2].

I read comic books.  I have those obvious biases.  But I can, believe it or not, divorce myself from my fierce devotion to the great work of Alan Moore.  Hence, I shall articulate my hatreds of this movie in two streams of consciousness: strictly as a motion picture, and as relating to the book from which it allegedly sprang [3].

Superhero movies are - like the comic book genre that inspire them – quite insular.  They operate on a long defined set of conventions, a common vernacular, their own spectacular iconography.  In translating these four-color wonders to the silver screen, a lot of the magic is lost.  It becomes familiar (i.e. palatable).  The movies must continuously vie to outdo their predecessors, heaping action upon action, stunt upon stunt, assailing the imagination, rendering it comatose.  This betrays a central idiom of any form of art/entertainment: audience participation [4].  Movies must be accessible to the lowest common denominator.  Therefore they are often polished to a crass sheen.  For some stories, this is a serviceable treatment.  In some characters there is no depth.

The characters in Watchmen have no depth.  The Comedian and Rorschach are simplistic, antagonistic right wing caricatures [5].  Ozymandias is the dandy liberal villain, blatantly arrogant, plainly evil [6].  Silk Spectre is the token female lead to a T, never finding consistency nor variance in her personality, resulting in a presence akin to a mannequin [7].  Only Doctor Manhattan, in his superhuman alienation and Nite Owl, caged by a denial of his own design, only these two roles even begin to hint at something memorable or worthwhile under all the cacophony [8].

Without convincing, compelling characters to drive the proceedings, that thrust is left to the plot, of which there is little.  What could be a marvelous take on the murder mystery is obliterated before the opening credits have even rolled, as the Comedian’s murder is recounted through a brutal, egregious fight scene.  From the outset it is plain that whoever did the deed is at the very least the physical equal of Edward Blake [9].  Following this blunder the aforementioned credits present a compressed, alternate history of the US, using touchstones from the lives of first generation heroes the Minutemen to lend the film’s present day points of reference.  These are scarcely followed up in the film, leaving the entire exercise largely a waste of time [10].  In a movie that’s nearly three hours long, a director should have better things to do than hide Easter eggs.

And that’s the central failure in Watchmen: its gross, overdone nature.  While there are moments taken verbatim from the graphic novel, they stand in stark contrast to the filmmakers’ additions and revisions [11].  This creates a sizeable gap that is never bridged.  It also buffs the peaks and valleys necessary to an effective drama down to an even plain.  At its core Watchmen is a drama, not an action blockbuster, and being approached as the latter undoes the movie’s grand potential.

The gratuitous nature of the sex and violence only exacerbate the hackneyed story [12].  Coupled with stilted acting, the picture is dropped in league with so many other also-rans.  The Comedian’s attempted rape of Silk Spectre I, for example, is so overwrought that the characters’ later relationship is unfathomable.  Similarly, the catharsis of Walter Kovacs’ psychological transformation into Rorschach is eclipsed by the grisly murder that inspires it.  So many profundities are lost in the application of the Hollywood formula.  This attempt to relate to the general moviegoer will be likely met with ambivalence, simultaneously irritating the book’s ardent fans.  Zack Snyder has pleased no one but himself, and his studio masters [13].

Were the film played as a straight action flick full of bluster and bravado, it may have been easier to watch.  But given the proclamations of the ubiquitous press junket, “Based on the Most Critically Acclaimed Graphic Novel of All Time”, “From the Visionary Director of 300”, etc., clearly we are meant to expect more than a Mel Gibson-meets-Wachowski Brothers grotesquerie of this caliber.  Fortunately  I did not, but I certainly didn’t expect it to be as bad as it actually is.

It seems almost redundant to dissect the deviations from book to film, but that’s all part of the fun of being a bona fide comic book dork.  I remain unrepentant.

[1] Anyone who doesn’t think Venture Brothers is an awesome show should be rounded up and exterminated immediately.

[2] For an adaptation of such supposed reverence and care, the end result is so devoid of any of the richness or complexity of the book.  This would suggest a palpable level of stupidity, ignorance or both in Zack Snyder.

[3] …and that’s where these handy footnotes come in.  Woo, this must be what college feels like!

[4] It is a given that in movies the audience brings considerably less of themselves to the experience, much less so than with novels, comics, or records, where all of our senses are not fully engaged.  Films have to make up for this by pandering, but there are appropriate levels.  Usually, I find movies that invite more interpretation to be more rewarding than ones that spell everything out in staid clarity.  Again, the mileage will vary by genre; it was my hope Watchmen could actually reclaim the superhero as a viable device to tell sophisticated, relevant stories in motion picture.  Clearly, it does not.

[5] Physically speaking the casting here is beyond reproach.  The acting shows promise; the failure lay in the direction.  Edward Blake is played far too sleazy.  He lacks any of the crucial, gruff charm that is present in the novel.  Likewise, Rorschach is too emotional.  His role as an impartial observer is a key facet to his character.  His status as a raving lunatic is his reputation, sure, but that’s not at all who Walter Kovacs is.  He’s a sentinel, the personification of the title, not the grousing terrorist Snyder paints him.  Rorschach is arguably the most important character in Watchmen.  The failure to capture his essence is the adaptation’s cardinal sin.   

[6] Upon first reading Watchmen, one of the absolute coups of the story is the revelation of the mask killer’s identity.  The murder mystery aspect is masterfully paced, replete with a plethora of red herrings.  From the outset the movie spoils that potential, both with the drawn-out fight scene preceding the credits and Adrian Veidt’s blatant characterization.  It’s fairly obvious from word one that the guy is a bastard, whereas in the book even his more arrogant statements seem reasonable.  He’s a world-renowned athlete, an intellectual Machiavellian, the penultimate villain.  Yet here is this scrawny, pencil necked geek who couldn’t threaten a decrepit grandmother.  Ozymandias poses no real danger to the heroes and what’s worse, none of the fascinating ambiguity of the character is present in the movie whatsoever.  Without a proper villain, the ship is rudderless.

[7] The problem here is strictly technical. Malin Akerman simply doesn’t have the chops to bring Laurel Jane to life.  This is a conflicted girl who has nothing but doubt and anger to fuel her, yet she must project a constant façade of confidence and cool.  In the film she’s simply a foil for a love triangle.  The revelation of her paternity – possibly one of the most wonderfully staged sequences in all of comic – is haphazardly woven into the movie to supplant Laurie’s importance.  It doesn’t work.

[8] I had serious reservations about how Doctor Manhattan looked in trailers, but he does work well within the visual context of the film.  His origin was severely butchered, and I also found his dialogue to be delivered with a bit too much feeling.  This is a man unto a god; he shouldn’t be speaking with such obviously human inflections.  Dan Drieberg was the only character that got the right treatment.  Patrick Wilson was, admittedly, perfect.
 
[9] This is most probably due to having read the book, but it seems to me any viewer that’s A: slightly clever and B: paying any attention could work it out by the halfway mark.

[10] In this instance, so faithfully adapting the book comes off as random.  The backstory involving the Minutemen is almost detrimental to the film.  It is integral to the comics, yes, but it works with the narrative’s manipulation of time.  The linear presentation in the movie, the cliché of the celluloid flashback, is ruinous.  Carla Gugino’s Sally Jupiter, especially as played in 1985, is one of the worst parts of the movie.  It’s painful to behold.  I think a better Watchmen could have been distilled leaving out all that stuff, if only to make it more streamlined (which is what they seemed to be going for anyway).

[11] People like to say the climax of the book wouldn’t translate to film.  The ending we have in lieu is just as ridiculous, if not more so.  Doctor Manhattan is an American operative.  Even including New York and LA in his litany of targets, Veidt wouldn’t unite the United States and the rest of the world; he’d unite the rest of the world against the US.  This is the biggest hole in the plot, and it effectively made the movie a farce beyond redemption.  I’d much rather have seen a giant, genetically engineered alien invader.  At least it makes sense.

Other changes and additions may be slight, but are still annoying.  It ruins Rorschach, as mentioned, because his dialogue oscillates between what’s in the book and what the screenwriters have composed.  One minute he’s speaking in sentence fragments, the next in normal English.  Nite Owl actually witnesses Rorschach’s murder at the hands of Doctor Manhattan, giving with the trite, drawn out “NOOOOO!” as he drops to his knees in the most overdone fashion.  Silk Spectre II doesn’t smoke.  These things sound minimal, but they add up, taking an incalculable toll on the movie’s believability.

[12] In the book violence is rendered with artful restraint.  In the movie it’s treated with the basest sensationalism, bones puncturing skin, splattering gore, etc.  Especially out of place is Rorschach’s killing of the child murderer he tracks down.  In the comic it’s bloodcurdling and dark, yes, but in the movie it’s just gory and retarded.  After Rorschach’s botched characterization, the hyper stylized violence is probably the second worst thing about the movie.  The same goes for the sex.  What should have been a tender moment between Dan and Laurie is reduced to laughs (seriously, people in the audience laughed at the scene) by silly close-ups and a baffling soundtrack selection.  I cannot see for the life of me how this, this is considered a respectful and faithful translation of the book.  It isn't, by any stretch of the imagination.

[13] And that really remains to be seen, and is open to debate.