Watchmen

Well, I went into Watchmen expecting to be disappointed. I am an enormous fan of the comic book; it is one of my three favorite comics of all time, along with From Hell and The Sandman series. I have always felt that Watchmen was unfilmable, and was extremely wary going into this film as a result. However, some people whose taste I tend to trust AND who love the comic told me it was very good and did the comic justice. It also got rave reviews from people in the industry like Wil Wheaton. So I went in uncertain but again, wary. What happened was not what I was expecting.

I HATED WATCHMEN WITH A FIERY PASSION. It has been a long time since I've actively disliked a film so much. I have no idea how people who are fans of the comic can claim that this film does the comic justice. It completely butchers the slow, meditative feel of the comic with ridiculous over the top action scenes and a horrific soundtrack (honestly, the original score was so deplorable it was unreal). It also removes much of the psychological depth of the comic and the characters by either glossing over certain characters (Dr. Manhattan's origin being a prime example, as well as Jamie Slater, and Hollis Mason getting killed by street thugs) or omitting vitally important interactions between characters (I can't believe they didn't include the final scene between Ozymandias and Dr. Manhattan, one of my favorite moments in comics).

But it was more than that. Some of the actors were terrible (the actresses portraying Jamie Slater and the original Silk Spectre leap to mind), and some of the characters were just badly done; I can't believe how lame Ozymandias was in this film. He's not just the smartest man in the world, filmmakers, he's also the strongest and most attractive. Hell, he makes his entrance in the comic as a circus performer, and is supposed to reflect Alexander the Great as a heroic figure, not just be the cold owner of a huge company and spout gibberish. I could go on and on, but ugh. It's depressing to me that people who don't know the comic will think of Ozymandias in the simplistic way he is presented in the movie as opposed to the remarkably deep, profound character he is in the comic.

The places where the film worked by far the best were when it literally aped the comic. The whole burial scene of the Comedian, which was done virtually panel by panel, was by far the best part of the film to me. It's the only point in the film where Zack Snyder just let Alan Moore tell the story, and the flashbacks and various scenes flow beautifully and paint a vivid picture of the Comedian. For a moment, I was swept up in why I love Watchmen. Also, the terrifying flashback where Rorschach encounters the killer of a small girl and goes crazy is done perfectly, but again, is almost panel for panel from the comic.

What disturbs me the most in a way, since I already was quite confident that Watchmen was unfilmable, is that a lot of the blame for why this movie doesn't work belongs to Zack Snyder. I've kinda liked his other films (I enjoyed 300 quite a bit), but this film is a huge step down for him. The pacing is at times very odd, certain scenes are terribly done, the soundtrack is at best cute and at worst mind-numbingly terrible, and there's a lot of pointless slo-mo and over the top violence and sex. Almost everything that was wrong in this film had to do with the directing choices he made.

The biggest problem with this film was that it had no idea what it wanted to be. It claims to be set in 1985, and then uses hard rock from the present during its action scenes (the fact that the end credits come up to an intense blast of bland rock music says it all). It makes little "insider" nods to the comic (like including the newspaper guy and the young kid at the end) and then completely changes/omits integral parts of the comic (changing the final scheme of Ozymandias, not having Silk Spectre slap the Comedian).

Following from the last point, the film includes the original ending of the comic book with a scene that doesn't have nearly the relevance in the film that it does in the comic because we haven't been following the newspaper subplot, and then adds a pointless, final line. Why would you include the original end scene of the comic, and then not only change the final shot of the comic but also add a line? This is what I mean; the whole thing feels disjointed and badly done.

Watchmen is, without question, one of the great psychological works of all time. Its subject matter is nothing less than the human condition, and it explores this while creating extraordinarily complex and fascinating characters and telling an engaging and at times complicated story. It is absolutely worth reading if for no other reason than to witness a master storyteller and visionary thinker (Alan Moore) at the peak of his powers. The film, on the other hand, tells a scattered, sadly neutered version of the same story, and also provides maybe the worst original score I've heard since the first Spiderman movie. Don't see this movie. Please, go read the book. Please.