‘Watchmen’ needs no pun

Production limbo is over. An all-star cast worth of directors and actors have been passed through to get ‘Watchmen’ adapted into film and so much effort put behind such lauded source material sets up high expectations. A review will swing wildly between those who adore or have ignored Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons original work, but taken on its own merits ‘Watchmen’ deserves the clichéd headline its title begs me to right.

Taking place in an alternate universe where Nixon is president midway into the eighties, ‘Watchmen’ is a mystery, political and psychological study and thriller. The film opens with ex-superhero The Comedian being murdered and the masked avenger Rorschach, whose name is derived from the ink blot test his mask resembles, setting about solving the case. Expanding from there, ‘Watchmen’ follows the lives of a cast of ex-heroes as they struggle against the complexity of both an evil plot and the defects of being human.

It’s heavy stuff, but there are few other movies where I’ve been so intensely interested in the characters; so much so that the historical events only serve to affect three or four people, rather than the whole world. The cast is larger than that, but my focus stayed with the Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup) and of course Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley). The example of what ‘Watchmen’ offers in both acting and characterization, this trio makes the movie. The Comedian is the plot’s catalyst and he remains its tonal center and emblem n the bloody clown n and the back stories behind Dr. Manhattan and Rorschach are the film’s finest part. Manhattan’s connects ‘Watchmen’ with the comic-book mainstream of freak accidents and terrific power and Rorschach’s moves things into even murkier regions of guilt and consequence. The trend wasn’t started with ‘The Dark Night,’ that movie just came out first.

The soundtrack is the initial evidence of the kind of rebellion ‘Watchmen’ is about. Not content to put Nixon in the White House and America as the victor in the Vietnam War, it supplants what the unfamiliar viewer expects coming in. That’s what I was and the surprise was wholly positive. Fights break out and bones do break (don’t take the kids) but ‘Watchmen’ has more emotion than brawn. Line after line of dialogue is memorable with “God is real and he’s American” as the standout. Don’t expect any gee-whiz comic book clichés, ‘Watchmen’ is onto greater things. Revenge, betrayal, love, life’s meaning n all of those most personal things that need to be written about well.

Content wise Snyder made the right decisions. The most questionable moves that were made have to do with length and rating: one I noticed/ one I didn’t, which is a compliment for both. To defend each in turn, I never became bored with the film or noticed time passing and there needed to be graphic material. ‘Watchmen’ doesn’t take a kind view of the world so when Rorschach talks about streets full of blood he means it. Rape and murder can’t be approached gently and rough scenes only further the realism that supersedes punching through walls. As for Dr. Manhattan’s nudity, it is the best reminder possible that he’s still somehow a man. It’s also shocking and ‘Watchmen’ literally wants to get under the skin.

And inside is where ‘Watchmen’ is strong; the superficial is what leaves something to be desired. For director Zack Snyder ‘Watchmen’ is the antithesis to ‘300.’ The arresting visuals of Sparta have been replaced with something altogether beyond ‘300’ in intelligence and impact, but without that same singular look. This by no means puts Snyder’s best known works on even footing n ‘Watchmen’ wins in a landslide n it’s just a step aside in what should be progression, especially in a string of comic book adaptation. Images are especially important there. The use of action-figure poses to illuminate forty years of vigilantism in the opening credits starts ‘Watchmen’ off perfectly, yet the style is largely dropped from there. When Snyder hits a ‘Natural Born Killers’ level of creative abandon I’ll be satisfied. The subject matter, sex and violence are there with only the camera to make the final move.

Still a gorgeous film in most senses, ‘Watchmen’ is best praised for knowing how to express itself. If you don’t agree with the viewpoint one character espouses there’s an eloquence that makes you listen. More weaknesses could be dredged up, but the strength of purpose and fascination of the players in ‘Watchmen’ makes me forgetful of criticism. Rewriting things as stable as facts, it arrives at a rarely expressed vision. Nihilism has never been this accessible or beautiful.

3 ½ out of 4

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