Watchmen- How The Movie Fails To Match The Novel

Zack Snyder’s ‘Watchmen’, a ‘faithful’ screen adaptation of the deservedly iconic and legendary graphic novel by comic book wizards Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, begins on a promising note. The camera zooms out of the traditional Smiley badge and spreads its gaze on a greying, muscular man as he watches TV- first a series of news broadcasts about the impending nuclear showdown with Soviet Russia (this is 1985) and then about USA has the strength of nuclear-age man Dr. Manhattan, a glowing blue superhero, on its side. The elderly man meanwhile gets bored and switches instead to an erotic TV show and grins with pleasure.

Yeah, right, for us fanboys, the people who pored over the pages of the massive source novel- who still remember the quotability of Moore’s searing, non-linear, pulse-pounding script and who still feel mesmerized by the sheer scale and arresting detail of Gibbons’ flawlessly dramatic illustrations- that is the kind of introduction that a character as twisted and terrifically amoral like Edward Blake, aka The Comedian, rightfully deserves. So, maybe we got to hand it to Snyder and his team for getting that at least right.

Alas, what follows next ruins it all. Without warning, the film suddenly cuts to a lengthy and time-consuming action scene; I forgot to say that it was rather relentlessly gory as well with splashes of blood and breaking of bones, not to forget that it ends with a freeze frame moment of Blake being hurled through a glass window- taking a direct cue from the same illustration.

Really, is this how Moore and Gibbons actually intended it to be?

People who watched Snyder’s earlier outing, the shamelessly escapist ‘300’ which seems to have encouraged other young jocks to come up with their own hopelessly sadistic ventures based on some piece of historical legend, churning out historical junk instead, will not really be surprised at how Snyder takes up the rest of the film from that unendurably violent action scene- ‘Watchmen’ the film is every bit bloated, messy, hammy and unpleasant as much as the original comic book is gritty, lively, forbiddingly dark and heartbreakingly passionate.

Perhaps it should be understood properly quite why is ‘Watchmen’ held in such high regard by comic book junkies and the rest of the reading circles as well. Moore and Gibbons did not just churn out a typical bash-em-up superhero comic strip; they unleashed the opposite of it. Instead of typical clunky American patriotism embodied through its costumed heroes, it offered a radical view of them- portraying them as messed-up, flawed individuals trying to find some semblance of sanity in an increasingly turbulent time. Blending blood-splattered brutality, unbridled sex and uncompromising nihilism, it not only broke all the rules of comic books but also used its fierceness to make pointed and acerbic commentary on the ultimate American Dream, of peace, prosperity and security. It was not just a comic book- it was a masterpiece.

So, maybe, Snyder, despite all his innumerable flaws, deserves some credit for trying in his best to capture at least some of the irrevocable sadness, poignancy, visceral violence and passion at the heart of the twisted tale. Sure, some of it works, in bits and starts and the film also does a good job of sticking to the comic book’s neon-lit, nocturnal, moody style quite well. But maybe Snyder forgot what Moore himself famously said of his own material- ‘It is unfilmable’.

The problem is not in whether the film deviates from the novel’s plot or the characterization or sticks loyally to them. When it comes to that, Snyder and his writers David Hayter and Alex Tse have done a good job and for most part, the characters on the screen reflect their true selves from the comic book. The Comedian is every bit nihilistic and sarcastic as required; Ozymandias is every bit as wise and worldly as the comic book had it; we can also clearly make out Nite Owl 2’s disillusionment, Rorschach’s fascist violence and Dr. Manhattan’s stoic indifference to human affairs. And save for a few tweaks in the plot, including a dramatized, slightly modified and lengthy confrontation in the climax, most of it stays as it is.

The thing is that Snyder’s faith to his material goes little beyond that. He simply does not get the essence of Moore’s fiery writing nor does he really understand the simple and crystal clear genius of Gibbons’ illustrations.

The fundamental error is in how the film treats its premise. Moore famously said that the opening murder of The Comedian is a portal- as a sneak-peek into the world of the superheroes and what it meant to be one in tough times. And that was how it happened- with that murder, we see through the world through the eyes of the remaining heroes- in their words, in their actions, we see their interpretation of the political and social troubles of the time.

Snyder’s film does not get that. He, Tse and Hayter are all keener in jumping through the comic’s crucially important subtext to stick more to the twists and turns in the plot. So, barely do we have time to reflect on each of the heroes’ reflections on their acquaintances with their now-dead comrade then we suddenly latch on quickly to how Rorschach tries to unveil the mystery and suddenly, the film shifts from nostalgia to noir thriller without warning.

It hurts a lot to a fanboy to see some of the strongest parts of the comic excised in the favor of crowd-pleasing compromise- I hated the fact how the Minutemen story explored in Hollis Mason’s ‘Under The Hood’ is sorely ignored- Mason himself appears as almost an extra in the background, when in fact, even some of the narration of Mason’s account, could have added more insight and nuance to the characters and milieu. What is even more damaging is how almost every other character other than the heroes is ignored for some reason or the other. Bernie, the man at the newspaper stand, who plays a fairly integral part through the comic book, is regretfully sidelined as merely an extra (though in one of the deleted scenes, one can see him in a fairly integral part) and that prophetic comic book-within-comic book ‘Tales Of The Black Freighter’ is only given a fleeting reference. In the original, Moore used that ghastly tale of bloodthirsty sea pirates as a parallel to the ongoing chaos in the book and in many places, the text of that book is beautifully and extraordinary interwoven by Moore with the incidents of the plot, down right to the actions of the characters. But nah, nothing of that is visible in the film at all.

Sure, it can be excused that Snyder and his writers wanted to cut out some of the more material that they must have thought as redundant. That might be excusable but what is worse is how the film veers off Moore’s intended tone and tenor. The beauty of his narrative and Gibbon’s illustrations lay in how they rooted the world of ‘Watchmen’ in the real, existing world around us. Sure, there were themes of teleportation, alien invasion and there was quite a lot of gadgetry like an Owl-shaped airplane and more but most crucially, they never shied from using the violence and darkness of the story to give the book its shattering reality. None of this is evident in Snyder’s film. While cinematographer Larry Fong and production designer Alex McDowell do a fairly fabulous job of recreating Gibbon’s famous drawings rather immaculately, most of the time, Snyder is merely interested in nailing it as yet another sci-fi film with plenty of action and effects and no real logic. The earthy feel is sorely missing.

Yes, right no logic. For no reason does the film indulge into pointless action scenes which almost ruin the entire gritty and unheroic essence of the comic. And even the action scenes are anything but memorable. There is an excess of slow-motion shots, some uninspired music choices (watch out the prison break scene and you will know how Snyder messed up that quiet comic book scene with pointless wire stunts) and as for that climax, it need not be really action-packed to be emotional. All this pointless bashing around only ruins the comic book’s grittiness and makes it all like a mockery. And for no point does it amp up the sex to keep the adolescent jocks happy. Moore and Gibbons added the palpable sex for a thundering emotional wallop to the already turbulent proceedings; Snyder merely is delighted to show off some skin. Yeah right, Michael Bay, you found a rival for yourself.

Add that to the problems of the cast- most of the cast is simply chosen because they have some facial resemblance or the other to the characters. Really, Snyder, do you think that Moore and Gibbons only dreamt up cardboard cutouts? Each one of them deserves a strong, mind-numbing performance of gravitas but what we mostly get in the film is some good mimicry.

Malin Akerman, who for some strange reason is billed first in the credits, is frankly miscast as Laurie Juspeczyk aka Silk Spectre 2- I could have been happier if the role had landed in Jennifer Connelly- and the actress does little to make it work. Her body language, dialogue delivery and pretty much everything else lacks the impatient, impulsive pluck of the original character and even as she weeps and sobs in a chroma-keyed sequence (Snyder loves the technique clearly), we feel little for her trauma. Matthew Goode seems to have been chosen simply because he had blonde hair like Ozymandias and nothing else at all. The complex character- a man who justifies his evil as righteous and for the greater good and who exudes near-perfection in his personality- needed a stronger centrifugal force; Aaron Eckhart, so damn good in playing twisted evil in ‘The Dark Knight’, could have done it. Goode, looking more like a faded Edward Fox rather than heroic and stately, instead brings a blandness that is not even Nordic Aryan.

In contrast, Jackie Earle Haley impresses as Rorschach, bringing the right amount of menace and emotional fierceness to the proceedings. But the film makes the mistake of keeping him almost forever confined to the mask and the outfit. Sure, the gravelly voice and agile body language work wonders but what about some more scenes outside the mask? Still, the talented actor makes sure that we remember Rorschach the most, which is pretty much also saying that everyone else fades away in the front of his blistering presence. It is his ruthless backstory and his bloody misadventures in prison that make for most of the memorable moments in the film, though it also gives Snyder a sick excuse to indulge in some more blood-letting.

As for the rest, Patrick Wilson does a fair job of being Nite Owl 2, with the correct mix of geeky meekness and a clear-minded vulnerability that makes him quite endearing. Billy Crudup has the most interesting role of them all and originally his character Dr. Manhattan has some of the best lines from the comic but the way he plays it hardly makes any difference- for most part, he is not even Crudup but actually a CG-generated man made up of various parts- a simple man painted all in blue or wearing a blue-skin could have been more effective, helping us to see the tortured man inside his logical ramblings of jargon but no, the CG version of Manhattan is simply for spectacle purpose. And finally, Jeffrey Dean Morgan is simply chosen to play The Comedian for the simple reason that Robert Downey JR does not have that kind of brawn. Ron Perlman, though, would have been better.

Of course, there are still things to like. There is of course the film’s visual style, orchestrated sometimes as smoothly as the comic book- for whenever Rorschach sneaks, leaps and prowls through New York’s alleys and ghettoes, we feel as if those same unforgettable comic book moments have been resurrected. Some of the CG moments work quite spectacularly as well- like Dr. Manhattan’s glass-ship on the Red Planet, him calmly walking through the jungles of Vietnam, exterminating the Vietcong with his vaporization powers with Wagner’s memorable ‘The Ride Of Valkyries’ playing in the background, referencing obviously the greatest Vietnam film of all time, ‘Apocalypse Now’. When it comes to the visuals though, it would be better if you revisit Gibbon’s painstakingly illustrated panels of street gangs in New York and the napalm smoke in Vietnam.  Moore’s quotable lines have still survived thankfully and they still make an impact even when spoken by uninteresting actors with tone-deaf voices. And there is an unforgettably melancholic opening credits medley- charting the adventures of the Minutemen in a series of stunning, operatic montages with Bob Dylan’s suitably epic ‘The Times They Are-A Changing’ playing as a lament to the alternately dark and radical times of the country- from Hiroshima bombings to Cold War, from Andy Warhol to the Zapruder Tape to Flower Power and so on. All memorable bits, that are in fact more memorable than the whole movie.

Yes, that is the immeasurably sad part. For Snyder, his writers and his cast did have the chance to prove the great Moore wrong by creating a perfect ‘Watchmen’ movie. What they create is merely a bad imitation, done by someone who is merely awed by the book’s sheer breadth and scope, its relentlessness and grungy poetry, without really understanding how they all served a function, to bust genres and to break hearts. 

I don’t know about those, who are tired of Marvel’s kid-pleasing ventures and desperate to see some more darkness in the superhero genre (I am one of them too). For them, I would recommend better films by better makers like Christopher Nolan, Guillermo Del Toro and Matthew Vaughn. For the rest, I would only say that you can continue reading Moore’s rubber-tight narration and drooling over Gibbon’s textured, atmospheric and ingeniously interwoven panels. For Snyder’s film, even with all its effort, is merely yet another action movie for adolescents, which is happy with lurid skin show and explosions of what Rorschach memorably called ‘Human Bean Juice’.