It’s a very different 1985. Nixon is still President and the USSR is at a stalemate with the USA with the threat of all-out nuclear war gaining momentum. At this hour of crisis, a retired costumed crime fighter is murdered. Some of his former pals take it unto themselves to link two and two together in Zack Snyder’s Watchmen.
Our buddies are the second generation of decommissioned team of heroes. Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley), is a vindictive right-wing pundit. Silk Spectre (Malin Akerman) has inherited her title from her mother, along with her promiscuous nature. Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup) is clearly the most powerful. Capable of reorganizing matter, there seems to be no bounds to what he can accomplish. The other characters have throwaway skills that boil down to enhanced speed and strength.
With a giant blue naked man taking up a large portion of the movie, the other costumes are easy to look past. Sure they aren’t practical, but trying to take a film serious when you can imagine trick-or-treaters dressing this way, is disturbing. Having inherited the mantle from Kate Winslet, Malin Akerman will get naked for any role. Combined with the extreme violence; Watchmen is clearly geared for adults. I don’t think this is the best move. It simply creates a conflict of interested to have costumed crime fighters in an adult narrative.
There is a lot to enjoy. The acting is usually strong, and from many comers I hadn’t seen before. My favorite character is Rorschach; a grimacing, conservative, and shy, public servant. I also liked The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), but he’s taken out of the picture briskly because his assignation is pivotal to the story. Effects are mostly clean, though a tank looks a little too cartoonish prior to a reassembling by Dr. Manhattan. The theatrical score is enjoyable, as well as the color palette.
The most painful thing about this movie is that it is clear there are elements that can’t be, or in this case weren’t, translated to the screen in a manner that an audience can enjoy. Pages of back-story can be flipped through at the speed with which the reader is intrigued. He/she can take in the artwork, or cut to the chase. In movie world, I had to painfully sit through a seemingly endless second act full of lamenting and reminiscing. The point of view broke repeatedly as nearly everyone took turns as narrator. When the train of thought was lost, it became a music video. At 2 hours and 45 minutes in length, this chunk of the runtime felt like my whole afternoon. Worse yet, much of the points are re-hammered, having already been expressed though the captivating title sequence. Everything screeches to a cinematic standstill that is unprecedented. The urgency of stopping nuclear war and uncovering a conspiracy is lost entirely.
Despite a devotion to developing characters through a passive presentation, there are many things that go unaddressed. Why would Laurie Jupiter fall in love with a guy who by most accounts is soulless and feared like the devil? How does Rorschach’s mask do what it does? How can two people with Spider-Man’s fighting skills, not beat one human in hand-to-hand combat? Why don’t the Russians have a Dr. Manhattan counterpart? Of all the Watchmen, you expect me to believe that The Comedian got to the bottom of the conspiracy first? Do stairs not exist in this version of 1985, if a building is on fire?
Many clichés are presented, and I’m not sure it was done jokingly because Snyder is always the first in line to add something to a film based on a perceived “cool factor”. I can imagine him telling studio bosses that a specific formation of dirt on Mars, carried a very high cool weight. At the end, the villain is quick to give all the details. His plan is extreme no doubt, and it has a certain charm, but it’s a bit implausible that he was banking on a slue of coincidences. Too much well placed effort and skill is expelled for this to be a total miss, but it’s not worth the casual moviegoer’s time and money. My biggest hope for the inevitable sequel is that with the back-story out of the way, maybe something can actually happen. **
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