WATCHMEN - DVD review

"Who watches the watchmen?"
--Juvenal, "Satires," VI, 347

Note: In the following joint DVD review, both John and Will comment on the film, with John also writing up the Video, Audio, Extras, and Parting Thoughts.

The Film According to John:
They said it couldn't be done.
No one could film "Watchmen."
Maybe they were right.

OK, I confess to knowing next to nothing about comic books, comic-book heroes, or graphic novels, yet even I had heard of "Watchmen." British writer Alan Moore ("From Hell," "V for Vendetta"), British cartoonist Dave Gibbons, and British writer and artist John Higgins combined talents in the mid 1980s to create a series of twelve DC Comics depicting the adventures of a group of irreverent superheroes known collectively as the "Watchmen." Shortly thereafter, the creative team incorporated the stories into a twelve-chapter graphic novel, which subsequently became even more celebrated than the individual, limited-run comic books had been. Then in 2008 Warner Bros. aired a twelve-part animated television series based on the tales, duplicating the comic books almost frame for frame. Now, we get the live-action motion-picture version of the famed comics. The result is different, to say the least; but there is no denying the movie is endlessly fascinating despite the filmmakers having to condense the sprawling, episodic, multicharacter book to a little over two-and-a-half hours in the theatrical version and to just over three hours in the Director's Cut reviewed here.

Fans and critics alike called "Watchmen" groundbreaking when it first appeared, and it certainly seems that the writers and artists intended the series as a retort to the multitude of superhero books and films that abounded in the 1980s and beyond, poking fun at them, while exposing their sometimes perplexing, labyrinthine, and unsavory underbellies. Because not all of the "Watchmen" superheroes survive the ordeals the authors put them through and because most of the superheroes are cynically twisted, the authors invented brand-new characters for the adventures, ones who just happen to resemble real comic-book heroes, at least superficially.

The best parts of the motion picture are the opening fight sequence, juxtaposed with Nat King Cole's "Unforgettable," and an opening-credits montage done to Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin'" that explains the development and evolution of the Watchmen superheroes from the group's beginnings as an earlier team of crime busters in the Forties and Fifties to the film's present, when the government outlawed their vigilante ways as a menace to society. Government officials used as an excuse for prohibiting masked avengers the notion that superheroes were doing more harm than good, but in truth the government wanted some of them for their own nefarious purposes. If the rest of the movie had been as creative and robust as the introductory elements, it might have benefitted greatly.

The setting for the main plot is around the time of the story's creation, 1985, and the place is a sordid, fearful, crime-filled New York City, infused with ironic, ubiquitous Smiley Faces. Yet it's an alternate 1985, where a paranoid Richard Nixon is still President, his finger poised on the button of nuclear annihilation; detente, perestroika, and glasnost are meaningless words; the War Room from "Dr. Strangelove" is a reality; the Doomsday Clock continues to tick down to the final hour; anger and frustration strangle the populace; and things seldom unfold as they did in our own universe. The world faces moral decay from within, while facing the imminent threat of war from without. This is a grim, decadent, corrupt landscape, where superheroes used to do their best to keep order and provide justice by exploiting some of the same dubious practices they so decried.

At the center of the action is Walter Kovacs, "Rorschach" (Jackie Earle Haley), a sardonic, compulsive masked avenger whom some people admire and others think is nuts. He's a hardened, world-weary, ultraconservative crime fighter who believes in never compromising. Among his friends are Daniel Dreiberg, "Nite Owl" (Patrick Wilson), a nerdy fellow and an empty shell of his former self; Laurie Juspeczyk, "Silk Spectre" (Malin Ackerman), a disillusioned woman who never wanted to be a superhero in the first place; and Adrian Veidt, "Ozymandias" (Matthew Goode), the smartest man in the world, a guy so smart he figured it was better business selling action figures of himself than continuing to put himself in danger. By now the government has outlawed most vigilante superheroes for causing more trouble than they've prevented, except for a very few like Jonathan Osterman, "Dr. Manhattan" (Billy Crudup), whose superhuman powers of teleportation and precognition have made him a handy weapon against the Evil Soviet Empire. His powers have also removed him from normal society and from his own once-human soul.

While Rorschach's fellow superheroes voluntarily "retired" after the government banned them in the late Seventies, Rorschach refused and secretly continued his crusade against crime. When the stories concentrate on Rorschach's life and fortunes (which the Director's Cut does more so than the theatrical version), the movie maintains a strong interest level. When it veers off into its many tangents, it starts to bog down and fall flat, and there are too many such tangents. OK, to be fair, they aren't really tangents; they're analogies and subplots important to the story line and characters. But just as in the comics, they go on too long in the movie and feel like padding.

The primary conflict develops early on. The police find a man named Edward Blake (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) dead of a fall from his high-rise apartment, either a suicide or a murder. Rorschach recognizes Blake as "The Comedian," one of his old superhero teammates before the government broke them up. Rorschach sees Blake's death as murder, and he wonders if somebody isn't trying to kill off all the old masked avengers one by one. The movie chronicles Rorschach's investigation into the matter.

Rorschach's pessimism permeates his personality and the rest of the characters, the list of miserable fates for past masked avengers clearly indicating the story's intention of showing a side to superheroes hitherto unrevealed to the public. Unfortunately for Rorschach, nobody takes him seriously when he warns them of what's happening. Even his old friends think he's sick. What's more, everyone appears to have had a reason for wanting Edward Blake dead, he was such a complete jerk, so everyone is a suspect.

"Watchmen" in its Director's Cut provides a further twenty-four minutes or so of new material, most of it centering on Rorschach, which is good, plus an added death scene. The extra minutes do help to make more sense of the story, but they also make a film already too long an even longer stretch.

Zack Snyder, who is no stranger to comic-book adaptations after doing "300," works as well as one could expect adapting the movie from the comic-book adventures. He provides his audience with plenty of engaging characters, both good and evil; intrigue galore; a nicely dark, atmospheric tone; a ton of social, philosophical, scientific, and theological discussion; a wonderfully perverse, upside-down look at superheroes; a tangled romance; and a pretty good live-action replication of the original graphic novel. In style and substance the movie should be unique enough, inventive enough, and creative enough to keep most viewers at least mildly interested, which is more than I can say about many other live-action superhero movies.

One thing you won't find in this particular Director's Cut, however, is the "Tales of the Black Freighter," the comic-book episodes found in the graphic adventure. This was a story-within-a-story that helped reinforce the ironic nature of life and the meaning of what we see versus what might really be happening. However, Warner Bros. will be releasing an even longer Director's Cut of the movie later in the year that incorporates these segments in it. I'm not sure it will improve the movie or the ease of sitting through and watching it, but we'll see. I found the film's theatrical version and the present Director's Cut just fine without the further digressions.

The plot of "Watchmen" gets more complicated, more elaborate, and at times more incoherent as it goes along, with multiple flashbacks to fill in the details and a conclusion that doesn't quite satisfy the lengthy buildup nor stick entirely to the source material. After the first couple of episodes, things begin to slow down and lose some of their inspiration, yet whenever Rorschach takes center stage, things liven up considerably, so, as I say, it's good that the Director's Cut adds more about him. Indeed, it is Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach and Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Edward Blake who are the real stars, their vigorous interpretations helping the picture come to life. The other actors are competent but not memorable, the actual plot getting lost in their sometimes mundane characterizations.

Partly satire, partly political declamation, partly metaphysical rambling, partly conspiracy-theory rant, partly nihilistic existentialism, partly New Age hokum, partly film noir, partly sci-fi/fantasy soap opera, and partly old-time matinee serial, "Watchmen" is surprisingly entertaining for all its fragmented diversity. Frankly, I never thought I'd like the movie, nor did I think I'd like the extra-long Director's Cut of it. But even if it's overlong, I'm glad I watched it, the extended version coming closer to the graphic novel on which it's based. Although I would have given the theatrical version, which Will reviewed below, the same rating he gave it, a 6/10, I'd give the Director's Cut an extra point.

Be aware that even though the "Watchmen" movie originated as a comic book, the MPAA gave it an R rating for its bloody violence, gore, sexuality, profanity, and nudity. Some of the violence does seem more than a tad gratuitous, Snyder exaggerating a few instances not in the comics; and the nudity includes not only the younger Silk Spectre but full-frontal shots of Dr. Manhattan, something to which a few critics objected but which Snyder took directly from the comics. In any case, the movie is not meant for kids.

John's film rating: 7/10

The Film According to Will:
I never thought I'd see the day when the feature film version of "Watchmen" would finally hit the screen, let alone see anything "Watchmen" related outside the comic book shop. Now, you can walk into Target and buy the trade paperback. There are huge displays of "Watchmen" books, CDs, and posters at Borders. There are "Watchmen" action figures, "Watchmen" on the cover of mainstream magazines, and segments about "Watchmen" on "Entertainment Tonight." It's been a strange, strange journey to get to this point. It's been in development hell for nearly twenty years, had several big-name directors come and go, seen lawsuits and its co-creator wash his hands of the entire thing. Fans thought it would never happen, but "Watchmen" has arrived.

Originally published by DC Comics as a twelve-issue miniseries in 1986, "Watchmen" has gone on to become one of the most revered comic books ever published. "Time" magazine listed it as one of the 100 greatest novels published since 1923. Written by Alan Moore with art by Dave Gibbons, "Watchmen" was originally intended to star a stable of lesser-known characters DC purchased from the defunct-Charlton Comics line. When DC realized Moore's story would render these characters unusable, they directed him to create a cast of original costumed heroes. Moore had already begun challenging the accepted notions of what superhero comic book should be with his work on "Miracleman" and "Swamp Thing" by dealing with adult themes of authority, theology, and existentialism. Moore looked to further shatter those preconceptions with "Watchmen" which acted as both a psychological deconstruction of the superhero mythology as well as a comment on the Cold War politics of the time. He hoped to point out the dangers of entrusting one's life and safety in the hands of other individuals simply because they had the power. As the old saying goes, who watches the watchmen?

With "Watchmen," Moore imagined what the world would be like if costumed adventurers really existed. What would the heroes be like if they had all the same hang-ups as real human beings? It was practically revolutionary when Stan Lee created Spider-Man as an awkward teen who couldn't get girls or pay the bills. Here, the superheroes are sadists, masochists or psychopaths. How would the superheroes affect the sociopolitical structure of the world? And how exactly do you solve society's problems by dressing up in a costume and punching people in the face? Moore played up and tore down various superhero tropes that had been in place for decades when creating the inhabitants of the "Watchmen" world.

The "Watchmen" film opens in 1985 in an alternate reality where Nixon is still president and the world is on the brink of nuclear holocaust. Edward Blake (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) who once operated as The Comedian sits in his high-rise apartment watching the news of Russian forces amassing on the Afghanistan border. Just then, an unknown assailant bursts through the door and the pair engages in a rousing fist fight until Blake is hurled out the window, plummeting to the ground below. From there, the film really shows off its ingenuity with a brilliant opening credit sequence (set to Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are a-Changin'") highlighting the history of the masked vigilantes and how they influenced society. We are introduced to the Minutemen, a group of garishly clad heroes whose look and sensibilities matched the simpler times of their era and the Golden Age of comics. We also watch the brutal and tragic fates that befell some of the Minutemen. Dollar Bill (Dan Payne), for example, was shot to death after getting his cape stuck in a revolving door.

As we learn in the opener and the rest of the film, Blake was the second gunman on the grassy knoll during JFK's assassination and likely murdered Woodward and Bernstein before they could expose the Watergate break-in. That's just the tip of the iceberg. The Comedian is a glorified thug and a representation of the dark side of American history. As amoral as he is, Blake is the only character of the bunch that sees the futility of caped crusaders slugging it out with purse snatchers while the world is on the brink of destruction.

His murder is investigated upon by Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley), a gravel-voiced vigilante who hides his face behind a mask of moving inkblots. He has the trench coat, fedora, and short stature of Bogart with the seething vitriol of Travis Bickle. Rorschach is driven by a fanatical moral code which finds its origins in Ayn Rand's objectivism. To paraphrase Rorschach, not even in the face of Armageddon will he compromise. Just like his mask, Rorschach sees the world in only black and white with the two colors never mixing. Believing in a vast conspiracy to eliminate costumed heroes, Rorschach goes to warn his former partner, Dan Drieberg (Patrick Wilson) who operated as Nite-Owl and was armed with an array of gadgets and an airship nicknamed Archie. Now, he's retired, out-of-shape and directionless, mostly moping in his basement while his costumes collect dust in the closet. Rorschach and Dreiberg get in contact with more of their former colleagues. There's "the world's smartest man," Adrian Veidt (Matthew Goode), aka Ozymandias, who turned his costumed career into a multinational conglomerate built on toys and health books. There's Laurie Juspeczyk (Malin Akerman), the Silk Spectre, who only became a superhero because she was pushed into it by her mother, Sally (Carla Gugino), the original Silk Spectre, who was more Bettie Page pin-up than crime fighter.

The last of their group of Watchmen is the only one who has actual superpowers, the glowing, blue-skinned Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup). Manhattan was formerly physicist Jon Osterman until a lab accident inside an intrinsic field separator vaporized him. Osterman somehow managed to reform himself into something akin to Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man with abs of steel. The Vietnam War was over in a week because of Manhattan, a living weapon of mass destruction. He has the power to do just about anything including teleportation, telekinesis, and matter manipulation. He has evolved to a quantum state of awareness, no longer experiencing time as we do. Manhattan views the past, present, and future simultaneously, not unlike how we view the panels on the page of a comic book. He has drifted further and further away from humanity, seeing things only in subatomic particles. To him, there is no discernible difference between a live or dead body on a microscopic level. Needless to say, this puts a serious damper on his relationship with girlfriend, Laurie.

I won't reveal anymore of the plot, but the rest of the film extends from a simple murder mystery to a vast conspiracy of epic proportions. Zack Snyder, the visionary director of "300" (which I still can't say with a straight face), directs from a script written by David Hayter and Alex Tse. The filmmakers have stayed remarkably close to the original source material. Many shot compositions are lifted right out of the comic book while many scenes are stuffed with Easter eggs that only die-hard fans will recognize. However, like the majority of adaptations, changes were made with mostly minimal impact on the overall story. Only the ending goes through any significant change. I won't spoil either the film or the graphic novel, but will say the new conclusion comes with positives and negatives.

Snyder mixes in his own sensibilities, ratcheting up the action sequences and violence. Subtle emotionality isn't his specialty, blunt force trauma is. Bones are snapped in half, a meat cleaver splits skulls, and bullets rip through the flesh of a human leg. Human bodies explode with bloody viscera splattered across the faces of gawking bystanders. The slow-motion effects that were ludicrously overused in "300" rear their head here, but not enough to detract from the scenes. Neither does the music. The score by Tyler Bates is a mixture of harsh heavy metal with a jazzy, 80's synth sound that evokes Vangelis. The soundtrack selection (while a bit obvious) is effective in placing the audience into the time period. One-hit wonder, "99 Luftballoons," doubles as a sly allusion to the ticking clock as the song is about nuclear war. However, Snyder's use of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" during an overly long sex scene elicited far too many chuckles from the audience I was with. I don't blame them.

"Watchmen" has long been thought of as 'unfilmable.' When Terry Gilliam attempted to bring "Watchmen" to life, he asked Alan Moore how he'd adapt it. Moore simply replied, "I wouldn't." The original miniseries was a dozen issues long with each issue featuring supplementary material such as mock-ups of interviews, magazine articles, and documents that further flesh out the history of the world. It is an incredibly dense and multilayered work of fiction. I've read the book over a dozen times and have gleaned something new with each subsequent reading. Even with a run time of approximately three hours and six minutes, "Watchmen" still feels rushed. The film desperately tries to juggle a large ensemble of characters as well as attempting to educate the audience about this alternate reality that not every plot thread or character is given enough screen time. The story is relies heavily on flashbacks to do this. Each issue of the comic focused on a different character. "Lost" producer and "Watchmen" fan, Damon Lindelof, has admitted to lifting this method for his show. While the flashback structure works in an episodic environment, it might test the patience of those expecting more forward momentum in the picture.

The acting is good across the board with Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Jackie Earle Haley as the standouts. Morgan really relishes the role and dives right in giving a weariness and roguish charm to the morally repugnant Comedian. And who would have thought the biker kid from "Bad News Bears" would turn out to be so ruthless and darkly comical? Haley's "Little Children" co-star, Patrick Wilson comes off well as Dreiberg whose nerdy Clark Kent mannerisms are almost as good as Christopher Reeve's. Despite the fact that he was essentially an elaborate special effect, Billy Crudup gave Dr. Manhattan the laconic voice needed to convey the superhuman's growing detachment to the world around him. The cast members that weren't as strong were Malin Akerman who looked great in tight latex but gave a couple stilted line readings, and Matthew Goode who played his hand far too strongly. Both of them suffered more from being marginalized when their characters should have been given more screen time.

Those of you unfamiliar with the comics may be satisfied with "Watchmen" as a big-budget action spectacle. It works on that level. Just don't expect this to be "X-Men," where clean-cut heroes battle the forces of evil. As an adaptation, it's like reading the "Cliff Notes" version. Everything has been condensed and distilled. Most of the tiny details you had to read between the lines to figure out are completely spelled out for you in the film version. Part of the problem is that "Watchmen" is such a unique product of its medium. It has been called the "Citizen Kane" of comic books. Like "Citizen Kane," it only truly works in its original form. You could read a novelization of "Kane" or view it as a stage play, but you'd lose a lot of the essence. "Watchmen" loses much of the raw essence in favor of slick eye candy.

Will's film rating: 6/10

Video:
Warner Bros. and Paramount Pictures, who jointly produced the film, transferred its original 2.40:1 theatrical aspect ratio to disc in anamorphic widescreen, enhanced for widescreen TVs. The result is fine, given that the filmmakers meant for the film often to look intentionally dark and gritty. As this edition is in standard definition, there is a degree of softness to the image, plus a touch of glassiness, but, otherwise, the colors are solid, and facial tones appear particularly natural. The screen seems generally clean, free of too much noise, except for trace amounts of normal film grain.

Audio:
The Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack displays strong impact and wide dynamics, with a decently deep bass and effective, though not overpowering, surround effects. That said, the Dolby Digital also sounds a bit hard, bright, and edgy on occasion, especially during the commercial background music. Fortunately, the music composed and recorded specifically for the film comes through more smoothly, and dialogue is always easy to hear and understand.

Extras:
Disc one of this "2-Disc Special Edition" contains the Director's Cut of the film; trailers at start-up; forty-four scene selections; English and French spoken languages; French and Spanish subtitles; and English captions for the hearing impaired.

Disc two contains the bulk of the bonus materials. They begin with the twenty-nine-minute featurette "The Phenomenon: The Comic That Changed Comics." Here we find the filmmakers and the comic's creators discussing the meaning and importance of the "Watchmen" tales, but I would caution you to take it with a grain of salt. While there is no doubt the "Watchmen" comic was groundbreaking, innovative, and a bit subversive, the people involved with it appear to think it's a Pulitzer Prizing-winning work of literature or a modern DaVinci masterpiece. Well, perhaps, yet I think they may be taking it all a little too seriously. Or they're trying very hard to sell the movie.

Next, we get a series of eleven, brief featurettes under the title "Watchmen: Video Journals," each segment lasting from two to four minutes. Their titles are self-explanatory: "The Minutemen," "Sets & Sensibility," "Dressed for Success," "The Ship Has Eyes," "Dave Gibbons," "Burn Baby Burn," "Shoot to Thrill," "Blue Monday," "Attention to Detail," "Girls Kick Ass," and "Rorschach's Mask." I wish there had been a "Play All" option, but there isn't.

Finally, we get a music video, "Desolation Row," by My Chemical Romance; more trailers at start-up; and a bonus digital copy, compatible with iTunes and Windows Media. A double slim-line keep case enclose the discs, and a fancy slipcover with a 3-D holographic picture ties everything together.

Parting Thoughts:
Given the lengthy, intricate, divergent, multilayered, often convoluted nature of the source material, it's a wonder that anyone made "Watchmen" into a live-action movie at all. Certainly, it isn't for everyone. Mainly, it's for fans of the comic books and graphic novel and maybe fans of superhero stories in general. And maybe sci-fi fans. And fantasy fans. Ah, heck, there's so much going on in the movie that's so captivating, it's hard not to watch every minute of it, even if 186 such minutes is a long haul by anybody's watch.

"As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light of meaning in the darkness of mere being."
--C.G. Jung, "Memories, Dreams, Reflections"