Movie Review: Watchmen

My expectation for Watchmen was that it would be a fairly faithful retelling of the plot of the graphic novel but not much more. I think the film exactly met that expectation. Unfortunately, the plot is the least interesting thing about the graphic novel.

I saw the film with a group of 12 people, only about half had read the graphic novel before and only a couple of us had read it multiple times. I can't say anyone loved it and most of the uninitiated found it quite long and a couple found it boring and the others were certainly not fascinated but thought it ok.

As a superhero movie for a general audience it's a tough sell. The characters are all original; no one has ever heard of them before unless they've read the book. It's probably a bit worse that they're based on old Charlton comics characters from the sixties that even fewer people have ever heard of. Perhaps the hook is that it tries to postulate what a world would be like if costumed heroes really existed, the problem is that some of the changes from the book really weaken that element of the film and that other films have already tried to do that with more familiar heroes (Batman Begins, Spider-Man, X-Men).

A lot of people have said that Watchmen is unfilmable, but few say why. The real special quality of the Watchmen graphic novel was that it pushed the medium of comics further than anything had. In that respect it's like Citizen Kane, doing everything at the highest level. Every page has a layout with a 3x3 grid which gives a metronomic quality to the pacing. Very few times are the panels combined or split, giving added emotional weight to the scene. Cinematic techniques like zooming, cross cutting and match cutting are used.

Every scene change has some transitional element. It might be a phrase repeated by two characters or an image or a theme. Rorschach throwing hot oil on a fellow convict is followed by a drop of coffee in a pot. Jon's former girlfriend complaining about their breakup is cross cut with his current girlfriend running out on him. One character saying "there is so little time" cuts to another saying "it's getting pretty late". An image of trick-or-treaters followed by someone saying "it's like all our old nightmares come back to haunt us". Sometimes it's too forced, but you have to be impressed with the dedication.

The relationship between words and pictures are explored. Sometimes the words in a panel relate directly to the image, sometimes ironically, sometimes thematically. Sometimes there are multiple dialogs happening at once and unlike in a film, you can make sense of them at your own pace. Sometimes the story is conveyed in words, sometimes just in the images, sometimes additional information is buried in the details of the images. You're encouraged to flip back to previous parts of the story to relate images and phrases. Often the same scene is shown from a different perspective or the similar phrases are used repeatedly.

The most obvious example of how it explores comics versus any other medium is issue 5. It's titled Fearful Symmetries and explores the idea of symmetry every way it can. There are reflections in mirrors and puddles. Symmetrical ink blots are shown. Words and letters and numbers that are symmetrical like V and 810018 are used repeatedly. There are thematic symmetries between different characters. A parallel story with a pirate comic within a comic is told. Even more so, the layout of the whole issue is symmetrical. The center two pages are a symmetrical spread and the next two outer pages have symmetrical layouts and story elements and so on. I don't know as it adds much to the storytelling, but no other medium could do this.

There are hundreds of repeated motifs, including lots of repeated imagery. The smiley face, clocks, radiation symbols, graffiti, silhouettes of two people in an embrace, newspapers, a face surrounded by hands, etc. Some are very subtle. My favorite is this image from issue 4 page 6 that make a subtle nuclear reference. Notice the "fat man and little boy" as background figures in adjacent panels. Yes, I'm sure this was deliberate. In another fun visual pun, a short villain has only his voice balloons in his first panels because he was too short to be in the panel.

Watchmen really requires multiple readings to appreciate. Like the movie The Sixth Sense, you can watch it once and enjoy the ending, but it's only when you watch the whole thing again that you appreciate that every scene works two different ways. On repeated reads of Watchmen you always pick up more things. It unfilmable not because the story was too complex or dense, but because it did things that just don't work in film (or prose for that matter). For the same reason you can't translate a poem or an instrumental song into a film (aside from a performance) you can't translate a comic pushing the medium this far. My one hope was that they would instead push the film medium as far as they could, but of course they didn't do that.

So how did the movie do? It's a pretty faithful adaption of a rather complex story that's filled with lots of flashbacks to flesh out a fictional world. I think the story was easy enough to follow. The opening credit sequence explains lots of the backstory and was one of the highlights of the film (and some easter eggs in it are explained here). It's hard for me to tell if they made it so that someone unfamiliar with the story would care about the characters. Even given the 2:40 runtime, there's so much story, I'm not sure you have time to relate or really understand the characters.

They added a little more action and removed minor characters and a few plot points and changed the ending a bit. They also removed the comic-within-a-comic Tales of the Black Freighter. There are certainly compromises that need to be made in a film adaptation, but I found all of these hurt the point of the story (well except for the Black Freighter, I was ok with that going). Yes the book was violent but the film has more graphic depictions of violence onscreen which seemed unnecessary.

In a story in part about how we need to look to ourselves and not superheroes for our own future, removing the common man seems like a big loss. Dr. Manhattan's alienation from human kind was played down and so his realization that even a single human life is special is less significant. In the comic Laurie and Dan were pathetic and mostly useless figures, the bad guy doesn't even bother with them, twice. In the film they were beefed up and given seemingly superhuman fighting abilities which undercuts the idea that even the most ordinary can make a significant difference. And I don't know why people are ok with the change to the ending, I don't think it makes sense at all.

On the other hand, I thought Jackie Earle Haley made a great Rorschach, and seeing his mask actually changing was a nice improvement (though you can't compare when the images are the same). Jeffrey Dean Morgan made a great Comedian, which is especially impressive considering he was Grey's Anatomy's all too likable Denny. Dr. Manhattan was also done well. I did miss that the film did not attempt to explain to us how he perceives things and by shrinking the role of Rorschach's psychologist they played down how bleak his world view actually is; which for an uncompromising objectivist that seems significant. Nixon's makeup was awful; he had Pinocchio's nose.

One big difference between comics and film is that film can have a soundtrack. Watchmen certainly does. There are lots of very recognizable, loud and unsubtle musical choices. A couple work pretty well, but less obvious choices might have been better in keeping with the techniques of the comic.

Overall, I'm not sure seeing the movie will make people want to see it again or make them want to read the graphic novel. If you're debating seeing it, I'd say read the graphic novel instead. Twice.

*Spoilers*

Here are my problems with the ending. In the comic, Ozymandias manufactures an alien invasion to scare the world into working together against a common enemy. All the people who help him work on this plot are fed a fake story about making a very secret Hollywood film and then eliminated by people who eliminate each other before the squid is launched. There are no loose ends for anyone to trace back to him.

In the film, the alien is replaced with technology based on Dr. Manhattan and the public thinks Dr. Manhattan attacks them. They unite to defend themselves from him. But he's left earth 2 days prior. Why do they think he's attacking them? And in the film upon hearing of this plot Jon says he must leave to keep the story going. Shouldn't he stay to continue to frighten people? And at least several major energy industrial figures know that Veidt has been working with Dr. Manhattan on a new energy source (if not the general public). Wouldn't someone connect that he might be responsible for the explosions? Isn't that a big thread for the world's smartest man to leave dangling? And why would Janey Slater hire someone to hire someone to kill Moloch? In the book, she just thinks she'd dying of cancer from Jon. In the film she's involved with the plot and is still alive at the end of the film.

In the comic, the alien was created from genetic technology and Bubastis, Veidt's mutant lynx, is created via that research. In the film she just appears out of nowhere with no explanation. In the comic Veidt made his fortune by creating new energy sources, the film it's unclear how he made his money.

Finally, in the book there are two short and critical conversations between Jon and Veidt that are not in the film. In the 70s Veidt says to Jon "With your help, our scientists are limited only by their imaginations" and Jon replies "And by their consciences surely?" to which Veidt says "Let's hope so". That's a lot of foreshadowing for Veidt's character. At the very end Viedt asks Jon "I did the right thing, didn't I? It all worked out in the end" and Jon says "In the end? Nothing ends Adrian. Nothing ever ends" and Veidt replies "Jon? Wait! What do you mean by..." and Jon leaves. The film doesn't have that conversation and has Laurie say the "nothing ever ends line" to Dan. That really undercuts the moral issues with what Veidt did.

I didn't care about Lukas changing Star Wars so that Han fired first. I'm surprised I care so much about the above changes; but they do feel more significant to me. Sure, they allow the scene in Antarctica to work mostly the same, but they don't work as well as a scheme thought up by Ozymandias. And the comic went to great trouble to be internally consistent.

Ok, have at me. I'm really curious to hear other people's thoughts on the film.