Who Watches The Watchmen? I Do!

“Who Watches the Watchmen?”

Apparently, I do, as well as thousands of other folks this weekend. What did I think of the movie? Well, in order to fully understand my stance on the movie, let’s first discuss my views on the comic.

In terms of the graphic novel, Time magazine (parent company: Time-Warner, also parent to Watchmen publisher, DC Comics) lists Watchmen amongst the “100 Greatest Novels of All Time”. I feel that the good folks over at Time clearly haven’t read many novels. If anything, they read a bunch of random novels, stopped at 100, and said, “Well, there’s our list”. That’s the only explanation. Watchmen is one of the most overrated, most pretentious comic events of the last 30 years. It ushered in an age of “grim and gritty” storytelling that the industry has yet to shake. I don’t blame Alan Moore, as the story is fine on its own – I blame the legion of creators who kept going back to the well on it. I have more of a problem with the “phenomenon” than the actual book.

Now, don’t get me wrong: the storytelling in the pre-Watchmen era was nothing to write home about, but it was simple escapist fantasy of good vs. evil. That dichotomy might be unrealistic, but so’s the idea of a radiation overdose producing anything other than terminal cancer. The “darkening effect” was gradual, but it has reached almost all corners of the industry by now, making books more mature than they necessarily need to be. For example, Spider-Man’s #2 villain (depending on when/who you ask), Venom, used to constantly pursue him, yelling, “Spider-Man, I want to eat your brain!” We didn’t know why he was so obsessed with brain-eating (he was an alien, so maybe human brain was a delicacy), but all we had to know was that Spidey better hightail it ’cause that motherfucker’s coming after his brain! Nowadays, it’s all “Spider-Man, I want to rape your wife and fuck up your 401K!” Watchmen is the creepy old guy in the windowless van who scared kids away from comics. Sure, adults still buy the things, but kids don’t go anywhere near them. Alan Moore has realized the effect that the story had on the industry, and he has stated that he regrets that people saw the need to copycat what he had done. If anything, he wanted to show that the medium could be used in new ways, but he didn’t expect the work to generate this pall over every 4-color wonder being published by the majors.

I also feel that Watchmen, like the Beatles, gains a lot of weight from the era in which it was produced (We’ll table that Beatles discussion for another time…). I’m only 27 years old, so I can admit that I didn’t read it when it was originally published. For those fanboys who remember cracking open the latest issue as the credits rolled on the latest episode of The A-Team, I salute you. You actually lived in the Cold War era, and knew what it was like to live day-to-day, wondering if “the Reds” were gonna launch the bomb at any given moment. I read this book in post-9/11 world, so I couldn’t relate to a lot of the political climate. After all, my first trip away from home was Russia, so I’ve always thought of them as friends. Naive, I know, but that was brought into my “Watchmen Experience”. Sure, we’re scared of terrorists, but nothing on a serious nuclear level in recent years. Anyway, I’m a comic fanboy, so when they make movies about our heroes, I must attend. I just needed to describe the attitude that I took with me into the theater.

So, Watchmen‘s a movie now, huh? Well, it’s more like the world’s longest music video. Don’t get me wrong – it’s beautiful and stylistic, but it’s shallow and lacks feeling. It vacillates between wanting to be some hippies’ art school film project about the dangers of nuclear war and a really bad Cinemax soft-core porn movie where they forgot to put in the sex scenes (for the first hour and 45 minutes, that is). I figure they probably didn’t want to muddy up the thing with “household names”, but I couldn’t care less about that cast comprised mostly of nobody actors. For example, Malin Ackerman’s wooden performance just drives home the Cinemax comparison, and the only thing her sweet ass brings to the movie is, well, her sweet ass. And what’s the deal with her posing? Every time she’s onscreen, she strikes a pose, like her exposure to comics is from reading nothing but books “drawn” by Greg Land. At ease, princess – you’re in an alley, not the top of Mount Rushmore.

One thing that’s apparent from the beginning is the violence. You know, I hate to sound all “Joe Lieberman”, but the violence in this movie did absolutely nothing for me. I am, by no means, conservative in my lust for cinematic violence. I love explosions and the like so much I secretly dream that Michael Bay’s my real daddy. That said, I’m so sick of movies where it’s clear that the director majored in Matrix 101. The whole “slow it down and then speed it up” fight scene is fast becoming the most tired technique of the genre. Plus, explain this to me: The Comedian has no powers, so I don’t care how intense this fight is, how the fuck is he punching through marble?! There was not a single fight scene where I thought, “Wow, that was kickass!” Instead, there was a lot of “That was stiff and remiscent of Charlie’s Angels“. All of the fights were played out like choreographed dances, where it appeared that the actors were counting off in their heads. Even the mega “Crime Alley Gang Fight” with Nite Owl and Silk Spectre failed to stun me. How the hell is this bookworm breaking that thug’s arm like that? Who the fuck is this guy? Where did that come from?

My second problem was that the movie failed to ever bring me into the world it was attempting to establish. There are too many variables I’m forced to deal with. Why is it that whenever they have on their costumes, it just seems like one really long Halloween party that won’t end? Maybe that was the point in the story, but Watchmen points out just how stupid people look when they dress up in an attempt to fight crime. These people look like idiots! You get a hint of that when the original Nite Owl is talking about how the old cops just decided to dress up and fight the crazy criminals who’d decided to dress up. They felt stupid doing it, but I feel that this is the first comic movie where, intentionally or perhaps not, that same stupidity and shame is felt by the audience. I mean, I feel it had to be intentional, seeing as how Ozymandias had the Schumacher Nipples on his costume.

Also, what was up with the music? A movie like this is begging for a score, by a professional like Hans Zimmer. If not him, at least Harry Gregson-Williams. Instead, they took the Wonder Years approach, digging up any “snapshot in time” song that you’d find on a Time-Life infomercial. Oh, there’s Time-Warner again. Do I smell synergy/product placement? Seriously, the only cute hat-tip, musically, was the Muzak version of “Everybody Wants To Rule the World playing as Lee Iacocca and the rest of the auto industry fatcats get their asses handed to them by Adrian Veidt.

Where I will give them credit, as far as the setting, is that they faithfully captured the shittiness of 1980s NYC. Since the Disneyfication of Times Square, I think many have forgotten how dangerous that place used to be. These days, thanks to Sex and the City and “Must-See TV”, New York is all shopping and cocktails. Not so in the ’80s. Back then, you were always around the corner from a potential Beat It reenactment, only those fuckers weren’t interested in dancing with their wrists tied together. New York City is currently enjoying the “Metropolis phase” of its existence after surviving its “Gotham phase” of the ’80s. Also, while not a scene featuring the aforementioned danger, the most “1985” scene of the whole movie was the date between Nite Owl and Silk Spectre – his Clark Griswold-meets-Egon Spengler portrayal was spot on for any movie of that era. How could you not love, yet at the same time feel sorry for, that guy?

While we’re talking about how “1985” the movie was or wasn’t, let’s get this out of the way. ***SPOILER ALERT***

Anybody who’s seen an action movie from the 1980’s knows that the White guy with the nondescript European accent is ALWAYS the villain. I mean, DAMN! Sure, most fanboys have read the book and knew the villain going in, but the ’80s villain characteristics they gave Ozymandias in the movie aren’t necessarily expressed in the book. It’s like they got hamfisted with it. They should’ve just called this Super Die Hard.

***END SPOILER***

Oh, and remember back when I mentioned the whole soft-core of Cinemaxian proportions? Yeah, well, at about the 1 HR, 45-minute mark, we’re treated to the most uncomfortable soft-core sex scene between a guy I’d never want to see naked and a chick whose acting career is only going to be sustained by her showing off that ass every chance she gets. My God, was that some bad sex! Where the Hell did that even come from?! Yes, the act is in the book, but what was that? I swear, this thing made Emmanuelle in Space look like goddamn Citizen Kane!

OK, Will, so what did you like? I’ve got to say, huge blue penis aside, I most enjoyed the Dr. Manhattan story. From his detachment from humanity to his origin story to his self-imposed exile in space, I could’ve watched a whole movie about only him and been fine. Sure, the CG was hokey at times, and there was a LOT of blue penis (shit, if I had those powers, I wouldn’t wear pants either. I just got nuked for my country. You’re gonna look at this Smurf dong and like it!), but his tragic story was the most human element of the whole movie. He also looks better when you consider that everyone around him sucks more than he does. He supposedly lacks humanity, while the rest of the Watchmen take theirs for granted. Ozymandias is above everyone. Rorschach’s unwashed, killing child molesters and biting bullies. Silk Spectre is a hanger-on, while Nite Owl was always too scared to live – his fear kept him boring. Don’t get me started on The Comedian… Maybe Dr. Manhattan’s the Data of the story, but he’s probably the most blameless character in the whole thing. For most of the movie, that is. Then you get to the ending.

Oh, the ending. I was fine with how they did it. That whole squid ending in the comic never made much sense to me, and this ending was probably just as believable as that was. I was just glad that the thing was over. My friend, Jay, once said that the projects that he writes are those where the asshole always wins in the end. His reasoning is that if you’re smarter and want it more, there’s no reason that evil can’t triumph over good. With that in mind, Watchmen is his kind of movie. Again, this isn’t a criticism of the story, per se. It had its time and its place. As I’ve said before, I’m fine with the Watchmen Story, I just have a problem with the Watchmen Legacy. Just as many comic creators took the worst parts from the story and used them in their own attempts to “modernize” some Golden Age hero, Zack Snyder took all of the worst aspects of the action movie genre in an attempt to film what was never meant to be filmed. To keep with the ’80s theme, in the words of the immortal Hall & Oates, “I can’t go for that”.