It's finally here. The film adaptation of Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' highly revered 1986-87 limited comic series, helmed by Zack Snyder, director of 2004's Dawn of the Dead remake, and more recently, the adaptation of Frank Miller's 300, both stylish and overall well received films. It's been advertised, debated, and anticipated like crazy. To say the source material has been lifted to absolute legendary status over the years is an understatement. Since it's debut, Watchmen's reputation has grown and grown, ultimately to be seen as one of the utmost essential comic book tales. Throw out the notion of simple hero-chases-villain fare, Watchmen is a book with brains, and balls. It's ripe with biting social commentary that really does make you think, and the characters created by Moore and Gibbons are nothing short of amazing. And now, the big budget Hollywood version is out, teething with buzz. So, does it live up to the hype?
Well, let's just go for the throat. I found the film immediately enjoyable. While flashy, the visuals looked great, the characters were being depicted well, and overall, it seemed to be following the comic books fairly closely. At some point however, perhaps when I noticed different meetings between characters being combined, some of the changes to the story became slightly jarring. I suspect anyone familiar with the source material may feel this about at least some of the changes made, but overall, they didn't really bother me much. Some alterations made certain instances feel slightly less significant than they should have, but you must understand, such things are simply inherent to what we know as the "film adaptation." To be cliche, unless you've been living under a rock, you should expect, and accept, a little variation from source to screen by now, and the changes in Watchmen are NOT that bad. If you've been watching movies from the past few years, you'll have seen your share of adaptations, and from those, you'll know that the Watchmen film is far closer to Moore's writings than it even had to be to receive a go from Hollywood.
And really, I was impressed. Numerous scenes gloriously reference the panels of Dave Gibbons artwork and are often framed exactly as originally drawn. Much of the original dialogue and pacing is in place, and even the updated costumes still retain their basic flavor. They're not all suddenly running around in black leather jackets, know what I mean?
Also, going in, I feared they would censor it too much. Tame the swearing and violence, neuter Rorschach's brutal critiques of modern man and the Comedian's salacious ways, but more or less, it was all there. Yes, even Dr. Manhattan's penis and Nite-Owl's ass. Such visions drew a few inappropriate giggles from the audience, something I've heard is fairly widespread. It's shaming to know people are that immature. Rorschach would probably agree.
Still, that nudity, displayed in nothing but an innocuous, casual and naturalistic way, much like it is in the comics, is there, in tow with so many other elements that could've easily been discarded to make the film more mainstream and palatable. Despite the blockbuster-aim and huge marketing campaigns, this film stems from a very adult story, and by retaining much of the grittier elements, Watchmen has made it to the screen with it's teeth in tact. It's an R rated film, and it needs to be. Dumbed down to a PG-13, the overall message might've easily lost a lot of it's weight merely in exchange for an easier route to those millions of box-office dollars. I'm really glad the film makers took a risk by going all in instead.
But despite my support of the film maintaining an adult-oriented feel, my biggest problem with the film does lie within that realm. The part that flat out bugged me the most was the sex scene. It did not offend me in any way, I'm not that guy, but whereas the comic depiction seemed a bit more, to use a slightly cutesy term, sweet, endearing the relationship of the characters, in the film it played much more in the realm of "Yeah! Look at this chick's ass, you like that? Ok then, here's some grinding for you, take that, yeah, uh huh, TAKE IT." Ahem. Only a minor issue though, it didn't take me out of the film too much.
So will the story of The Watchmen go on to be as respected a film as it is a graphic novel? Probably not, but face facts, that was probably inevitable. I'm sure Alan Moore would still hate it were he to view it in secret, perhaps over some of the changes and omissions alone, but for the rest of us, again we have to ask - is it worth seeing? Is it overall well executed? Will it appease the fans of the source material? I say - for the most part...yes. For the average movie goer, if you can get over it not being a typical comic book beat-em up, it might just engage you, and for the die-hard comic fan, if you can deal with it not being a word for word translation, there's a lot there to appeal to, and reward, your love of the original story. Go check it out!
