cowfish

Along with 90% of the inquiring comic fanboy market I went to see Watchmen on Friday. Knowing what Zack Snyder is like, with the love of shiny visuals and digital post processing, I decided that the IMAX was the place to be and met up with fellow fanboys Thom and Myk, as well as their less fanboy-ish girlfriends, to Experience the fillum.

Now, I’m a fan of the comic (even if I do prefer V for Vendetta from Alan Moore’s work of around that time) but try my hardest when watching movies to consider them as a movie, rather than an adaptation of another media representation. Unfortunately, due to the amount of information that’s in Watchmen and the number of times I’ve read the book I have no idea what the impact on someone coming to the story afresh would be. So, here’s one fanboy’s review, trying to be objective but probably failing.

I won’t bother going in to plot, as there’s enough synopses and spoilers out there for anyone to find out what’s going on if they don’t know the story already, but suffice to say that the stuff they cut is not stuff that I was particularly sad to see go. The Black Freighter sections in the comic just made things a bit slow for my tiny attention span and the back stories of all the characters are touched on just enough in the film to flesh them out enough to be more than cardboard cutouts. The story starts off at a good pace, drags a bit in the middle and then speeds to maybe a bit too fast at the end, but overall I think Snyder and the writers got across what they wanted to say from the themes in the comic. My only problem here is that with a lot of the story probably coming from my memory rather than the screen I am worried for those without prior knowledge of the story to see what’s going on. A lot of reviewers have commented on the confusing nature of the plot, so I suspect there may be some mumbled ‘Wha?’s.

The biggest problem in satisfying the fanboy market is getting enough of the things that they love into the movie as well as trying to make the things on screen match up with how they look in their heads. For prose this latter piece is more difficult, due to the myriad of possibilities that the brain can conjure up without imagery to help, but with comics it is both easier and harder, with a visual reference that you need to conform to well enough to satisfy the brains of the ardent watchers. In Watchmen they’ve done well on main visuals and characters but maybe gone too far on the little things. While the Watchmen themselves and their locations look Right to my aging brain, the sheer number of little easter eggy tidbits sitting around waiting to be discovered may end up distracting from the rest of the film, especially when newcomers see them and wonder what’s going on. The characters were rather good though, with Jackie Earle Haley’s unmasked Rorschach aligning so tightly with my interpretation of the comic book image that it scared me.

So, what didn’t I like? Firstly, while Snyder’s adherence to the comic book as a visual source (complete with its famed use an on-set storyboard) led to some beautiful scenes, but the inclusion of some panels led to scenes that now feel cliched – the password cracking scene being a prime example, making me cringe almost as much as watching Penn Jillette shake his fists as GOD appeared on the screen in front of him in Hackers. I don’t think it’s as reverential of the material as many have said, although Snyder’s fanboy-ness beats mine by orders of magnitude, but a little more of a loose grip might have let the film be more itself rather than the fairly strict adaptation that it has become.

My other problem is one that was accentuated by the IMAX – makeup. While I applaud the decision to use the real world and makeup effects to reduce (although not totally remove) the blatant computer imagery that appeared in 300, some of the makeup really didn’t work when blown up to the size of a house. I specifically point out Nixon’s nose and the aging make-up on the Silk Spectre, both of which distracted from the scenes enough to hurt the narrative. On the other hand, The Comedian aged well in his makeup and looked great whenever he was on the screen, no matter how ridiculous his costume.

Speaking of The Comedian, another thing that you can’t avoid is the violence. The book is violent and bloody, but the film pulls out all the stops. Whether it’s Snyder’s signature slow motion face punching, CGI exploding people or the rather brutal rape scene, it is rather visceral. Some people haven’t like it, but I felt it worked well and counterpointed some of the sillier pieces, although that variance did very much hinder my ability to work out the intention of many points in the film – were they meant to be parody or where they just unintentionally amusing.

Much of the potential self parody was indicated to me by the soundtrack, which felt at times to be ridiculously misjudged. Whether it was Hallelujah playing behind a sex scene, the chirpiness at the beginning the beginning of a piece of classical music leading out of one of the final scenes or Nena’s 99 Luftballons, some of the cues dropped me straight out of the film and made me look around in wonder. Unsubtle and jarring.

Overall though I enjoyed it. It kept my attention despite the strangely incontinent man and his wife who sat next to me talking, rustling sweets and making frequent trips to the bathroom (the last of which he didn’t return from, with his wife leaving 10 minutes before the end to go and find him), and the near fight a few rows away from me. It’s probably too light on detail to be a truly satisfying experience for those without prior knowledge and it won’t have enough detail for the hardcore fans, but it had enough to keep me happy.

In short – it’s pretty good. It’s not the second coming and it’s not Batman and Robin, but it may well be the best superhero movie I’ve seen, even if that does feel like damning it with faint praise.

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