A Highly Over-rated Phenomenon (Watchmen (DVD))

Member Name: plipplop

Product:	Watchmen (DVD)
Date:	18/08/09 (157 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: There are some visually impressive scenes, some interesting characters and Dr Manhattan's ass

Disadvantages: A narrative mess, pretentious, deluded and unsatisfying

A review of just the film, Watchmen was released in 2009 and is available on region 2 DVD now.

In an alternate version of 1980s reality, the world sits on the brink of nuclear Armageddon, as relations between the USA and the USSR sink to an all-time low. A former member of the superhero group known as The Comedian is murdered in his apartment, catalysing a chain of events that sees one of his former team mates, a psychopath named Rorschach investigate who committed the act. Rorschach's investigations will see him reunited with friend and former team mate Dan Dreiberg, whilst the enigmatic mega-hero known as Dr Manhattan lurks in the background deciding whether the world is worth saving or not. In the filth-ridden, dark streets of New York, it's not as easy a decision as you might think....

Comic book adaptations do big business at the box office. That doesn't necessarily mean that they're very good. It just means that the subject matter is enormously popular and that the multiplexes are full of people trying to see what all the fuss is about or trying to see whether the film makers have trodden all over something they hold eternally dear. I can't help thinking that Watchmen is a perfect case in point.

A bloated, debilitating carcass of a movie, Watchmen rolls in at around the three-hour mark, by which time the average audience member will almost certainly have nodded off, or died. Unusually for me, this took two sittings, and only really survived for that long in order that I could satisfy myself that I really could comment on what was/not good about it. For those who aren't aware (there may still be the odd one or two) Watchmen is an adaptation of an Alan Moore graphic novel, revered around the world as one of the greatest graphic novels ever produced. The graphic novel genre is normally associated with 'adult comic books', perpetuated by those 'in the know' as being more credible than your standard super hero volumes because they contain more adult themes.

The film has been in varying stages of production for years and years, and its credit to director Zack Snyder that he has actually managed to finish something that threatened to languish in production hell forever more. The writer of the original graphic novel, Alan Moore, has famously and consistently expressed his disdain that the project ever made the screen and, notably, he isn't credited in any way. It's difficult not to sympathise with his position. Despite having never read (nor been inclined to read) the original source material, it's pretty clear throughout the film production that it was something that was never intended to appear in live action.

It's an absolute mess. We're introduced to a host of characters in whom we are expected to invest a significant amount of time and emotion for reasons we never really understand. We're introduced to two generations of 'heroes', individuals who apparently fight crime and injustice at intervals, between raping each other and committing war crimes. It's reasonable enough to assume that even individuals who have some kind of super powers are, at times, weak and make bad decisions, but it's never entirely clear quite how we are supposed to feel about this lot. Woven between countless flashbacks and distorted narratives, Watchmen jumps around through time and space like a distracted child that doesn't seem able to focus on one department in the toy story. There's a tale of imminent Armageddon, a murder mystery, a love story, some general heroics, some deep-rooted philosophy, a family story and more and more and more but the concoction never really settles and the audience is generally left feeling as though they are watching the third film in a trilogy, of which the first two parts have never been screened.

Curiously, despite claims that both source material and film version are groundbreaking material, the narrative falls foul of problems that are common to the genre. Any super hero storyline that lacks even the hint of a super villain for the first half pretty much gives itself away and there are no real surprises to be found in the plot's later revelations. The heroes themselves are ill-defined, with only one of them (Dr Manhattan, a nuclear-powered uber-hero) having a proper back story. Are these individuals super-powered or just 'keen? Sorry - the origin is a boring but integral part of the process and the absence here leaves much to be desired. On the subject of Dr Manhattan, Watchmen also suffers terribly from that team dynamic where one member of the team is so stupidly powerful compared to the others that you wonder what the point of everyone else. Rather like The New Avengers' Sentry, Dr Manhattan's blue presence is rather too omnipotent to leave room for anyone else.

Rather like an Abercrombie and Fitch model, on the outside it all 'looks' very nice but only in a very superficial manner. Dr Manhattan, for example, is nicely realised in a sort of blue, incandescent nudity that will have most of the male audience members feeling rather inferior. But the reality is that his almost ethereal presence is so dominant that his team mates look like idiots in party costumes. Ozymandias and Nite Owl, for example, stray down that decidedly dodgy Batman and Robin route of highly stylised body suits, complete with fake biceps and nipples. The only lady on the team is the lovely Silk Spectre, who looks rather too much like a hooker for my liking, something not missed by the director, whose camera seems to focus a little too much on her heaving bosom and taut backside. It's probably left to Rorschach to look genuinely interesting, with a strange cloth facemask that has an eerie inky quality that continually shapes and changes his facial expressions. Despite the fact that this is a team movie, there is no team dynamic whatsoever and the Watchmen scarcely ever appear on screen together. The result is a shambolic series of interactions between the individual members; Nite Owl 2 and Silk Spectre going down the tiresomely romantic route, for example. And it's not just the action that's shambolic too. The music is all over the place, with a bizarre mixture of styles that seems to have been randomly selected from Zack Snyder's iPod.

The mature 'adult' content is pretty tiresome too. There's an attempted rape scene that need never be told (yeah, we get you guys, The Comedian's an ass) and thereafter there are a number of fairly bloody action scenes. But they're tiresome because they feel out of place. Overall, the moody, gloomy screenplay, coupled with Zack Snyder's jazzy camerawork means that this just 'feels' like a super hero movie trying to be taken more seriously. A more interesting production would be something that interprets a more conventional concept in a more edgy manner. It's hard, for example, not to find yourself wanting the next X Men movie to have some of the 'feel' of Watchmen rather than the watered down trilogy that we've had so far, overseen by a decrepit old Shakespeare actor inadequately playing one of Marvel's most dangerous super villains. Watchmen is notably free from the real A-listers, though there are some familiar faces. Patrick Wilson's Nite Owl is watcheable, but slightly out of place and Billy Crudup's Dr Manhattan is mostly recognisable by voice. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is on blistering form as the Comedian, even if you are glad to see him suffer. Jackie Earle Haley (the next Freddy Kreuger) is a seething mass of bitter maniac and perfectly cast as Rorschach. On the other hand, Matthew Goode's Ozymandias is confused and badly-defined and, not surprisingly, Goode seems lost from start to finish. The worst appearance of them all is a cameo from a guy named Robert Wisden, with a laughable portrayal of Richard Nixon in what must surely be the worst prosthetic mask ever.

Admittedly, there's plenty to like here, if you look for it. The opening title sequence is excellent; a cohesive, intriguing montage of various incidents that explains how we got where we are now. Dr Manhattan and Rorschach are both great to look at (though Rorschach's gravel-like narration just makes you want to clear your throat) and Dr Manhattan's origin is classic comic book material. But the good bits are resoundingly drowned by the rest of it; a deluge of pretentious guff that barely makes sense, let alone entertains anyone. You'll watch it. Pretty much everyone will. But that doesn't make it worth watching.

Not recommended.

Summary: Watchmen - don't believe the hype