Watchmen Review

[Paladin]

Watchmen, starring Billy Crudup, Jackie Earl Haley, Malin Akerman, Patrick Wilson, Matthew Goode and Jeffrey Dean Morgan. Directed by Zack Snyder.

I'm going to be upfront on this... I have never read the Watchmen graphic novel. I went into this movie pretty much cold, knowing only what I had read online and gotten from the trailers. I also know there are a large number of fans of the graphic novel who feel like Zack Snyder took the greatest story ever told and pissed all over it with the changes he made. So, if you are one of those people, you'll have just have to realize I'm reviewing the movie, not the novel, so get over it...

***Minor Spoilers Ahead***

The year is 1985. An alternate 1985 where we won the Vietnam War, Nixon is serving his fourth term as President, the Cold War is about to turn very hot, and superheroes exist but have been outlawed. As the movie opens, an unknown attacker breaks into the apartment of The Comedian (Morgan), one of the original superheroes who is now in his 60's. After a short, but intense fight, The Comedian ends up on the pavement many, many stories below. The police call it a robbery, but Rorshach, a super turned vigilante smells a plot to eliminate supers. The story plays out over several days as the risk of a nuclear war builds, as some supers try to solve the murder and others work to end the risk of war.

***End spoliers***

So, for someone who had no familarity with the graphic novel, how did the movie work? Pretty well, actually. It is a long film, at almost 3 hours, and it needs to be to get in all the back story for the 6 current superheroes and several of the heroes who came before them. In general, a lot of backstory time is given to The Comedian, Sally Jupiter (the original Silk Spectre) and Dr. Manhattan (the big blue guy you've seen in all the advertising). It is also not a superhero movie in the vein of The Dark Knight or Iron Man. DON'T let your kids talk you into taking them to this movie, it is rated R and it earns it. The violence is graphic, there's a graphic sex scene and Dr. Manhattan spends most of the movie walking around with his big blue weiner on screen. From an acting standpoint, Jackie Earl Haley steals the movie as Rorshach. The movie is probably worth seeing for his performance alone. The next best actor in the film is Patrick Wilson, as the middle-aged, settled into retirement Night Owl. He practically channels Richard Dreyfus circa 1980-1985, and really looks the part of an early 80's guy. Finally, Malin Akerman as Laurie Jupiter, aka the second Silk Spectre, is utterly smokin' hot. I first noticed her (when she opened her shirt) in Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay, but that movie didn't really show off her acting talent. This one does, and she gets naked again, so...yay!. For the rest of the characters, the performances work, but they aren't outstanding.

The biggest flaw with the movie is pacing. The first 2 hours of it contain a large amount of exposition, a bunch of flashbacks, and a few fight scenes. Overall, it moves along at a fairly good pace. Then, for the last 45 minutes, it goes into overdrive. The story goes from nicely paced to very rushed, and since both the source material and this film don't lend themselves to the possibility of a sequel, it feels like it is over too quickly at the end. The ending is also "Hollywood Happy", and you can almost see the test screening audiences telling the studio the ending was too much of a downer. There's a scene where the movie should end and then about 10 minutes later, there's one where it actually does. Those last few minutes felt tacked on to me.

All in all, Watchmen is a good, but flawed, movie. There will be fans of the novel who love seeing the characters brought to life, and the best of those performances are amazing. There will also be fans of the novel who will decry every single change that was made. But for the rest of us, who just want to be entertained, the movie will do that. All in all, we're off to a good start for the 2009 "summer" movie season.

[Circuit]

I thought it was excellent.

I will say, however, that I'm rather tired of seeing everyone mention the blue penis in their reviews, though. I mean, I know male nudity isn't exactly commonplace in American cinema, but I suspect we've all seen a penis before. Maybe even more than once! Dr. Manhattan wasn't "spending most of the movie walking around with his weiner". He was naked and, surprisingly, that means there was a penis involved. The only reason it was distracting during my viewing was because of all the goofballs snickering. No offense, Pal, but it's just irritating.

That said, I'm surprised you didn't mention Billy Crudup's performance as Dr. Manhattan. I haven't read the book so I don't know if he fit the tone of the character from it, but I thought it was perfect. Having a near-god who is so powerful that using that power is no big deal fits Crudup's calm, sad and distracted voice work as opposed to the big, booming voice movies typically give to this sort of character.

Besides Rorshach, who was fantastic, it was the concept of the Dr. Manhattan character that I liked the most about the film. Being able to manipulate matter and have time be essentially irrelevant has of course been done lots of times in movies, but Watchmen delves further into that and what exactly it would be like to have a being with said powers living on Earth. Fighting crime is typically a given, but it's interesting to see how that was just a tiny part of the overall story being told.

One thing I really hated was the stupid old-person-makeup. This is something that bothers me in most movies, but I really despise taking an actor/actress who plays a character in his/her young days and then slopping on shiny, rubbery stuff and calling it "aging". No, they don't look old. They look dumb. Especially in a movie with great special effects in every single scene, it's idiotic to not put even a tiny amount of effort into making an older version of a character with all those fancy technologies.

[Paladin]

Circ, I wasn't pointing it out just because it was there. I was pointing it out as a reason why parents shouldn't ignore the rating and take their kids to see the "superhero movie", just like I pointed out the sex scene and graphic violence. However, having grown up on 80's comedies, when I see a movie rated R for nudity, I'm expecting hot topless chicks.

I agree that Billy Crudup did a good job with the Dr. Manhattan voice, since the character itself was fully CG. He only had a few flashback scenes where he actually played the human version. But it didn't jump out at me as being a brilliant performance, so I didn't think it deserved a separate mention. Difference of opinion on how good we thought it was, but we both thought it was good.

I'm a little tired of seeing the reviews picking apart the "old people" makeup. I thought it was fine, it didn't distract me or seem unbelievable. Several reviews have picked on the old version of Sally Jupiter, but I actually didn't notice the makeup appliances at all.

[Circuit]

I don't see how you can not notice. It was every bit as obvious as the Nixon's plastic face.

Also, Dr. Manhattan's face was all Crudup, too, so even though the rest of him was CG, I thought he did a great job with the character. The subtle facial expressions along with the voice work went a long way in showing the tiny bit of humanity left in him.

[Kermit]

I finally got to watch this one last night (so I guess that would make me the person who is watching the watchmen). I too had never read the original comic books so I was going in fresh.

I think Rorshach might be my new favorite comic book character, at least the way he is portrayed by Jackie Earl Haley.

I found the abundance of blue schlong to be unnecessary but not overly distracting. The one case of The Owl and his pasty man-ass was not appropriate for the scene which made me feel like they were failing at a cheap joke in what was otherwise a very touching scene. The hot and heavy love scene was very tastefully done.

The old person make-up was also not distracting for me, but it was noticeable.

I fell in love with the characters. The choice not to use a "star" in the staring roll was a good one as this movie needed to be completed by an ensemble cast and any attempt to put a Tom Cruise in as any one of the characters would have put emphasis on a character that didn't belong. Each one brings a personal philosophy, strengths and weaknesses to the film that are crucial to it's success. Strong characters are crucial to keeping my interest when you've created a super-man like Dr. Manhattan (that is for all intents and purposes invincible on the battle field) who's detachment from humanity leaves the viewers detached from him... you need to keep me interested in the rest of the merely mortals.

The plot was good, I was wondering about halfway through the movie where the super villains were. Another case where flawed "heroes" like The Comedian help. This isn't a good vs. evil Fantastic 4 movie. The plot devices were cool, and the symbolism was nice too (the smiley face). It was a tad long but not overly so.

If you like seeing deep characters, each with their own moral code (but without any excuses of moral relativism) you'll like the movie.

[Shadowrat]

that sounds a lot like this graphic novel i read called watchmen. only there wasn't really that much blue schlong in the novel.