It was set to be the movie event of the year. The film adaptation of the Citizen Kane of comic book novels is here. Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ revolutionary and inventive deconstruction of the superhero myth is a weaving story of redemption, betrayal, love and humanity.
Ah, but what about the film? In the hands of a director who understands the art of cinema and storytelling this could have been the greatest superhero movie of all time. Alas, with young American surfer dude Zack Snyder behind the camera Watchmen is a mess of a movie.
It is not the source material that is at fault here. I have not read the comic novel but the use of original layout, convoluted plotting and ingenious and individual look does sound very admirable and commendable. It has forever changed the medium of comic books. Transpose that onto the big screen frame by frame and a good film is not produced.
The film is all surface with no depth. It attempts to be portentous whilst being overly flippant, making the violence, rape and gore seem clunky, non-affecting and unbelievable. I know it is set in the 1980s but do the latex costumes have to look so out of date and silly? The constant referencing of pop culture and politics seem to be included for their own sake and not plot related, and what’s with Nixon’s enormous rubber nose?
The entire middle section of the film really falls down and destroys any sense of pace and forward development. There is nearly an hour of exposition and back story, as we see the development of each character, which really drags the movie down.
Terry Gilliam was interested in making this until he realised the source material would not fit into film format and the compromises that he would have to make would ruin the story. He asked Moore how he would film the comic to which Moore replied, “I wouldn’t.” Then Paul Greengrass was attached, even down to pre-production but this did not last. These are both great directors and would have made a brilliant dystopian comic hero film from the source material.
Do not get me wrong, I have nothing against Zack Snyder. I thought his re-imagining of Dawn of the Dead was brilliant and I even thought 300 was alright, even though if he did make a film about extras from the Village People defending a mountain pass against RuPaul. However, Christopher Nolan he is not.
Also, will someone please tell Snyder that the length of a film does not equal depth and weightiness. At one point a character says, “I don’t think this will ever end.” That is pretty much how I felt.
Overall, this is not a bad film; it is just exceedingly average and disappointing.