Watchmen Movie Review
Hollywood’s Most Unfilmable Movie, Filmed
By Jeff
Having read a plentitude of novels in my life, but never a graphic novel because of the juvenile associations I always felt they carried, my brother finally persuaded me last summer to give two specific ones a chance. I agreed only because I thought they would help to prep me for the upcoming film adaptations. The graphic novels were: "The Dark Knight Returns" by Frank Miller and "Watchmen" by writer Alan Moore and artist David Gibbons.
Much to my chagrin, I received a great deal of satisfaction reading them. They were remarkable in the way they populated and presented a wholly imaginative new world bristling with life. I felt like I had accidentally stumbled upon a new art form that I previously had not known of. Finally, I understood how they could be hailed as breakthrough masterpieces back in 1986, when incidentally enough, they were both originally released, and how they could still be considered classic fiction works today.
What made them so unique was how they read as though you were watching a movie unfold on these lifeless pieces of colorful paper. The pictures were framed as a series of moving camera shots and the actions flowed swiftly across the page in a breathtakingly naturalistic manner. Comic books had never been this cinematic before.
To add to that, the dialogue, story, themes, and characters were more adult, rich with layers upon layers of detail and dimension that commented on our culture, history, politics, philosophy, and nature. This was more than a comic, it was an epic novel interpreted through a series of vibrant, artistic images - and hence the creation of the ‘graphic novel’.
Only a dozen pages into "Watchmen", which is oft referred to as the Citizen Kane of graphic novels, I knew there was no possible way any movie adaptation could ever possibly meet my expectations, the expectations of the countless other devotees, and most especially the expectations of it’s reclusive creator Alan Moore (who publicly denounced the film back in preproduction and demanded that his name be removed from it and no royalties be paid to him, commenting: "I’m never going to watch this fu**ing thing").
For two decades, Hollywood studios considered it ‘unfilmable’ yet still relentlessly attempted to put a production together. The list of directors once associated with the project is endless, some recent names include Terry Gilliam, Michael Bay, Darren Aronofsky, and Paul Greengrass.
Finally, in 2005, Zack Synder, director of the respectable 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake and the laughable 300 , was finally asked to take over the directing reins. He said no. The studio shrugged and looked down at the next director on their list. This triggered it for Snyder. He loved "Watchmen" and didn’t want to see it destroyed in somebody else’s hands. He agreed to make it and vowed to stay as close to the source material as possible.
For this reason, Watchmen works - and doesn’t work. The graphic novel is a long, epic tale of dozens of characters and Snyder has a two hour and forty minute running time to adhere to. But he does manage to capture the exact look, feel and a majority of the ‘classic moments’ from the graphic novel onto film, and this is an achievement in itself. Had it been directed by any of the directors mentioned earlier, it no doubt would have undergone considerable reinterpretation, which would have been a horrible mistake since the film is mainly being marketing at the hordes of fanboys who worship the graphic novel to such an extent that their condemnation of the film would have been so endlessly merciless it would have cut short Watchmen’s total revenue.
Despite how surprisingly well-put together it was, I can’t help but think "Watchmen" the graphic novel could only have fully been realized had HBO picked up the rights and crafted it into an 12 part mini-series, much like Alan Moore had originally written it, as a 12-installment comic. This would have granted the filmmakers the opportunity to really flesh out the wide array of characters and the highly detailed background stories that Alan Moore carefully handcrafted and the subtle humanistic touches that he imbued to his characters. A two and a half hour long movie, as much as Snyder’s version of Watchman tries, just can’t capture that much information and attention to detail.
Tags: Alan Moore, Citizen Kane, Dark Knight Returns, David Gibbons, Film, Films, Graphic Novel, Jeff, Watchmen, Zack Synder
