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Film review: Watchmen (2009)
I was not in that group of comic book readers blown away by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen in 1986. In fact, by the time I was reading comics and watching movies critically, the bitter, reflective mode of the book had already permeated the superhero ethos, and its revolutionary aspects had been re-integrated into the texts it rebelled against. Even the animated Batman of the early 90's, my own foundational text in this genre, wouldn't have existed without this attitude, even if on the surface it was the stuff of Saturday mornings. When I finally read it a few months ago, it seemed more shocking in its use of pink and bright green than its philosophy, and I suspected the impact had been diluted by everything that had come after, along with my own visual preferences.
I was not, however, prepared for the travesty director Zack Snyder made of it that I saw last night.
However ridiculous (and racist, and homophobic) I found Snyder's 300, most of what I objected to in the film was present in Frank Miller's comic. I didn't like how it looked, either, but shiny computer graphics and faster-than-the-eye-can-see fight sequence editing are something I live with nearly every time I see a modern Hollywood film, and I just sound more curmudgeonly and bitter every year. Watchmen had that, too, and I was prepared. What I was not prepared for was the sheer disconnectedness of the text and the presentation, which impressed itself upon me within minutes.
Is it a spoiler to say that the Zapruder film recreation nestled in the credits was one of the most tasteless things I have ever witnessed, JFK's assassination writ large upon an IMAX screen for the cheapest of shots at one of the main characters? The scene was presented with no more nor less fanfare than the recreation of the famous WWII photo of the sailor kissing the nurse, substituting Silhouette for the sailor (who we can see heading off another direction in the background). What's most astonishing to me is not so much the audacity of the decision as the filmmakers' apparent inability to see the difference between the two appropriations. Both have the same gleeful, detail-oriented “because we can” attitude about them, and even if our emotions are meant to be manipulated in slightly different directions, the intent of both is clearly to titillate.
This lack of thought permeates the entire film, from the soundtrack to the fight sequences. For a film that's about recreating a beloved comic in painstaking detail (when convenient or showy), it's astonishingly unaware of what the comic is about. One would hope, in other words, that the makers of a movie about the depravity of modern society would take some care not to directly contribute to same. Instead, we are simultaneously lectured about standing by and letting violence happen and shown endless slow-motion frames of compound fractures rendered in loving, hyper-real, computer-generated detail. It's pornography, and it's exactly the sort of thing Rorschach would be combating. I'm hardly holding him up as an example to be followed, and neither am I condemning pornography. But they don't belong together, and what is more, I cannot sense the tiniest bit of intelligence behind the decisions that went into the making of this film. There's a fine line between demonstrating your point and subverting it, but Snyder doesn't seem to even admit it exists, let alone have the ability to walk it.
The argument can (and will) be made that Watchmen is just entertainment, and maybe that's a whole different essay. This isn't about violence in the media, however, but rather the direct subversion of a film's text by its presentation. Unless this is done intentionally, it just seems like bad filmmaking. Certainly the soundtrack plays like My First Mixtape, with no comprehension either that anyone has heard of Jimi Hendrix or Bob Dylan before or that just because a song is cool, it may not be appropriate for any given scene. This is minor compared to my other complaint, of course, but anyone who thinks that Leonard Cohen's “Hallelujah” is appropriate for the awkward sex it's set to is just not thinking. And all of this together weakens the impact the film ought to have. Watchmen should be entertaining, true. There should be violence and sex. But it shouldn't work against the idea that there is a moral contradictions inherent in the very activity of masked vigilantism.
There were things I liked about the film, but most of those were in the comic, too. I find the characters of Rorschach and Dr. Manhattan very compelling, and they were realized well enough by their actors (though I object to the fakey Batman voice of Rorschach—why would he have to disguise his voice if no one knows who he is?--and the bad computer rendering of many of Manhattan's facial expressions). Everyone on screen was, at the very least, very game. The one music cue I enjoyed was a Muzak version of “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” at an opportune moment, because it was both subtle and ridiculous. But the voyeuristic glee with which the violence was carried out worked against my enjoyment of the movie—call me a fuddy duddy, but I'd have appreciated it more if I could have sensed some condemnation behind, say, the graphic incineration of Vietnamese soldiers instead of an empty “look what we can do.” I do not get the sense that we're supposed to be horrified. Everything is so shiny, and at the same time so removed, that in the end I don't see how the film (with the help of others which have come before) can help but put us in some approximation of Dr. Manhattan's position: unable to relate to these figures as anything but effects, and only theoretically able to appreciate human life as we see it on screen.
I was not, however, prepared for the travesty director Zack Snyder made of it that I saw last night.
However ridiculous (and racist, and homophobic) I found Snyder's 300, most of what I objected to in the film was present in Frank Miller's comic. I didn't like how it looked, either, but shiny computer graphics and faster-than-the-eye-can-see fight sequence editing are something I live with nearly every time I see a modern Hollywood film, and I just sound more curmudgeonly and bitter every year. Watchmen had that, too, and I was prepared. What I was not prepared for was the sheer disconnectedness of the text and the presentation, which impressed itself upon me within minutes.
Is it a spoiler to say that the Zapruder film recreation nestled in the credits was one of the most tasteless things I have ever witnessed, JFK's assassination writ large upon an IMAX screen for the cheapest of shots at one of the main characters? The scene was presented with no more nor less fanfare than the recreation of the famous WWII photo of the sailor kissing the nurse, substituting Silhouette for the sailor (who we can see heading off another direction in the background). What's most astonishing to me is not so much the audacity of the decision as the filmmakers' apparent inability to see the difference between the two appropriations. Both have the same gleeful, detail-oriented “because we can” attitude about them, and even if our emotions are meant to be manipulated in slightly different directions, the intent of both is clearly to titillate.
This lack of thought permeates the entire film, from the soundtrack to the fight sequences. For a film that's about recreating a beloved comic in painstaking detail (when convenient or showy), it's astonishingly unaware of what the comic is about. One would hope, in other words, that the makers of a movie about the depravity of modern society would take some care not to directly contribute to same. Instead, we are simultaneously lectured about standing by and letting violence happen and shown endless slow-motion frames of compound fractures rendered in loving, hyper-real, computer-generated detail. It's pornography, and it's exactly the sort of thing Rorschach would be combating. I'm hardly holding him up as an example to be followed, and neither am I condemning pornography. But they don't belong together, and what is more, I cannot sense the tiniest bit of intelligence behind the decisions that went into the making of this film. There's a fine line between demonstrating your point and subverting it, but Snyder doesn't seem to even admit it exists, let alone have the ability to walk it.
The argument can (and will) be made that Watchmen is just entertainment, and maybe that's a whole different essay. This isn't about violence in the media, however, but rather the direct subversion of a film's text by its presentation. Unless this is done intentionally, it just seems like bad filmmaking. Certainly the soundtrack plays like My First Mixtape, with no comprehension either that anyone has heard of Jimi Hendrix or Bob Dylan before or that just because a song is cool, it may not be appropriate for any given scene. This is minor compared to my other complaint, of course, but anyone who thinks that Leonard Cohen's “Hallelujah” is appropriate for the awkward sex it's set to is just not thinking. And all of this together weakens the impact the film ought to have. Watchmen should be entertaining, true. There should be violence and sex. But it shouldn't work against the idea that there is a moral contradictions inherent in the very activity of masked vigilantism.
There were things I liked about the film, but most of those were in the comic, too. I find the characters of Rorschach and Dr. Manhattan very compelling, and they were realized well enough by their actors (though I object to the fakey Batman voice of Rorschach—why would he have to disguise his voice if no one knows who he is?--and the bad computer rendering of many of Manhattan's facial expressions). Everyone on screen was, at the very least, very game. The one music cue I enjoyed was a Muzak version of “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” at an opportune moment, because it was both subtle and ridiculous. But the voyeuristic glee with which the violence was carried out worked against my enjoyment of the movie—call me a fuddy duddy, but I'd have appreciated it more if I could have sensed some condemnation behind, say, the graphic incineration of Vietnamese soldiers instead of an empty “look what we can do.” I do not get the sense that we're supposed to be horrified. Everything is so shiny, and at the same time so removed, that in the end I don't see how the film (with the help of others which have come before) can help but put us in some approximation of Dr. Manhattan's position: unable to relate to these figures as anything but effects, and only theoretically able to appreciate human life as we see it on screen.
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For a second, I thought your icon was directed at me!
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You know I <3 you. :)
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Hugs
G
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I guess as a non-American sitting in a cinema full of non-Americans I can see how I'd come out with a totally different opinion of the movie.
The Zapruder bit just reminded me of the episode of the X Files where smoking man did it and the ep of Red Dwarf when Kennedy did it himself. My only reaction was "those versions put the shooter in a better position" though I know they were playing on the grassy knoll thing. Though that wasn't helped by the fact that I recently listened to Bil Hicks again and his take on that film is reeeeaaallly inappropriate.
To all the younger people I know, Kennedy getting shot is exactly the same kind of image as the sailor/nurse thing, though less awesome due to lack of hot latex clad lesbians. I was more bothered by the shots of the burning monk and that's only because I've never seen those shots moving before, just on album covers.
I thought the fight sequences were exactly like the comic, but brought to modern levels, Watchmen was shockingly nasty for its time so they had to up it a little bit or it would seem tame. But compared to the latest Punisher film, which I was recently forced to sit through, it wasn't violent at all. About a 4 out of 10. Though I do think the graphic nature of what violence there was achieved the aim of making us condemn all the superdudes, especially Manhatten and Comedian. I think cutting all the bodies out of the final sequence was a sell out though, I guess they thought making Ozzy gay was enough to make us hate him without all the death that should have come with his solution.
I liked the soundtrack, considering the fact that most of the audience I watched it with were 18 to 25 they needed the audio hints like "NOW ITS THE BIT FROM APOCALYSPE NOW!!! YOU KNOW WHEN AMERICA DID THAT STUFF IN THAT COUNTRY TOP GEAR WENT TO AT CHRISTMAS!" bashed around their heads. I studied history to degree level so I knew most of what they were talking about, but only because I studied 1970s US history (our schools rarely teach history less than 25 years ago at high school level so most people of an age to watch the movie wouldn't necessarily know what the hell was going on). Plus our 70s and 80s were very different. I kinda saw it as Forrest Gump sort of musical cues, especially important since the story jumped from past to other past to present so much. Dave considers the use of music to be a clever nod at all the media we actually know from that time to say "hey this is the alt-universe version of that".
I would agree that the use of Hallelujah was a stroke of sheer comedy genius, intentional or otherwise, personally I've always thought we're not supposed to respect OwlBoy much, so the music worked in knocking his ass down a peg. If the director intended that we take that scene seriously he epic failed. But I think the blue penis of doom proved that he didn't.
I thought that the voice of Rorschach was his 'real' voice in the same way that the morphing material was his 'real' face. I travel on a bus with a guy who looks and sounds like Rorschach so that creeped me out quite successfully. And I though the crap animation on Dr Manhatten's face was intentional too, doesn't Ozzy mention it at the end?
Cont...
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The only things I disliked about the film were - 1. the bad makeup on Old Silk Spectre, 2. the change to the ending - I want giant tenacled psychic monsters from beyond the stars!!!, 3. Making Ozymandias excessively gay, 4. leaving Hollis in then cutting out the reason for Hollis being there in the first place.
Personally I loved the cinematography on Watchman, same as I loved it on 300. It was (until the very end sequence) exactly what I hoping for in a Watchmen film, well as far as it could be without being 7 hours long. My greatest fear was that it'd end up like David Lynch's Dune, pretty but nonsensical with random bits cut out and random things stuffed in. The ending was kind of like that, but it made sense for the reduced time scale and at least no one ran around pointing at things and shouting CharBok! I guess it wasn't quite as good as V overall, but at least it didn't have Natalie Portman to ruin it.
We both enjoyed it, 8 out 10, would buy on DVD. Put on shelf next to 300. Maybe get out and watch Hallelujah scene then "annoying kid getting head chopped off" scene from 300 back to back. Much hilarity. Need to stop talking like Rorschach. Must stop reading his LJ.
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The film was a tad too long (i went with my friends for my birthday and half of them hadnt read the comic-they felt it did run further than necessary) but it would have been difficult to cut down such a lengthy plot. Overall I would agree with phantoms_siren, 8 out of 10 and it has a place in my DVD collection. Though, as always, the novel will always be better for me.
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So agree with this-I am in my final year studying History with American Studies at University and it was a pretty cool soundtrack to use-Simon and Garfunkel, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan......:)
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I managed to enjoy the movie for entertainment's sake, though I had to search for a delicate balance between taking what I knew from the comics (the entire first half didn't make any sense whatsoever to my father, who didn't know them) and at the same time disregarding the comics and just taking the film as something completely separate.
To me it almost felt like a kind of study on techniques rather than a story. I've done a Media and Entertainment Management study before going into teaching and there were some odd paralels between the things I'd seen there and this film. I guess that's just the "see what we can do" thing from another perspective.
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As a kid growing up on comic books and cartoons, finding out that the man that raped 300 (I have to admit I was a fan of the comic) was going to do it to Watchmen, was like finding out your puppy had been run over.
I can't say however that I didn't enjoy the movie, because I did. Did I find some parts totally unecissary, yes, the soundtrack drove me nuts and the violence that was completely held back in the book was glorified in all its disgustingness.
The point of the book was lost, you are correct in that and certain chracters were hurt by what you call the "shinyness" of Snyders direction.
All in all wonderful review and a great way to express your view. I still find myself pulled in by my love for the comic, even if the movie was a little more than dissapointing.
I'm still going to buy it.
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To be honest, as much as I generally liked the film, the violence literally did make me vomit in my mouth, and I just started calmly averting my eyes whenever anyone pissed Rorschach off, because I knew that would not end well.