{"id":3964,"date":"2009-03-06T20:11:22","date_gmt":"2009-03-07T04:11:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=3964"},"modified":"2009-03-13T10:46:51","modified_gmt":"2009-03-13T18:46:51","slug":"watchmen-zack-snider-2009-usa-uk-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=3964","title":{"rendered":"Watchmen (Zack Snider, 2009): USA, UK, Canada"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Richard Feilden<\/a>. \u00a0Viewed at AMC 30, Orange<\/p>\n

\"watchmen\"\u00a0In 1986 a comic book was issued that couldn\u2019t be called a comic. \u00a0It changed the way that the entire industry was viewed, both from outside and within. \u00a0The man who wrote it was Alan Moore and it was called\u00a0Watchmen<\/em><\/a>. \u00a0 Almost twenty years later, and after more battles, rewrites and talent changes than any film should suffer, the graphic novel has been made into a film and today it hits the big screen. \u00a0But who is Moore, and why is everyone so damn interested in his little story?<\/p>\n

For those of you who are under the impression that graphic novels are for children, that they are just oversized comics, extended versions of the funny pages, I\u2019ll try to give you some perspective. \u00a0Moore was responsible for classics such as The Ballad of Halo Jones, published in UK comic 2000AD, The Killing Joke (a Batman tale which inspired Tim Burton and Christopher Nolan and was given to Heath Ledger as reference point) The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (made into a derisible film by Hollywood) and V for Vendetta (made into a barely passable film by Hollywood). \u00a0He shuns celebrity, has denounced the film adaptations of his work and has appeared, as himself, in The Simposons. \u00a0He is *that* important. \u00a0If he were a director, Moore could be considered to be on a par with Scorsese and Watchmen his Taxi Driver and his Raging Bull combined. \u00a0It is still regarded as one of the greatest graphic novels ever written, if not the greatest. \u00a0It is listed in Entertainment Weekly\u2019s top 50 novels of the last 25 years and within the last year appeared on a similar Time magazine list, the only graphic novel to do so. With its interwoven stories, fragmented timeline, multiple perspectives and a darkness which makes last year\u2019s comic box office smash look like Little Orphan Annie, it was also declared impossible to film. \u00a0So, has Zack Snyder managed the impossible? \u00a0Has the director of 300 managed to create a great film and, perhaps more importantly, has he managed to do Moore\u2019s magnum opus justice? \u00a0In the first instance I\u2019ll go with a resounding \u2018sort of\u2019 but sadly, in the case of the latter, no. \u00a0So, hang up your cape, take off your mask, pull off your spandex jumpsuit and I\u2019ll explain why.<\/p>\n

Watchmen takes place in a world where masked heroes are a part of people\u2019s lives. \u00a0Not fantastic heroes like Superman and Spiderman, just extraordinary people who decided to stand up and make a difference in the world. \u00a0Then, through an accident, a true super-hero was born. \u00a0Jonathan Osterman died and was reborn as Dr Manhattan, a being who could manipulate the structure of reality; a god, walking amongst the people. \u00a0And America loved these vigilantes, right up until it didn\u2019t. \u00a0They were rejected, cast out by the society they had sworn to protect. The Comedian and Dr Manhattan began working for the government. \u00a0Ozymandias, a genius, unmasked and became a humanitarian businessman. \u00a0Uncompromising, unforgiving, unrelenting Rorschach refused to bow his head and battled on, hunted by the police and the underworld alike. \u00a0The rest simply hung up their tights and vanished. \u00a0But, years later, The Comedian is murdered and Rorschach is convinced that someone is out for vengeance and tries to convince the others ex-heroes that they are in mortal danger.<\/p>\n

A simple start to a complex story. \u00a0To say any more would reveal too much to those unfamiliar with the source. \u00a0But the complexity of Moore\u2019s work runs far deeper than the plot threads. \u00a0Each of the characters is complex, nuanced and developed. \u00a0Each is subject to human failings and none of them are cookie-cutter good or bad guys. \u00a0And it is here that the film fails to live up to Moore\u2019s vision \u2013 he has recreated the appearance, but lost the soul. \u00a0This is best demonstrated with The Comedian and Rorschach. \u00a0The former, Snyder has decided, is a Bad Man. \u00a0Now, this isn\u2019t entirely unfair \u2013 with a couple of exceptions everything he does in the film he does in the novel and it is all pretty grim. \u00a0But the film removes any of the seeds of doubt that Moore planted regarding his actions and his motivations. \u00a0He is just a Bad Man. \u00a0Rorschach on the other hand is a Good Guy in Snider\u2019s opinion. \u00a0He is our anti-hero, Watchmen\u2019s version of the X-Men\u2019s Wolverine. \u00a0Snider has smoothed off his paranoid schizophrenic, psychotic edges. \u00a0Sure, his methods are a bit rough, but they are always aimed at the right person. \u00a0Compare that to the comic book where Rorschach thinks nothing of working his way through a dozen bars, breaking limbs and beating people in his search for someone who knows something. \u00a0Sure, the characters in the film call him a sociopath, but we are shown nothing of Moore\u2019s unwashed, unkempt killer of killers whose purity is birthed from his insanity. \u00a0The question of which is his \u2018real face\u2019 (the mask or the man beneath \u2013 you thought that was an original idea at the end of Batman Begins?) is reversed and the characters most interesting facets removed. \u00a0These two are just two examples, but they are symptomatic of the film’s problems. \u00a0It is beautiful on the surface, but dig down you find nothing beneath. The sad irony is that Snider has turned Watchmen into the one thing that it wasn\u2019t \u2013 a comic. \u00a0 And then there is the ending\u2026<\/p>\n

Snyder has said in the past that he wanted to change the ending so that people who knew the book would have a surprise in store. \u00a0That\u2019s a little like saying \u2018I\u2019m going to stage Romeo and Juliet, but for those who\u2019ve read the original, we\u2019re going to add a bit of a twist!\u2019 \u00a0That twist better be pretty damn good if you\u2019re going to mess with a classic. \u00a0Unfortunately the changes in Watchmen (excluding those which are there in an attempt to make the unfilmable filmable) seem to have been made for the hell of it. \u00a0This ending is less fantastical than the original, but it also has a huge flaw in its logic. \u00a0It is hard to say more without spoiling things, but if you see the film, ask yourself whether pursuing the original use for the devices used at the end of the film couldn\u2019t have had the same outcome with a lot less mess.<\/p>\n

On the plus side, the cast is pretty damn good. \u00a0The decision to avoid the \u2018pretty boy\u2019 stars whose names have been attached during the project’s obscenely long gestation period and instead choose faces with a bit of life ground into them was a good one. \u00a0The film is also beautiful. \u00a0The involvement of the novel\u2019s original artist Dave Gibbons is writ large across the film, although it does come across at times as being Blade Runner-light. \u00a0Snyder also hasn\u2019t backed away from the violence or the nudity in the scenes that he retained from the original work. \u00a0And although the film is very long, coming in at a little under three hours), I was never bored. \u00a0I just wanted it to be more. \u00a0More Moore, I suppose.<\/p>\n

So, I can\u2019t recommend the film wholeheartedly. \u00a0If you\u2019ve never seen the comic it might be a little hard to follow and, far worse, it might prejudice you against ever reading the original. \u00a0If you have read the graphic novel, you can\u2019t go in expecting this to be the same and you will be, in some respects, disappointed. \u00a0Snyder has knocked one straight down the middle, missing both camps pretty much equally. \u00a0The only person this film is ideally suited for is Snyder himself. \u00a0So, this film is far better than last year\u2019s Indian Jones, but not up there with the less flawed Dark Knight. \u00a0My advice? \u00a0By all means go and see the film, but you\u2019re better off reading, not watching, the Watchmen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Richard Feilden. \u00a0Viewed at AMC 30, Orange \u00a0In 1986 a comic book was issued that couldn\u2019t be called a comic. \u00a0It changed the way that the entire industry was viewed, both from outside and within. \u00a0The man who wrote it was Alan Moore and it was called\u00a0Watchmen. \u00a0 Almost twenty years later, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3964\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}