Even a Superhero Can't Save Watchmen

By Alana Flanagan

Watchmen, based on the 1986 graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, is a disappointing addition to Hollywood’s recent run of superhero flicks. Originally published by DC Comics in 1986, Watchmen features an alternate history in which the U.S. is inching closer and closer to nuclear war with Russia and Nixon presides over the fearful country in his third Presidential term. “Hey, it was him or the commies...” says an optimistic Nite Owl II. In this darkest of worlds, the Watchmen arise: a band of theatrical cops dubbed superheroes with extraordinary strength and tricked-out gadgets.

The opening credits, a compilation of slow-motion shots accompanied by the generation-appropriate “The Times They Are A-Changin’” by Bob Dylan, serve as background music to where the film picks up from the graphic novel. The audience is introduced to the halcyon days, and consequent downfall, of the original band of Watchmen. Split up by retirement, alternate job offers, institutionalization, and various forms of assassination, a new band of Watchmen arises in their absence, including The Comedian, a member of the original gang, and Silk Spectre II, daughter of the original Silk Spectre.

Years later, aged and estranged, the Watchmen each lead his or her own form of a normal life. But when Edward Blake (secret identity: The Comedian) is murdered in the tackiest of murder scenes, complete with the usual excess of gooey blood spatters and sound effects worthy of “Walker, Texas Ranger,” Rorschach, the paranoid sociopath who never took off his mask despite the fictional Keene Act outlawing all masked vigilantes, believes that a masked killer is out to get the Watchmen and takes it upon himself to warn his former partners.

Despite previous criticism of director Zach Snyder’s work, which includes 300 and Dawn of the Dead, he decides to stick to his specialty with Watchmen. Snyder’s style never leaves the audience lacking in slow-motion gore scenes or character close-ups.

We also must wonder why graphic novel author Alan Moore decided to excuse himself from production of the film, asking that his name not be included in the credits. Is it because the unimaginative screenwriting (Alex Tse, David Hayter) butchers Moore’s original work? The Watchmen script reads like a bad knockoff of the original novel, the plot barely varying in the organization or setting. However, thanks to a well-cast group of actors, the film barely suffers for it.

Though the audience can practically see the script written on the page, the main actors create a believable, dark and dirty world of crime and suspicion full of somber, meaningful looks and bonding relationships in the face of Armageddon. The film is narrated by entries in Rorschach’s journal, through which we meet Nite Owl II/Dan Dreiberg, the calm and collected do-gooder who has no urge to dust off his cape and get flying again, and Ozymandias/Adrian Veidt, the “smartest man alive” who gained fame and fortune after admitting his identity as a former Watchman and is now trying to solve the world’s energy crisis; Dr. Manhattan is the clairvoyant nuclear man and America’s only hope at rescue from nuclear war, along with his girlfriend Silk Spectre II/Laurie Jupiter, the token pretty girl in black Spandex.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan as the bitter, cruel Comedian does a complete 180-degree flip from his celebrated role as Denny Duquette on ABC’s hit drama Grey’s Anatomy. Introduced to the audience through flashbacks of the still-breathing Watchmen attending his funeral, Morgan’s sweaty, cigar-smoking, always laughing character is the mockery of the grimy underbelly of society that the Watchmen have pledged to protect.

Patrick Wilson (Nite Owl II/Dan Dreiberg) and Malin Akerman (Silk Spectre II/Laurie Jupiter) have surprising chemistry in the sexy-girl-pities-the-nerd kind of way. Their predictable affair drags on with the usual slow-motion hair flips and chivalrous school-boy acts. As the only two characters not obsessed with saving the world from nuclear destruction or hunting down a theoretical mass killer, they slip back into their tights for a spur-of-the-moment late-night adventure, saving a family from a burning apartment building and beating some criminals to a pulp. You know, the usual.

Matthew Goode (Ozymandias/Adrian Veidt) gives his usual calm and collected performance as what seems like an insignificant, background character, his potential barely tapped. Billy Crudup does little to define the character of Dr. Manhattan, but due to the character’s structural distance from the human psyche as a result of his nuclear makeup, Crudup’s lackluster performance goes unnoticed.

Tyler Bates, who also worked with Snyder on 300 and Dawn of the Dead, composes a compelling musical score paired with well-known eighties hits that pull the audience further into the dark and dreary world of Watchmen.

Left out of the movie are some major factors: editions of the novel include faux newspaper clippings and fan letters addressed to the Watchmen without which the audience is left wondering how large an impact the Watchmen really had on the world around them. The graphic novel also features its own comic book, a story within the story that is left out of the film. However, the comic does not feature superheroes as the main characters, but pirates. The lack of superheroes as leading figures in the comic plays on the idea that, in the world of the Watchmen, superheroes are not admirable, but objects of dread and scorn.

While writer Alan Moore conceived of the graphic novel as an alternative, smaller comic for committed fans, the movie adaptation aims for blockbuster success, and therefore lacks much of the novel’s original brilliance.