Directed by: Zack Snyder Starring: Jackie Earle Haley, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Patrick Wilson, Carla Gugino, Malin Akerman, Billy Cudrup, Matthew Goode, Stephen McHattie, Matt Fewer & Laura Mennell Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures Distributor: Paramount Pictures Release: March 6
Eagerly yearning to become 2009’s Dark Knight, and once again break through into the public domain with an adult, and very powerful graphic novel adaptation, Watchmen is easily the year’s most anticipated film date.
Based on the hugely celebrated comic book series, now clumped together to produce one breathtaking graphic novel, Watchmen in its original form has won acclaim from around the World, picked, no less, as one of Time magazine’s 100 greatest English language novels written since 1923. It is no surprise then that when producer Law-rence Gordon took on the project the very year it the novels were first publish, way back in 1986, he wanted to get right, but the film has hit a fair few hitches along the way.
Jumping from studio to studio, director to director, at one point the once attached-Terry Gilliam called the novel "unfilmable", with countless actors talked about for the lead roles, original writer denouncing any involvement with the project and just this year, a legal battle between Fox and production company Warner Bros. over who owns the rights to an adaptation, over 20 years on Watchmen has somehow made it to the screen, at first glance, unscathed.
Set in an alternate 1985 where Richard Nixon is still United States President and tensions between America and the Soviet Union have reached such heights, leaving a nuclear WWIII as an impending certainty, at least on the streets and a team of
renegade, masked heroes had been cleaning up crime off the streets, at least before Nixon’s Keene Act outlawed their public deeds.
Called the Minutemen, their existence lies under threat. After former hero the Comedian (Morgan), a bulky, all-action enforcer is murdered, vigilante Rorschach (Haley) takes up the trail to track down the killer. Bearing an ever changing inkblot mask, Rorschach couldn’t care less that his actions are outlawed, warning his fellow heroes of a plot to kill them all, as slowly but surely, hits are attempted on the rest of the caped crusaders.
With the battle for inter-continental control brewing in the background, Rorschach’s investigation throws up twists and turns as the heroes are once again required to don their masks to protect their own wellbeing and the future of our population.
Sticking closely to the tone of the graphic novel, Watchmen is a very dark, mysterious and brooding experience. With director Zack Snyder’s storyboarding modelled closely on the comics and with key scenes translated near perfectly, fans can rest assured, Watchmen is faithful to their precious graphic novels, that does not, however, answer whether the film is just as good.
Similar to the output of Sin City, at time Watch men feels like it follows the graphic novel a little too much. The film is gorgeously shot with a strong ethereal sense to it at times, but it becomes over stylished and you feel disconnected from the film, with the narrative lacking emotion.
The complex and very dense story has though been translated well. Early scripts were re-written, re-thought and some scrapped altogether, but the final thing gives a deep, wide-ranging plot that crams as much as possible into the opportunities of a film. Across the board, the characters are porttrayed with assurance and realism, from scouling Rorschach to picture perfect heroes Nite Owl (Wilson) and Silk Spectre (Akerman), the sickly sweet, and publicly declared hero Ozymandias (Goode) and the one Minuteman with genuine power, Doctor Manhattan (Crudup), a glowing blue, radiation altered scientist able to change his size, teleport and control any object.
Despite the great performances, slick direction and snappy script, Watchmen can prove slightly overbearing at times, even for those familiar with the graphic novel. Squeezed such a multilayered plot into a film was always going to be a enviable task,
and keeping up for a very lengthy 163 minutes is not always a relaxing experience, especially given the very stylised narration.
Zack Snyder has done an excellent job, taking a well-renowned graphic novel and adapting a very accurate screen representation, and despite its on-going drawbacks, Watchmen is far from an awful film, going someway to matching the hype surrounding the project. While it lacks the energy and one electric performance found in The Dark Knight, the sheer grandeur of the film, vast plot and uncompromisingly dark action nad fight sequences make Watchmen an experience you’d be wrong to miss on the big screen.
