Yesterday afternoon my girlfriend excitedly called me to say she would meet me after work and that she had a surprise adventure to take me on. Shopping for shoes, going to the vet to have me neutered, travelling back in time to appear on Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush? – all these possibilities and more passed through my mind, but the truth was far greater:

She had tickets. To a preview. Of Watchmen.

Needless to say, I behaved in a very cool and collected manner, as evidenced by the photo I posted to Twitpic shortly after finding out.

So, yes, while I’d not allowed myself to get too carried away with anticipation of a film version of something that’s been called unfilmable for decades, I was very excited. I found out a mere 30 mins before we entered the cinema and spent the entire time grinning from ear to ear.

Oh, the folly of the man I was before this film…

To say I was unhappy with the film would be an understatement. As someone who has attended showings from the vault of Trash Video and owns Plan 9 From Out Of Space, I have seen some truly awful films. Watchmen is saved from being one of the worst films I’ve seen by some very nice moments and some beautiful art direction, but these merely serve as dusted sugar on a shit sundae.

That W word

While not something that would make or break the film for me, there’s been a lot of talk since the word ‘Watchmen’ was heard in the second trailer, seeing as the source material make no reference to this aside from the “Who Watches The Watchmen?” graffiti which appears throughout the graphic novel.

The part of the review is really only for those die hard fans: yes, the word is used. No, it doesn’t refer to a team, such as the Minutemen, but is seemingly being used a collective noun for all costumed heroes. It is used every sentence for one 10 minute stretch early on and then only once more much later in the film, raising the question of why include it at all? The reason seems to be to dumb the film down and there’ll be more on this later.

Talkin’ pretty like…

The discussion of the inclusion of the word Watchmen segues well into the next topic: the script. The 10 minute stretch I mentioned above includes the scene where Rorschach first visits Daniel Dreiberg (Nite Owl II). The dialogue has almost been lifted straight from the page, but while the characters recite the lines they often ring hollow, either because they are badly delivered, left hanging in a poorly paced scene, or just don’t work as well spoken as they do being read.

The director, Jack Snyder, and writers David Hayter and Alex Tse, have retained much of the dialogue as it appeared in the comic throughout the film, but most comes off as if it was performed as a first read through. Daniel’s line’s “What do you expect, the Comedian is dead” and “whatever happened to the American dream?” are delivered with the finesse of a brick to the head, and they are far from the only ones.

It seems childish to berate a big budget movie from a professional director with the old adage of ‘show, don’t tell’, but it came to mind multiple times throughout the film. The actors appear to have no grasp on who these characters are, with the only exceptions being Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach and Jeffrey Dean Morgan as The Comedian, and the audience is left with heavy handed metaphors and the films oppressive score (more on this below).

These problems take the complicated issues the story raises and morph them into a preachy, monotone experience that grated with me every time a character other than the two mentioned above opened their mouths.

The sound of silence… I wish!

The films opening credits are brilliant, a montage which covers much of the early history of the Minutemen and costumed vigilantes which couldn’t fit into the film proper, but it was also noticeable for having the second full length song to appear in the film, with Bob Dylan singing The Times They Are A-Changin’ throughout.

I thought the song was a good choice, just a little odd as we’d just heard all of Unforgettable by Nat King Cole during the pre-credits death scene of the Comedian.

This was a trend that would not stop for the entire film.

Whenever there was a lapse in dialogue, an extended section of a famous song, complete with lyrics would play at full blast. It doesn’t sound that bad in theory, but in practice it resulted in groans or laughter at each over the top choice. An extended sex scene to Hallelujah? Why not! Approaching Antarctica, why not play a huge chunk of All Along The Watchtower? Need to emphasise the epic nature of the closing scenes? Why not throw Mozart’s Requiem in there. I could go on, but I don’t want to ruin the Vietnam scene which will make you laugh out loud.

Rather than create anything like a memorable or workable score, the film bombards the viewer with these numbers one after another and I found it jarred me out of any semblance of ambience every time. What does exist of the score ranges from forgettable to down right awful. After Rorschach leaves Daniel’s house, in the scene I mentioned above, electric guitar riffs ring out reminiscent of a second act climax in movies like Beverly Hills Cop. I guess it is meant to be set in 1985?

Ooooh, shiney…

Yes, it does look very pretty. Very pretty. All the costumes and sets look great, fan favourite locations aren’t exact duplicates but rather do a great job at capturing the feel of the originals. This is what most of the reviews I’ve seen have hit on, that visually, as Simon Sharwood (who attended the same screening I did) noted, Synder has almost matched Lord Of The Rings “in terms of successful capture of vibe and intent.”

However, far more violence than ever existed in the comic seems to have been added, for seemingly no apparent reason other than to ’spice things up’. Notable examples are Rorschach’s flashback to finding the killer of a little girl and Dr Manhatten exploding criminals, showering women in blood and leaving pieces of skin hanging from the roof. Through all this, Hollis Mason doesn’t die however, so go figure.

Let’s rap it up

“all the geeks and film goers will look up and shout “Save Us!”…:
…and Snyder will look down, and whisper, “No”.”

I will admit I was keen for a faithful adaptation of one of my favourite comics. However, as both a writer and a lover of movies and comics, I would have stomached any number of changes to the source material had they produced one thing.

A good film.

This simply isn’t the case. Wanted, another comic book adaptation from last year was changed significantly but while I don’t like the final result I recognise that it achieved exactly what it set out to do: to look freaking cool and show you Angelina Jolie’s leather clad arse while she fired a gun.

Watchmen not only had a much more complex source material, the creators clearly set out to achieve that complexity in the film and failed utterly. Like I mentioned above, so many reviews are focusing on how the film looks, and how faithful it is to Dave Gibbon’s style.

Who gives a rat’s arse?

It may be dressed up nicely, but Watchmen is still a badly paced, acted and directed film. I had lost any interest in what happened to the characters by half way through the film, and I already liked them! I challenge anyone to point to a scene not involving Rorschach or The Comedian that has any successful emotional impact.

None of the changes bother me, such as the change in the twist in the end to remove the ‘squid’, but then having Ozymandias’ genetically engineered lynx, Bubastis, appear only in the final scenes made no sense. Laurie no longer smokes, but still managers to set the house on fire with Archie’s flame thrower? It’s these little inconsistencies which, while nothing on their own, speak volumes about slap dash way the film seems to have been cut.

Maybe all my answers will be on the much talked of directors cut along with, hopefully, a new score and a decreased soundtrack. Yes, there are some nice boob shots, and a few cool action sequences. Yes, the film in a few areas does a good job at subtly hinting at unspoken back story, such as the Silhouette in the opening credits. Yes, there were parts that were ok.

I also have no doubt that many will flock to see it and praise it for it’s ‘amazingly faithful adaptation’ and ‘vision’.

However, both the Watchmen the film and the book clearly set out to tell the story behind the real people who in its world had donned costumes and to deconstruct the superhero concept, along with the moral ambiguities of right and wrong. Only one of them succeeded. Towards the end of the film Laurie recites what was originally one of Dr Manhattan’s famous lines: “In the end? Nothing ends. Nothing ever ends.”

That might be true, but boy was I glad when this 163 minute monstrosity did.