I’ve been anticipating the movie adaption of Watchmen for months now, since the first time I ever saw the trailer. Watchmen (the movie) is based on Watchmen, the wildly popular graphic novel, and tells the story of a group of retired masked vigilantes, The Watchmen. The action takes place in 1985, although the earlier arrival of a superhuman figure named Dr. Manhattan has altered the course of world events: Vietnam surrendered to America, technology has advanced at an extremely accelerated rate, and human masked vigilantes have been outlawed by President Nixon, in his third term of the presidency. The narrative is told by Rorschach, a paranoid, sociopathic detective-type vigilante, the only Watchman still operational. The movie opens with the death of The Comedian, one of the disguised heroes, and the main plot is Rorschach trying to figure out who is responsible.
I won’t go too much more into the plot, but needless to say – it is very interesting to watch and read. The thing that really amazed me about the movie was how similar it was to the comic. While watching the movie, the exact same emotions and thoughts rolled through my head as when I was reading the book. The style and feel of the movie is the same as the book, the characters look and sound exactly as I imagined (with the exception of one character, Adrian Veidt), and it was overall just really well-made.
There are three problems I have with the movie, however.
The first problem is Veidt. While all of the other characters in the movie (particularly Rorschach, who was absolutely perfect in every way) were extremely well-cast, Veidt looked nothing like he did in the comic book. Veidt is the alter-ego of ex-vigilante Ozymandias, the smartest man in the world. In both versions of the story, Veidt is extremely wealthy, intelligent, and obsessed with Alexander the Great and all sorts of ancient civilizations. However, in the comic Veidt resembled a Roman emperor in appearance. He had a classically beautiful look to him, and wore purple and gold. His office was highly gilded, and he seemed warm, but regal. In the movie, however, Veidt appears almost scrawny. His armor helps him appear stronger, but it is entirely black and silver, not Ozy’s purple and gold. The same goes for his workspace, being entirely gray marble and black rock. Also, his feline companion, Bubastis, is blue instead of red for some reason.
Another issue I had with the movie was the lack of detail in certain scenes, and the addition of detail in others. The movie is already 2 hours and 40 minutes long, so obviously some scenes had to be cut down a bit, but unfortunately it’s the origin stories that lose out. Rorschach and Dr. Manhattan both had very interesting stories in the comic, explaining how they really became the heroes they are at the time of the action, but these are cut down to the bare minimum in the movie. Rorschach in the comic is forced to talk to a psychoanalyst, and over time he slowly breaks him down from a jolly fat man to a gibbering, depressed, shell of his former self. In the movie, Rorschach has one session with said therapist, and that’s it. We are still shown some of his origin, but it is condensed into a single scene. The same thing happens with Dr. Manhattan, who comprehends time differently from humans. For him, all time is simultaneous, he sees all of his past and all of his future at the same time. This makes for a very interesting origin story, as it doesn’t necessarily progress in chronological order. This was shown in the movie, but it wasn’t nearly as interesting as in the comic, and a number of crucial scenes from his past were removed.
At the same time, some details were left in that were unnecessary, and some were even added in. The biggest problem, I thought, was the sex scene. It lasted quite a bit longer than it had to, and while I do think the scene itself was important to have in the film, it shouldn’t have been long enough to require the removal of actual content. I do, however, applaud the parties responsible for the movie for leaving many of the R-rated aspects of the movie unchanged.
The final problem I had was the soundtrack. While the music chosen was awesone (Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel, Hendrix, etc.), it seemed to not really fit the action. Particularly the scene of Dr. Manhattan in Vietnam, with Ride of the Valkyries in the background. The song is awesome, and fits, but it is such a cliché that it didn’t work. I would have liked more original music, with one or two oldies every now and then.
Apart from these three, however, I loved the movie, and would recommend it to anybody who likes (super)hero movies with less action than normal (which isn’t to say less blood), and more mystery and plot.
