Watchmen

Copyright 2009, DC/Warner Bros. Pictures

First of all, sorry for not posting over the weekend. Thanks in part to the missus' birthday party Saturday night, family get-togethers, catching up on season 3 of Battlestar Galactica (only 7 episodes to go!), and seeing this movie, it was hard to stay up-to-date online. I'll drop a link for the Monday Morning Quarterback from Box Office Prophets in a separate post, though, discussing the box office performance of what is likely the first big movie of 2009, or the first expected-to-be-big movie of 2009...Watchmen.

Before I get into the meat of my review (and spoilers will be plentiful or, at the very least, I won't avoid them), I want to mention a caveat and a few other miscellaneous things. First, I have not read Watchmen, though I very much want to now, more so than before I saw the film adaptation. So, in essence, this review comes from one of the uninitiated. That's the caveat. A few miscellaneous things about the experience itself. I saw this yesterday morning in the biggest screen at the local AMC; the show was half-full, which surprised me a bit, based solely on the very good-but-not-amazing box office this film has done. Before the show, I got to be reminded that Kid Rock needs to go away, and go away quickly. As an American citizen not in the military, I can only imagine how grossly offended the men and women who serve my country are when they see their very hard, very tough work compared to being a Nascar driver. One of these people has to fight for their lives against an unstoppable enemy every day; one of these people drives around a big oval real fast. I'm tired of watching the Army National Guard ad with an awful song by Kid Rock. From the sounds of the sarcasm after the song, so's everyone else. Shame on you, Wally Pfister and James Mangold, who were the director of photography and overall director on the video, respectively. Shame on you, Kid Rock. Shame on you, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. Shame on you all.

Next, I have said it before here and I will say it again: babies who talk are not funny. Babies who talk about the economy on a fake webcam are not funny. I know the economy's in the shitter right now, and I don't need fake babies to joke about it. "Yeah, that's right, I beat my golfing buddy, but he doesn't want to pay up on our bet because he's poor!" Hilarious. Finally, the previews, with one exception, were pretty damn incredible. I am now officially psyched for Star Trek, even if Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto bore the shit out of me. I am now officially psyched for Terminator: Salvation even if the human-who's-not-really-a-human plotline has been done on Battlestar Galactica. I am now officially psyched for Public Enemies, and even seeing Brad Pitt yell about Nazi scalps on the big screen got me a bit pumped. Angels and Demons? No thanks, especially since my nearly baseless hunch that one of the big actors in the movie (not Tom Hanks, obviously) is the bad guy was proven right by a friend today.

Now, I've spent three paragraphs not reviewing Watchmen, and I wish I could tell you I'm building up to an explosion of praise, but I'm not. I mentioned last week about my growing dread for the film, and I'm happy to say that it didn't pay off. No, I didn't hate this movie; however, I didn't like it either. In fact, after having one day to stew over things, I can safely say I just don't care that much. Not good. I have many problems with this film, and the biggest is that, for an ensemble piece, none of the characters are worth caring about. I did, however, think one actor shined: Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach, the sociopath-cum-superhero. Granted, just about everyone here plays a sociopath-cum-superhero, but Rorschach seems to have some sort of code as opposed to the Comedian, who's just an evil son of a bitch.

Aside from Haley, there's almost nothing here worth praising outright. Patrick Wilson, as Nite Owl II, is his usual reliable self, but his post-hero status doesn't give him much to chew on. What's more, where we get backstories on most of the characters, we get nothing on him aside from his all-around decency. Hell, when it comes to backstory, we don't get the real meat. Rorschach puts on a mask that can magically move around like a Rorschach blot, hence his moniker. How does his mask do that? Why does he put on a mask? Why does he choose that mask, that name? These are questions I presume are answered in the 12-part graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons; despite the fact that I was never really confused with what was going on, I always wondered if there was more to the story. I imagine that director Zack Snyder and screenwriters David Hayter and Alex Tse did their best, but left out much. Unfortunately, being more faithful probably helped dampen the movie's impact.

There is no impact here, that's the problem. The climax, involving what amounts to some kind of nuclear blast (technically the powers of one Dr. Manhattan duplicated) throughout the major cities of the world, is lessened by the bland and not-at-all ambiguous finale; oh, so Rorschach's journal went to what appears to be a hole-in-the-wall magazine that is so desperate for news that it considers the journal to be in the "Crank" pile? I'm sure his words will be taken as gospel. Even more, the cutesy ending with Nite Owl II and Silk Spectre II getting together seems tacked on from a different film. How am I supposed to feel something, anything, about the deaths of millions upon millions of people if you leave me with a happy ending for two characters who don't warrant my sympathy or affection?

Do I sound too much like Billy Crudup's Dr. Manhattan there, a godlike figure who barely ever registers a pulse? The only time he gets angry-ish is when lots of reporters attack him about an ex-flame, leading him to go to Mars. Ah, if only. Weirdly, the most affecting section, partly because of Crudup's purposely (I hope) monotone line reading, is the backstory of Dr. Manhattan, when he was a nuclear physicist who gets into a crazy accident and turns into a superbeing. It's, of course, ironic that the only truly superpowered character appears to be the most detached from humans, but was just a normal guy with a normal life beforehand. The Comedian, Rorschach; their lives are dark and depraved and they have no superpowers, just powerful fists and feet.

I could go on with my many issues (Malin Akerman=bad actress or bad lines?; Why does the Comedian assassinate JFK?; Who was Adrian Veidt beforehand?; Why is the music in this movie so fucking awful? Why is this movie so long?), but I want to leave you with the most powerful image in the movie, the image that represents everything this movie could have achieved: Rorschach unmasked, bloodied and crying, begging Dr. Manhattan to do the unthinkable. It's a simple close-up, but it proves that Jackie Earle Haley is a truly great actor just hitting his stride. Get him a starring role. Everyone else here? Clean slate; let's forget this one.