Watchmen

"We in this country, in this generation, are by destiny, rather than choice, the watchmen on the walls of world freedom."
John F. Kennedy (from the speech he intended to give in Dallas the day of his assassination, as quoted by Alan Moore in the graphic novel "Watchmen").


Adaptations are a tricky business. Whenever a film maker undertakes adapting an existing work, he is working to please 2 audiences: those who are familiar with the source material and want to see everything faithfully reproduced for the screen and those who are NOT familiar with the work yet want to see a good film if not a faithful cinematic adaptation. Hollywood in general has taken note, and their wholesale bastardization of books, a practice that had its inception during the early studio days, has given way to an effort to please the fans of the source materials. Of course, because so much more can go into a book than the average 2 hour movie (stemming from a 130 page screenplay), usually some things have to be sacrificed for the big screen. Witness Warner Brothers' handling of the "Harry Potter" series. There is a LOT missing from the adaptations, but whereas Chris Columbus' first two films were the most faithful, they also tended to be the most boring. It was only when Alphonso Cuaron, Mike Newell, and David Yates took the reins of the franchise that the Potter series rose above the written word and became wonderful cinematic adaptations. Of course we were missing Hermione's whole Society for the Promotion of Elf Welfare subplot...but did we really miss it? In fact, the most successful, up until now, adaptation of a beloved work has been Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. Long thought to be unfilmable, Jackson took pains to satisfy the legions of fans reared on the written adventures of the Baggins family. Of course, he, too, took liberty with the story, but the excision of Tom Bombadill and the barrow wight actually helped the story move along. Film makers thus are forced to walk a very narrow line in terms of being faithful to the written word but not a slave to it to the point where the word shackles the film maker and removes his own creative energy from the work.

Of course, the rules are different when film makers adapt graphic novels. Here, the creators of the works in question have already provided the blueprint and storyboard of the film through the creation of panels of art holding the words of the script. The best of these adaptations embrace the vision of the creator by framing shots as depicted within the comic panels. The creativity for the film maker lies not in recreating a classic but in interpreting such scenes in a new medium. Robert Rodriguez successfully accomplished this with his adaptation of Frank Miller's "Sin City" and Zack Snyder did the same with his adaptation of Miller's "300." Both of these works, however, were below the radar of most comics readers. Only the die hards really knew of them before the movies came out, but this is not the case for all graphic novels. Some graphic novels have rabid followings of legions of fans, akin to the fans of the Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings series. To them, the creator's written words are gospel and the artist's panels are the only true visualization of the story. How could a director possibly satisfy this exacting group of people?

Now, before I get into my review of "Watchmen," let me share with you my own personal history with the story. The year was 1986. I was 15 years old and had been collecting comics for about two years. I had already started getting Frank Miller's groundbreaking miniseries "Batman: The Dark Knight Returns" and, to this day, the original issues are in a special place in my collection. Another series caught my eye that year. The cover of the first issue was intriguing...a smiley face amidst what looked like blood.


I purchased the first issue and I was hooked...a story that started with the murder of a old super hero...one created just for the miniseries. Over the course of the next year, I was introduced to further pieces of the story, but nothing I had read in the previous 10 months prepared me for the climax of the story in issues 11 and 12. I was stunned. I was surprised. I am talking "The Usual Suspects" and "Se7en" levels of shock and surprise. I never even saw it coming. It stunned me and excited me. What a great WORK OF ART. Every year, I revisited "Watchmen" and re-read the story. Ever year, something new...some nuance or subtle symbolism that ran through the series-that had earlier escaped my notice would jump off the page and leave me with the same feeling as I had when I had first completed the miniseries. I still get that feeling every year when I read the complete work-it is THAT GOOD.

But how could something this creative...this amazing...this CINEMATIC in storytelling-so full of subtle nuance and compelling overlapping plotlines-be brought to the screen in any manner that would be even SORT of faithful to the source material. Word of an adaptation soon started circling after the success of Tim Burton's (now dated) adaptation of "Batman" in 1989. Sam Hamm was commissioned to write a script with Terry Gilliam attached to direct. Of course, this version, and many others like it, fell by the wayside. "Watchmen" writer Alan Moore went on record as saying that the graphic novel was unfilmable..that the whole reason of telling the story in the graphic novel format was because it could NOT be told via the medium of film. The times were also wrong for a film of this somber and adult material. After all, people wanted to see Jack Nicholson as the Joker and Michelle Pfieffer as Catwoman. This was before the highs of "Batman Begins", "X-Men", "The Dark Knight", "Spider-Man 2," and "Iron Man." This was before the lows of "Batman and Robin" and "Ghost Rider." So what changed everything?

The success of the adaptations of adult graphic novels such as "Sin City" and "300." In one fell swoop, these films caused Hollywood to sit up and take notice that faithful adaptations of adult graphic novels COULD be profitable. More importantly, the powers-that-be recognized that they did not have to "dumb down" the works for the mass audience. With the success of "300" behind him, Snyder made no secret that he wanted his next project to be "Watchmen." He even went so far as to include a single frame of a shot of Rorschach in a late trailer for "300."

Of course, the fanboys were nervous. Alan Moore refused to support the film in any way, but Snyder was able to enlist artist Dave Gibbons for help in creating the world of "Watchmen." When the first trailer came out, the fanboys (myself included) howled with glee, for we saw that Snyder had gone so far as to PERFECTLY TRANSLATE several scenes direct from the comics page onto the big screen. Still, the graphic novel was massive. How could Snyder possibly hope to create a faithful adaptation of such a dense work? What would be cut? Would the material cut include some of the most important aspects in search of a shorter run time?

Now, I was excited for the film, to the point where the minute that tickets went on sale for opening night at the Navy Pier IMAX, I purchased tickets for myself and a few other people...in JANUARY. As the time grew closer for the film's release, I started seeing 2 types of reviews-overwhelmingly positive and scathingly negative, with little few and far between. I also noticed something else...those who wrote the positive reviews "got" it. They were either fans of the source material or were sophisticated enough to follow the convoluted story, one that, to my understanding, never pandered to its audience or spoon fed it any exposition. The negative critics...well, I knew what to expect when reading their opinion of this "comic book" movie. I have a feeling that they were walking into the theater expecting to see "X-Men" or some other such nonsense. These are the people who did NOT get it. They did not want to get it. They saw Snyder's work as gratuitous in terms of the sex and violence depicted in a superhero movie. They missed the point that the film is NOT a superhero film. They also missed the point that Snyder did not create the controversial scenes in the film-he merely faithfully adapted them for a new medium.

Having now seen "Watchmen" in IMAX, all I am left with is a sense of awe. With the exception of an atrocious soundtrack (except for Dylan's "The Times They Are A'Changing" played over the opening credits), the entire film was a visual smorgasbord for this "Watchmen" fan. Repeatedly, I found myself smiling with glee as the images on the screen perfectly recreated the panels that are so ingrained in my memory. I saw an incredible performance by Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach. I saw an amazing "acting" job by Billy Crudup as Dr. Manhattan. All of the performances were spot on, and the effects were well done as well. And people will NEVER see Jeffrey Dean Morgan (the beloved Denny Duquette from "Grey's Anatomy") in the same light again. He inhabited the skin of the morally corrupt Comedian, whose brutal murder begins the film.

So what is the film about? Ostensibly, the film is about a "hero killer", someone slowly taking out masked adventurers. But to what end? Along the way, we learn of the pasts of some of the heroes. We see them struggle with every day problems in realistic ways. We see "what could have been" if the American dream came true. We see the ugliest side of human nature and how that can drive even the most noblest of men to madness. This film provides an unflinching look into the human psyche, and it shrouds it within the garb of a "comic movie." Of course, there were some changes from the book, most notably the endgame. However, Snyder successfully retained the key elements of the story and blended them together to the point where this fanboy was shaking his head in incredulity by the end of the film. How did he do it?

Now, a warning. This film is NOT for everyone. It is VIOLENT. Extremely violent. Painfully violent. In spite of that, it works BECAUSE it feels real. This is not a Spider-Man film where the violence has no consequence. Here, the audience feels every punch and sees the realistic results.

This is a film about morally ambiguous costumed adventurers.-what I believe represent such adventurers if they existed in the real world. The film also creates a snapshot of the world in 1985. I remember the Cold War and the U.S.S.R. and the daily threat of nuclear war. Much as the graphic novel demands new visits every year, so too, I think, will this film. I cannot wait for the fully loaded ultimate blu-ray to be released in the fall (a lesser version is being released in the spring). Bravo, Zack Snyder. You filmed the unfilmable. Thank you for being faithful.

What an amazing experience.

Update: for a wonderful article on the source graphic novel click here.