Graphic novels combine the darkest shades of black with absurd yet immaculate lights of poetry and lyrical brilliance. It takes that which is bizarre and weird and twists both into something that combines the perfect with sadistic and the pervasive with poignancies. Alan Moore is one of the genre’s masters.
Moore’s literary works of arts are a combination of Nietzsche’s iconic cynicism, Sigmund Freud’s sadistic philosophy, and Wordsworth’s melancholic poetry. It is not a comic book. It is a form of crude, yet sophisticated literature. From Hell, V for Vendetta and The League of Extraordinary Gentleman, all were failed adaptation of his unique imagery.
The collection of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons´ 12-issue limited series - Watchmen – is another sleek, yet feeble and bizarre attempt to describe his genius. As Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s narratives can’t be duplicated on screen, so is the sophisticated messed-up psychology embedded in Moore’s scripts, impossible to be animated to life.
His novel plays on both our fears and love for violence, and the veiled desire for an Orwellian land where guilt is replaced by gluttony and Darwin’s theories are the only commandments to be followed. Ideology is extinct.
Unlike comic books, Moore’s novels are a trick of the mind. These are neither mythologies nor stories of ethics. Good doesn’t necessarily prevail over evil, and there is no emotional baggage of ethics or morality at the end. Refusing to take screen credits for Watchmen, Alan Moore said he would be “spitting venom all over it”.
Zack Snyder is not a brilliant director, and the only knack he has is to create beautiful images through gore and grotesquery. Dawn of the Dead and 300 are probably one of the most idiotically loved movies of all time. He could, without a doubt, shock the audience, but has limitations when it comes to inspiring them.
Moore’s novel not only inspires but enthralls you with its ridiculous realism. It celebrates the commonality of evil in all humanity and questions the existence of morality.
The theme revolves around questioning the viability of goodness in the failing world, but Moore never answers it. The unsettled world of his is not that different from our own ambiguous lives.
Snyder’s is a synthetic one. With a ton of ambition and a lack of that haunting blackness, Snyder directs a visual extravaganza but fails to achieve any of Moore’s ambiguous narratives.
Snyder’s Watchmen starts off with a brilliant credit sequence to illustrate the rise and fall of Minutemen, 1940s superheroes. It is an alternate universe and superheroes are not much different from politicians. They work hand in hand with politicians and humanity is no longer on their priority list of defense.
The only superhero with real powers, Dr Manhattan, aka scientist Jon Osterman (Billy Cudrup), was transformed into a neon blue cross between Einstein and the Incredible Hulk after he was caught in an "Intrinsic Field Subtractor" in 1959. With the ability to control matter, he becomes a strategic advantage for the US over the Soviet Union. Thanks to him Nixon reigns supreme for the fifth consecutive term.
But all is not well for the rest of the Minutemen. As they were banned, most of them converted into vigilantes and some into businessmen, while others chose to remain masked and demented.
Comedian, aka Edward Morgan Blake (Jeffery Dean Morgan), is one of the most twisted. At one moment he is a patriotic hero and at another a megalomaniac who tries to rape his partner, Silk Spectre (Carla Gugino). He is also responsible for the death of alternate world’s Woodward and Bernstein along with thousands of Vietnamese civilians and protestors of the war. [SPOILER AHEAD]
As the story begins, Comedian is killed and the iconic blood-stained smiley lay in the gutters.
Thus begins an endless collage of flashbacks and night rain as his inkblot-masked friend, Rorschach, aka Walter Kovacs (Jackie Earle Haley), attempts to unravel the mystery behind his murder.
In the process of investigation, he comes to believe that whoever killed Comedian was after every remaining Watchman as well. So, he tries to persuade Ozymandias, aka Adrian Veidt (Matthew Goode), and Nite Owl II, aka Dan Drielberg (Patrick Wilson), to come out of retirement. But they both decline suspecting that it’s the paranoia that has taken the best of him.Dr. Manhattan has his own agenda. He has a nuclear war to prevent and satisfy the insatiable libido of his lover, Silk Spectre II, aka Laurie Jupiter (Malin Akerman), while trying to solve quantum physics. And for a moment of solace he likes to retreat to Mars.
As Rorschach suspects global obliteration between the Comedian´s death, they all soon reunite to save the world that damned them. With spectacular optical tricks and effects the story unfolds, killing the original imperial theme of Moore’s novel during 161 minutes of a nonsensical cinematic ride.
The single most powerful part of the film is provided by Jackie Earle Haley’s lunatic rendition of Rorschach. The remainder of the film is simply frail, and fumbles from one scene to another. We never feel the paranoia, nor experience sublime dark humor and extreme cynicism.
With feeble performance and choreography, and badly-synchronized soundtrack, Watchmen is nothing but a disappointment. It’s just a pretty superhero flick not much different to that of any other of the humdrum epics floating around us. It wasn’t supposed to be sleek or stylish; Watchmen needed a heart, a blackened heart!
Rating: 2.5/5
Casting: Malin Akerman, Billy Crudup, Carla Gugino, Laura Mennell
Director: Zack Synder (300)
Screenplay: David Hayter/Alex Tse
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