Watchmen review

Editor's note: Replace the name Jenny with the name Laurie. I think I was thinking of Jenny Sparks at the time.

Ok, man, lemme think. That was....weird. kinda.

word?


ok I think I got something.

Watchmen was...alright. It's kind of tough to explain.

The main problem with a Watchmen movie, is simply that Watchmen is too complex a comic book to accurately translate into film. With just about everything in the movie, you can see pretty easily where it comes from in the book. The problem is some of the context around it is not quite there, and a few things have been added that kind of throw you for a loop. For example, the characters of the news stand owner and the kid who reads the pirate comic are left out completely, right until the end. The heroic, though futile gesture of the news stand guy is lost and looks like he is just afraid and looking for someone to hug instead of using himself as a shield for his favorite customer. At one point in the book Jenny picks up a gun, which she later fires at Ozymandias. In the movie though, they don't show her getting the gun, and because of how skimpy her costume is you're really left to wonder just where the hell it came from.

Without having read the book before hand, I think it would have been easy for me to get lost in what exactly is happening most of the time. There are times, primarily when reviewing the Comedian's life and other back story sequences, where it would be easy to not know where exactly they are if you don't already know it. Structurally the movie is confusing, largely due to trying to be faithful to the book, but not including enough of it to give us a good sense of what exactly is going on. It feels less like Dr. Manhattan goes to Mars to get away from everything and think, and more like "oh hey, it's time for Dr. Manhattan to do this now."

Changes from the book to the movie were pretty minimal, which helped it in some parts and hurt it in others. The image of the clock, continuously approaching midnight makes an appearance, but in a really dumb way. Apparently there is "the doomsday clock" which symbolizes how close we are to nuclear war (this is a paraphrase of their own words). At some points through the movie, scientists take the time to move it one minute closer. The whole country is watching these scientists move the large minute hands in this world for some reason. I guess it's supposed to be similar to our color coded terror alert, which means nothing but is just something for us all to panic about. The clock image was something that really did not need to be included anyway, but if they're going to keep it, they should at least keep what it originally was.

On the other hand, the ending is changed slightly from the book but it still maintains much of the deep emotional impact that you originally feel from reading it. I don't want to give anything away, but I will tell you that the ending does work, even though it's not quite the same. Many of the same lines are there, but said to different people or changed slightly to maintain the meaning of it all without it being exactly what someone who read the book would expect.

There were several aspects of this movie that really took me by surprise. For starters, it's much more violent than I would have expected it to be. When Dan and Jenny are fighting the top knot gang members, there's one point where Jenny breaks a guys arm so horribly that the skin breaks and blood squirts everywhere. When Dr. Manhattan blows someone up, he really blows them up. Even in the book, he doesn't completely incinerate as many people as he does here. I'm a little conflicted as to how I feel about this. I don't know if they went in this direction to keep it true to life, as in violence really is a messy way to solve conflict, or if it was just simple shock value. I suggest it might be shock value, because it seems some elements actually were just there because, hey fuck it, why not? When Dan and Jenny have sex in his airship, it's quite graphically depicted. Dr. Manhattan does in fact remain naked for most of the film, much to my roommate's surprise and protest. I don't feel that either of these elements added to the film, mainly because context is again missing. We are not told how Dr. Manhattan does not see the point of clothes anymore, and thus prefers to go naked. Instead we just get a large naked blue guy with a weird symbol on his head that is never explained despite us seeing him burn it into himself.

Some of the musical choices were, not quite poor choices, but odd none the less. Instead of going through a detailed history of the original 1940s costumed heroes, they instead opt for a montage of photo ops while The times they are a changing plays. During the funeral of the Comedian, The Sound of Silence is played. All of the musical choices fit, in one way or another, but are largely unnecessary. It has the effect of pulling you back out of the experience, because these songs just seem out of place.

Rorschach really sells this movie for me. He's easily, and by a large margin, the best part. He's a great character, and his portrayal is a good interpretation. I was against it, at first, simply because I always had him sound different in my head, but once I was past the initial adjustment of how I think his voice should be I was really into it. I'm guessing at one point, they just told the guy to act like Clint Eastwood, and oh boy does it work. Heck, while he was in jail I thought to myself at one point "holy shit, did they get Eastwood to play him? No, no way. Man, who is this guy?" It was just such a strong performance if you ask me. Dr. Manhattan portrayed well also, but again with some shock as to how different he was in my head to how he is on screen. I always gave him a deep, echo-ey voice while the film keeps it just the same from when he was human. It's not something I would have ever considered, but ends up working in the end.


All in all, Watchmen is worth seeing, though possibly not in theaters. If you're going to see it, and expect to see an accurate portrayal of your favorite comic book, with little changes and a complete sense of a story you're going to be disapointed. If you just want to see some badass fight scenes, and see some of your favorite parts of the book acted out, this is the movie for you.