Acquired Tastes: Benjamin Loong II on The Watchmen Movie

While I haven't found the time to see The Watchmen on the big screen, therefore putting my already precarious "uber-nerd" status in peril, fellow comic book fan and cineaste Benjamin Loong graciously provided me with his quick review of the big screen adaptation of one of Alan Moore's most influential works. Enjoy!

Watchmen movie review
By Benjamin G. Loong II

This review will be brief and not so detailed since I've only seen the movie once, on Thurday.

First of all the introductory scene featuring the murder of Edward Blake was just beautifully done. It was a brutal, well-choreographed fight scene that, I found, was a welcome addition. This was followed by an Easter egg-laden montage set to Bob Dylan's "The Times are a Changin'," which was used to set-up the alternate timeline of the world of Watchmen. It did so rather well in my opinion.

What follows is a faithful adaptation of the original story with some minor changes that were necessary for translation into film. The first half of the film rather excellent, in my opinion, but in the latter half the time constraints of the theatre release were quite noticeable: the film would jump from scene to scene while lacking any subtle transition at all.

The time constraints were possibly the cause for the film's other major shortcoming, which involved failing to develop several characters adequately, namely: Rorschach, Ozymandias, Bubastis, and the various minor characters who died in New York. With Rorschach I felt that the interrogation scene in the film did not adequately convey the character's psyche nor his philosophy. It managed to give hints of characterization, but not enough for people who never read the book to sympathize with the character. With Ozymandias the problem is similar as the film barely touched upon his origins, and while it does partially explain his motivation, other aspects of the character are not touched upon. As for Bubastis, no explanation is given for her existence and she just appears as soon as the story gets to Veidt's arctic reseacrch facility, Karnak. The minor characters were not given any characterization at all, leading to less sympathy for their deaths than what one would feel reading the comic. This omission was not as necessary to the story as the characterization of the main characters, but I felt it noteworthy. I mention these because the original story was essentially a character piece. It's central theme was the deconstruction of the idea of the superhero through and examination of the story's major characters. The main plot was just the framework around which this happened and failing to do so for any of the characters is a major shortcoming.

Another notable omission was that of the scene of Hollis Mason's murder, which had been filmed, but ended up on the cutting room floor due to time constrains.

Despite these shortcomings in the characterization of some of the characters, the acting by the cast for all of the characters was excellent. To borrow another reviewer's description, Jackie Earle Haley's Rorschach was “sublime.” Jeffrey Dean Morgan managed portray the Comedian in an incredibly sympathetic manner. And Matthew Goode, despite the reservation of some fans, managed to pull off Adrian Veidt so well that I barely noticed when his dialogue deviated from that in the novel. This was particularly true during the movie's climactic scene in Karnak. But perhaps the most impressive of all was Billy Crudup's portrayal of Dr. Manhattan. Perhaps this was because his was the character that had the most development, and thus gained the audience's sympathy the most.

Overall, I'd give it a 7.5 out of 10, and suggest waiting for the director's cut to come out.

Photo Credits:

Picture of the Watchmen Babies comes courtesy of The NERD of HER!