A week later than the rest of the western world, I finally got to see Watchmen. Every blog worth its salt from here to Antarctica has already posted comments, conundrums, cliches and controversies about the film, but I simply could not help but post my now-weeks-late thoughts, both pro and con. If you, like me, have waited a bit to see the film, or if you are waiting for the sure to be 10 hour director’s cut DVD, best skip what’s coming, as there be spoilers ahead!
The Good:
The opening credit sequence: A clever way to compress and cover many, many years and events without adding to the already-overloaded exposition. The use of tableaux was a nice choice, although the down side of this was that it further emphasized the static nature of the source medium.
The Voice of Dr. Manhattan: The CGI Manhattan was what it was. It looked close enough to the source material to not interfere with the audience’s willing suspension of disbelief. It was the character’s voice that really won me over. Billy Crudup has gained some deserved acclaim for his subtle performance, and a large part of that performance is due to the director who chose not to augment/deepen his voice to make him sound more “god-like.” Instead, the plaintive, high-pitched Manhattan seems even more of a paradox than he seemed on the printed page.
The Performances of Patrick Wilson and Jackie Earl Haley: So much has already been said about both of these performances, I don’t think I need to go into further detail here. Suffice it to say that they understood their characters and stayed intimately true to the intentions of the novel, and that Haley’s moment with the psychiatrist was one of the true high points of the film.
The Unforgettable Moment: Nat King Cole has never seemed quite so relevant or cool than when he was used as a soundtrack for this hyped-up fight sequence. I do not hold with the purists on this one. I understand that the death of the Comedian happens quickly in the book, but that has never made much sense to me, given his particular…ummm…skill set.
The Bad:
The Supporting Cast: Whether it was the horrendous acting of the prison inmates or the over-the-top performance of the reporter in the early Ozymandias sequence, it was obvious that many of the bit parts went to people with little or no experience acting. Maybe this was a way for someone, somewhere to repay a favor, but it certainly did the audience no favors. This, of course, leads to the next in my list, which is…
The Dick Nixon: Ok, so I GET the fact that this was a half-hearted, satiric stab at politics, but the makeup was horrible (when did Nixon become Pinnochio?) and the acting wasn’t much better. The frequent use of tricky Dick implied that Snyder REALLY LIKED this, which simply boggles my mind. Better to have used computer manipulated footage of the real Nixon (as in Contact) rather than this crude caricature.
The Songs: I applaud Snyder for staying true to the 80s-entrenched nature of the movie (and even including most of the songs referenced in Moore’s original), but could he have chosen a few less iconic songs for the remainder of the soundtrack? Ummm….Wagner has been used before and for better effect (and why try to reference a vastly superior movie? To reinforce the fact that Watchmen isn’t a classic?), and I just don’t think it was necessary to make Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah quite so…well…tawdry.
The Super Powers: I kinda thought one of the BIG points of Watchmen (the graphic novel) was that there was only ONE super-powered creature on Earth; why,then, are characters like the Comedian and Nite Owl taking huge chunks of wall, concrete and brick with them when their punches connect? Again, I get the larger-than-life nature of this world, but a human-to-human punch should not launch the bad guy yards away.
I’m sure I’ll add to this list as I think more and more about the film. Consider this a work-in-progress for a bit.
