Watching the Watchmen

"Well, it's better than being shot in the eye, isn't it?"
James Barker, 2010

I am something of a sucker for a good comic book. Batman: The Killing Joke, Batman: Hush, Joker; you name it, I probably liked it a great deal. There are, of course, exeptions (bloody Civil War plotline) but I really do not wish to go there. Anyway, by and large, one of my utter favourites is the Watchmen, by Alan Moore, with the art of Dave Gibbons. Anyone, anyone at all, who still doubts that comics and graphic novels are more than just sucky geekish pulp fiction, read this comic, then shut the fuck up. So good was this masterpiece that it was even in the Times Magazines' 100 best English-language novels list.

Anyway, we've established that this is a good comic. Now, let us push it aside for a moment (sigh) and trun our attention to the film. Released in 2009 and directed by Zack Snyder, this was one of the biggest blockbusters of that year. I personally was bombarded by reccomendations from most of my friends, with the exception of Pone, but he's never been into comics in any real way, so that's alright. Well, as I got it for Christmas on DVD, it seemed like the perfect time to see what everyone was so hyped up about.

OK, I'm going out on a limb here. Are you ready? Sure? Good. I was dissapointed by the Watchmen. And yes, I know that many of the people out there (especially you obsessive super-fans) will leap out of your seats and scream "Heresy!" upon reading this, but hear me out. It was not as good as I would have liked it to be.
Now, don't get me wrong here, I really liked this film. It just didn't live up to my expectations.
Ok, we'll start with all of the good things I found. Firstly, there's Rorschach. DUDE. If there is one thing just right about this film, it's Rorschach. Everything is right; the creepy monotone voice, the wanton and vaguely cartoonish violence (I just loved it when he shot a guy with his grappling gun) and even his physical stature was bang on. I did think perhaps that he was a little too Martial-artsy in the fighting scenes, as the Rorschach in the comic is a dirty fighter of the highest order, but this did not dampen my adoration for this character in any way. After all, you can never see too many roundhouse-related broken jaws.
I also thought that the film's interpretation of Dr. Manhattan was very good, too. As far as I was concerned, Billy Crudup did the character justice. I was slightly alarmed, however, at the lengths they went to to make sure Crudup's ego didn't get punctured. You see, for a great deal of both the film and the comic, Dr. Manhattan walks, floats, and kills the fuck out of people entirely naked. And this is full-frontal nudity; none of that convenient-leaf bullshit you see in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The thing is, I can understand a guy not wanting to be accused of lacking in the trouser dept. but JEEEE-SUS. Manhattan's wang is freakin' huge. Huge, and it waggles. Onscreen. I mean, talk about flattering a main actor.

Now, on to the things I didn't like. Now, don't misjudge me here, but I did NOT like Silk Spectre. Yes, she's smokin' hot, and you do get a bit of boob action, but she really sucks at acting. I'm serious. I saw her protray AT THE MOST three, maybe four emotions, and one of those doesn't count because she was pretending to throw up. This is something I have noticed over the past few months (Transformers 1 is particularly guilty of this), that the chicks in films seem to have been selected for their figures rather than their acting capability. Now, I like a good pair of breasts on-screen as much as the next guy (arguably more so, as I don't get out much) but if that's all directors hire an actress for these days, I don't think you should be expecting Oscar-winning performances anytime soon, know what I mean?

My other major gripe was with Ozymandias. Not as an actor (Matthew Goode was good in his role as Adrian Veidt) but as a physical specimen. Ozymandias in the comic is this strapping, muscular, handsome superman, the kind of man that Hitler wished he was - and Goode just wasn't a match for him, physically. His face was just that little bit too narrow, his body too slim and nowhere near as musclebound as Veidts, and his staure was somewhat less than impressive. He reminded me of a gay model, actually. But this was less of a gripe, because unlike the Silk Spectre, at least Ozymandias could act, although again I think that Goode came across as just a little bit too arrogant and conceited, rather than the calm, collected rationality we see in the comic. I think this let him down a bit, as I found myself willing Nite Owl to kick Ozymandias in the 'nads just to shut him up for a bit.

But at the end of the day, there was more than enough good stuff to outweigh the bad stuff. Jeffer Dean Morgan as the Comedian was easily the show-stealer, with exactly the right amount of lawless badassery to keep me sated. And, of course, there was a lot of amazing fight scenes, including my favourite one from the comic in which Sally Jupiter and Dan Dreiberg (Silk Spectre and Nite Owl respectively) take out an entire gang of armed ruffians, and do it with a certain brutal flair that appeals to my bitter, sadistic nature. Oh, and Richard Nixon made me laugh in every scene he was in.

And in the end, isn't that all you need in a superhero movie?