Something gaudy

Dr. Manhattan is easily one of the most interesting characters in Alan Moore’s original comic book series Watchmen, and so it only makes sense that one of his many philosophical meanderings can be so aptly applied to the Watchmen cinematic adaptation.

His reference to the effort on the part of the United States government to shape him into a symbol for American might finds its way from the comic to the film. “They’re shaping me into something gaudy ….”

And that’s precisely what Watchmen the film is: gaudy. Extravagant, vibrantly rendered celluloid scenes that do little to counteract the intellectually and philosophically vacant core of the narrative.

There are a number of reasons for this, not the least of which is the film’s director or the relevance of the source material. But, first and foremost, I need to address Watchmen the comic book.

Yes, comic book. It is not a graphic novel, I don’t care what Time magazine says, it is by definition, a comic book. Watchmen is a comic book mini-series, 12 issues written by Alan Moore and drawn by Dave Gibbons, currently distributed in an all-encompassing single bound book.

So, why is it being billed as a graphic novel? Because people are too scared of the nerdy and immature connotations that have for so long been associated with comic books.

To those who think like this (you know who you are) it’s time to get the fuck over yourselves.

In asserting that Watchmen is a comic book and not a graphic novel, I am by no means implying that the term graphic novel is just an elitist way of saying comic book. Rather, graphic novels ascribe to a different structure. Think Art Spiegelman’s Maus (I & II), Brian K. Vaughn’s Pride of Baghdad or Charles Burns’ Black Hole.

Think of it this way. If one were to consider a graphic novel the equivalent of a film, then a collection like Watchmen would be the equivalent of TV on DVD.

Similarly, I am not deriding the literary value of comics, although I confess, I wouldn’t compare Morrison or Johns to Dickens or Joyce. But, comics have come a long way baby, and in large part, that is thanks to Alan Moore and Watchmen.

Perhaps the most influential and important comic books in recent history, Moore used Watchmen to redefine superheroes. No longer were these masked men and women unwavering in their moral calculation and universally liked in the eye of the public.

Suddenly, they were vigilantes, people with fears, flaws and scars, both physical and (more importantly) emotional.

They were human. Even the shimmering, azure Manhattan was once a man, and his disconnect with humanity, as he begins to understand the unified nature of space and time, indicates that even as an impassive creature of pure logic, rationale and reason, he still fails to simply understand.

But the reason that Watchmen was so important in 1986 is the same reason that it is irrelevant in 2009, except as a reference to the origins of contemporary comics. It’s been 23 years since Moore painted a picture of what superheroes truly are: angry, sad, scared children hiding behind masks.

So a Watchmen movie now, particularly in the wake of The Dark Knight, a film both sinister and brilliant in its execution of an entirely fantastical concept, seems to attempt to hammer home a point that we understand all too well.

As for the director Zack Snyder, I’m not a huge fan. I’ve only seen bits and pieces of Dawn of the Dead and his adaptation of 300 was absurdly overrated. I would hardly say he qualifies, as the advertisements for Watchmen claim, as a visionary.

He attempts to do what only Robert Rodriguez has succeeded in doing thus far, which is to essentially produce a moving, breathing comic. But, Sin City worked as a movie primarily because the film-noir camp and the black-and-white nature of its philosophy were written in such a cinematic manner.

With Watchmen, Snyder attempts to condense an ornate, expansive story exploring ambiguous moral complexities, blurring the line between right, wrong, man and God.

But, in doing so, Watchmen tragically loses its literary essence and Snyder doesn’t offer much intellectually, leaving the film a hollow shell, devoid of the significance lent its graphic predecessor.

All that said, Watchmen is not terrible. It’s certainly interesting, and often fun to watch thanks to a number of well-placed slow-motion fight sequences, dazzling special effects and a whole slew of Easter eggs in the background of nearly every scene.

There’s simply too much in Watchmen that has to be squeezed into film’s runtime. I’m not sure it’s something that any director could necessarily pull off, but Zack Snyder’s stringent ascription to the source material simply meant that a good deal of the story’s intellectualism failed to make the leap from page to screen.

I would recommend seeing the film, although if you’re a die-hard fan of the comic book, I can say with reasonable certainty that you will not enjoy it.

Watchmen will be way more fun to watch on DVD where you can backtrack and look at what you missed, or sit and compare the comic to the film. But don’t be too deterred by this review. It’s Watchmen, one has to be hard on it, even if it means pointing out everything that didn’t work instead of talking about the parts that did.

Ultimately, Snyder’s Watchmen surprised me; I actually enjoyed good portions of it (even if on a superficial level) and can honestly say the slow motion didn’t bother me and the film was shot quite beautifully.

Not to mention the Watchmen, themselves. Malin Akerman is hot as holy hell as Laurie Jupiter and Patrick Wilson is good as the reticent, nice-guy hero Nite Owl.

Of course, the film’s star is Rorschach, played with maniacal intensity by Jackie Earle Haley. He will no doubt face off with Batman nemesis the Joker for most popular Halloween costume this October.

Watchmen doesn’t pull its punches, it’s violent, bloody and sexually graphic. It stays as true to the source material as it can except for once, at the very end.

Watchmen has long been considered unfilmable, and I don’t buy it. I simply believe that it could have been done, were the producers willing to take some risks. Perhaps try an HBO-style mini-series to really give the comic room to breathe. But it’s probably too much to ask of Hollywood to try something inventive, especially when the producers are spending $100 million to get it made.