Jeffrey Dean Morgan as the darkly comic Comedian
There are certain pleasures in life which only come by once in every blue moon. A major pleasure i indulge in is watching and listening to people go on and on about what things sculpt their life. For many people, graphic novels and comic books are things that people grow up on and never grow out of. Me, personally, was never really that into comics, I was a movie and music lover. I still am. So when my love for film collides with a comic book lover’s love for comics, and the end result is Watchmen, the results are astounding. The Alan Moore penned comic book series is over 20 years old, deemed by Terry Gilliam as “unfilmable” and contains some seriously dark themes. It was also rated one of the greatest graphic novels of all time. Director Zack Snyder (300, Dawn Of The Dead) has faithfully re-created the novel and all the darkness that comes with it, in astounding detail. Opening with the death of The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan),
Rorschach, The Masked Vigilante.
it follows masked vigilante Rorshach (Jackie Earle Hayley) into his investigation, which he believes is a conspiracy to kill off masked vigilante heroes in an alternate reality 1985 New York. By alternate reality, I mean USA won the Vietnam war thanks to superhero Dr. Manhattan, and Richard Nixon gets elected for a 3rd term as President, in a world where a giant doomsday clock is set at five to midnight, illustrating the USA’s impending nuclear war with the Soviet Union. If that enough does not wet your whistle, masked vigilantes have been outlawed, leading characters Silk Spectre II and Nite Owl II into retirement from crime fighting, and Osymandias becoming a billionaire by franchising his alter ego into a massive enterprise. All together, the story, over two and a half hours in length, intertwines the fates of these heroes and anti heroes, leaving room for bafflement and bewilderment. But it’s ok.
I tend to be prepared for a lot in life, so before I watched the film i familiarised myself with the story so that, for example, when the scene where The Comedian attempts to rape Silk Spectre I, I was not totally taken aback as I can imagine a LOT of film goers might be. In Alan Moore’s world, everything is seen through a scanner darkly, and I would recommend the casual viewer to make themselves aware of the basic storyline before going in, just to get the most out of this cinematic experience. You see, Watchmen teaches that good people are capable of evil acts, and vice versa. This is the entire concept behind Watchmen, which is what makes it so goddamn interesting. It’s 18 rating allows every swear word, sex scene, glance of Dr. Manhattan’s big blue wiener and blood splattered fight scenes paint the picture of this nihilistic world, which despises the very people who set out to protect it.
So, after viewing the film, what is different from the comic? Well, everything and nothing really. Story wise, except for the ending, the movie is ferociously faithful. The characters translate very well to the big screen, especially Jackie Earle Hayle’s Rorshach. His portrayal of the sociopathic vigilante is one that hopefully will warrant an award somewhere along the line. Billy Cudrup does a fantastic job as Dr. Manhattan, given that his character is a god-like entity becoming increasingly devoid of human emotion, and Malin Akerman sends blood pumping to all the right areas of the male anatomy as Silk Spectre II (the sex scene to Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” is both hilarious and erotic.) A few ideas are added here and there to modernise the story into current global issues, but all in all this is a film that sticks to it’s guns. Zack Snyder apparently had a lot of troubles with the studio over the length of the film, which on first edit was over three hours long. His insistence of adding little “easter eggs” for fans of the comic, and meticulous attention to detail, often do drag the film over the threshold of butt-cheek comfort, however Snyder has proved Gilliam wrong. Not only was this film possible to make, it was possible to make with a brilliance that has yet to be matched this decade. The bar for all comic book movies has been raised. Do NOT miss this film.
[OxKing]
