Watchmen (2009)

(In theaters, March 2009) As someone who has read the original graphic novel about four times since the mid-1990s and owns the deluxe slip-case Absolute Watchmen edition, I’m really not the reviewer to go to for a cold appreciation of the Watchmen film adaptation. But as an adaptation of a dense and iconic source, it’s about as good as it can reasonably be: the thrill of the film becomes the variations where director Zack Snyder (who here directs his best film to date) plays a bit with the source. The opening credit sequence is a wonderful example of respectful deviation, and the squid-less ending actually works better than the book in reinforcing the whole “you must kill your gods” theme of the material. Not so good is that the implicit thematic rumblings of the source become dull explicit dialogue when they’re simply not left behind entirely. (For all of the gore in the film, it’s a bit thematically bloodless, and never quite gets down to ordinary people) Meanwhile, the soundtrack choices are of the hits-you-on-the-nose variety. Characters are faithfully rendered, although some (namely, Silk Specter II and Ozymandias) shine less brightly than others. While the film is more than two-and-a-half hours long, its never feels dull –although its pacing feels far less urgent than I would have preferred. On the other hand, there’s a lot of material to process here, especially for those who can’t quote the lines along with the character. I hope that the upcoming DVD extended edition (which I will faithfully buy) works a little bit better as a film rather than an adaptation. But you will have to ask others regarding that, because at the moment, I’m a happy fan.

(Second viewing, On Cable TV, September 2022) I hadn’t seen Watchmen since it first came out in theaters, but for some reason seeing the Director’s Cut pop on the cable TV schedule had me itching for another rewatch.  I’m glad I did – After the last decade’s boom in superhero movie, after the greater and greater box-office success of director Zack Snyder, you would think that it would feel like an early prototype of better later films.  But it doesn’t play out that way.  Thanks to an impeccable pedigree from the revisionist 1980s era of comic books, Watchmen now plays like the film it was meant to be – a sour deconstruction of superhero tropes, executed by a director who wasn’t yet coasting on his own overrated mystique.  It’s slick and bleak and enjoyable all the way through.  While I don’t have clear-enough memories of the original version to compare it against this director’s version, it does feel, at more than three hours, like a full course of a meal: I’m not even going to complain about its maximalist running time.  Sure, I’m still slightly bothered by the absence of the squid (something that the follow-up TV series retconned back in), but otherwise find this adaptation about as good as could be imagined considering the near-mythical nature of its inspiration.  Watchmen is well-worth another look today – you‘ll find that it just works as a movie that could have been released today, quite relevant and of the moment in film history.