Watchmen series – Christian Sauvé

Watchmen, Season 1 (2019)

ByChristian Sauvé 2019-12-302023-03-09 Movie Review

(On Cable TV, December 2019) Like nearly everyone with knowledge of the Watchmen comic book run of the late 1980s, I was not convinced of the necessity of a TV series adaptation at all. Watchmen is a singular work of comic-book genius—it doesn’t need to be transformed into an ongoing multimedia franchise of adaptations and follow-ups. But the critical response to the TV show was highly positive, and I ended up with a day in which I could run through the entire thing in a single marathon. My conclusion? I’m pleasantly surprised. Acting as a sequel and remake but also striking out in directions that the original comic never could have anticipated, Watchmen ends up being a powerful statement about American-specific racism, the dubious use of superheroes, the dangers of vigilantism and the opportunities of personal empowerment in a very literal sense. With a bit of retrospect, it’s a show that popularized interest in the 1921 Tulsa race massacre—something I hate myself for not knowing beforehand. But it’s a show that also tapped into very contemporary issues: no one would have expected the original Watchmen run to be such a rich springboard from which to talk about American racism. Blending American history with the aftermath of the Watchmen mythology is one of the surprises of the series—the quality of the production and the writing being one of them. One segment is worth singling out as a particularly fine piece of television: penultimate episode eight, “A God Walks into Abar,” which jumps around in non-chronological segments that finally bring everything together for a spectacular climax. Show-runner Damon Lindelof is a divisive creator, but his work here is nothing short of exceptional, delivering a complex, slick, provocative and quite entertaining piece of prestige TV that’s not afraid of not being overly slavish to its source material. Consider me convinced of the project’s reason for existing.

Movie Review

Watchmen (2009)

ByChristian Sauvé 2009-03-092026-08-02 Movie Review

(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.