The Watchmen
The Watchmen is often noted as the first intelligent, thoughtful, adult comic. In it, the mythology and psychopathology of superheroes is analysed and the implications of such power being aligned to dubious politicians is dissected. With every compelling frame of the comic you are drawn to think and reflect on what it all means. It is a piece of serious art, the Dark Side of the Moon of the graphic novel genre.
So, as you can imagine, turning it into a film was always going to be difficult. From the start it was clear that the brilliance of The Watchmen was so interwoven with its form that a movie was always going to be difficult. All that space for thought that you get from a book, the ability to put it down and imagine what it all means, this is lost with juggernaut of the cinema. It goes on for a long time, but there is never any time to stop and take it all in — it is just grotesquely detailed, aesthetically enhanced action or slow, ponderous philosophical conversation — the rhythm of cinema is wrong for story.
Director Zack Snyder’s previous movie, 300, was a brainless war movie about the battle of Thermopylae. It was exotic, hyperrealist, and quite dull — three attributes that he inevitably brought along to The Watchmen. The Watchmen opens with an incredible set-piece fight; you can see every splinter of glass move when it smashes, every punch that lands is depicted in high detail, blood drips with amazing viscosity . . . so why does it all feel so sterile. Partly it is the hyperreal computer enhanced aesthetic — which you can admire, but never be affected by — but mainly, I think, it is because the characters themselves are so flat and 2-dimensional. For, whilst this may be an exact shot-for-frame remake of Dave Gibbons’ artwork, Snyder seems incapable of eliciting the same level of emotion from his actors.
Ultimately, one is left sympathising with Alan Moore, the original author of The Watchmen, who refuses to have his name attached to any adaptation of his work, refusing even to collect any of the millions of pounds that they want to pay him. For Moore, who is disciplined enough to avoid even watching the films, the principle of being faithful to the form is absolute. Not because cinema is inferior but because it is not possible to do in it what he wants to do. The Watchmen doesn’t — and couldn’t — change that.