As the first of the highly anticipated films for 09, I was very excited to catch Watchmen this weekend. And being a rather important release for all of geekdom, we went with a group of 15, nearly enough to command an entire row. I’d spent the last week re-reading Alan Moore’s book cover to cover, totally engrossed, and very curious how certain bits would translate to film. Besides a lot of crazy sci-fi imagery, Watchmen includes an interesting narrative, often layering different dialogs or rapidly jumping through different timelines. The visuals by Dave Gibbons, are cinematic – panning, zooming – and often brutal.
Gotta say, I was very happy with the movie. Watchmen has gone from graphic novel to a film which is quite graphic. It shares the dark and gritty atmosphere of Nolen’s Dark Knight, but with more sex and violence. I think most fans were worried that the adaptation would be toned down to maximize the marketability of a “comic book movie”, but gladly they kept it fully an adult movie. There plenty of adult themes (like the nihilist outlooks on one’s own life and career and the world at large) and plenty of adult scenes (lots of nudity, mostly male, and some brutal fight scenes). Visually, as most people expected, the movie rocks. Director Zack Snyder really stayed true to the book’s look of each scene – in fact his trademark slo-mo created moments with an amazing resonance to the original cells. The casting was really good (though I would’ve preferred an Ozymadias a bit older looking), and even characters with small parts were spot on.
I really appreciate the thought that went into the soundtrack as well. I’m not a fan of Bob Dylan, but it was a perfect backdrop to the almost-still frame retrospective sequence in the opening titles. The result is a beautiful five and a half minutes of film. Later, 99 Luftballons was as fitting as could be both chronologically and thematically. Leonard Cohen’s dark and jaded tone in a couple of songs was also a perfect compliment to a world on the brink of nuclear armageddon.
For all the exact similarities though, the movie is unique from the book in a few ways. The most striking to me was a new take on the ending – and I’m glad. The original ending was fine in the book, but wouldn’t have played well on screen…at all. Besides that, most of the differences were just omissions in order to restrain the movie to its already massive running time. As I think through all the cuts, however, I can’t think of any that really weaken the story. Of course I’m coming in with all the detail provided in the book. I wonder if non-readers would feel that there were things unexplained. Or maybe less than that, perhaps without all the detail of the original, viewers just might not really “get” the characters or their alternate version of our world. Reading the book first will “spoil” key plot points, but I believe it makes the movie even better.
Tags: Movies
