The Reel Critic

Author: Daniel Watson-Jones

MOVIE: Watchmen
DIRECTOR: Zack Snyder
STARRING: Malin Akerman and Billy Crudup

Full disclosure: I am in love with "Watchmen" by Alan Moore. But while I worship the graphic novel as an unimpeachable literary feat, I wanted to be as unbiased as possible in my approach to a film I suspected couldn't ever work. It's a project that would require subtlety, and anyone who's seen his previous film, "300," knows director Zack Snyder has as much subtlety as Gallagher's watermelon/sledgehammer comedy routine. But it could theoretically be done if he had an appreciation for the work's complexity, so I approached with cautious optimism.

While "Watchmen" finds both successes and failures as an adaptation, there's not much to redeem it as a film, and the main issue is that it can't decide which one it's trying to be. It sticks too closely to the narrative structure of the 12-part comic serial, and doesn't offer enough of the original intricacy to justify it. The result is a film told in segments that give it an uncertain and stumbling feeling. At 162 minutes I neither expect nor want it to adhere religiously to a standard three-act film structure, but the garbled marathon of five 15-minute vignettes causes even the most perceptive viewer to lose track of the narrative thread amidst all the flashbacks and shifts in setting.

Snyder relies too heavily on narration - a device that's crucial to comics, but notoriously difficult to manage onscreen. Billy Crudup's voiceovers as the superhuman Dr. Manhattan, aside from being poorly delivered, emphasize only either a heavy-handed objectivity or the obscure pursuit of morality by a being separated from the human race. He never encompasses both aspects at any one time, and the oscillation serves only to draw the viewer out of the film. Malin Akerman, in the role of Silk Spectre II, delivers her first few lines with a detachment worthy of any recent Nicholas Cage film, and though her performance improves throughout, the stale taste is never entirely cleansed.

The two standout performances are Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach and Patrick Wilson as Nite Owl II. They sink so thoroughly into their characters that you won't even recognize them from their equally commendable turns in 2006's "Little Children." Each actor is able to bring out the humanity in his average-man-turned-hero. But even this is destabilized by Snyder's decision to make every character as fast and strong as Neo from "The Matrix." Rather than emphasize a physical vulnerability that would let us relate to the costumed heroes, he only shows us gods in human shape. Though that view is appropriate for some of these supermen, the effect is undermined by its ubiquity.

I can't say I succeeded in separating the fan-boy from the film critic, because everything I enjoy about the movie is taken directly from the book (a lot of the source dialogue & visuals are included verbatim), and everything I disliked is either a change or the faithful use of a device that only works on the page. It certainly isn't a boring film, but any merit it has is just aped from a better work. My advice: either read the book, or wait for the (rumored at 4-hour) director's cut on DVD. The theatrical release doesn't keep enough of the source material to be a good adaptation, and doesn't change enough to stand on its own.