Watchmen

[JonPorobil]

Finally got around to seeing the Watchmen movie last night.

Most of Zack Snyder's story cuts were justifiable and decently-executed, tightening up a story that was just too dense for film. However, he made quite a few puzzling additions that I didn't like. For instance, the graphic novel opens with policemen investigating the murder of Edward Blake. The movie begins by showing said murder, and then following it with an overly-long montage set to "The Times They Are A'Changing." It's about fifteen minutes into the movie before it has a scene in common with the book.

Also, there were a lot of things that were implied in the book that get shown or stated overtly (for instace, that The Comedian Killed JFK or that Ozymandias is gay), or things that were stated in the book but are made Anvilicious in the movie (such as the fact that The Comedian is Laurie's father).

When in doubt, Snyder made this already violent and disturbing book even more violent, which makes the film much more uneven than it ought to be. For instance, why, in this movie version, does Rorschach kill that kidnapper on-camera, where in the book the kidnapper dies in an explosion off-camera? Why do the guys in prison have to buzzsaw their corpulent compatriot's arms off, where in the book they simply slit his throat? And why is the love scene, which was so brief in the book, lengthened to an embarassingly-long softcore porn sequence in the movie? (Plus, who likes watching people screwing to Leonard Cohen's voice? Really?)

These changes are pointless, and seem to have been made for the sole purpose of making the movie "more adult," which has the ironic side effect of making it less mature. It wouldn't have taken a whole heck of a lot to make this movie a pretty solid adaptation of the original. As it is right now, it panders to an audience that the original book never did, and as a result, the film is doomed to never attain the critical relevancy of the graphic novel.

C.