Watchmen

So my first post goes to the most anticipated movie of the year. Is Watchmen any good? It certainly wants you to think so, and in all honesty, it does a quite good job of it. There are lots of little beats and moments that are excellent in this movie. So why, when I talk about Watchmen with people, do I rattle off a whole list of things that I either liked or loved about the movie, and then end my thought by saying, I didn't think it was very good?

Because I didn't find that I enjoyed Watchmen very much, and it's not because I didn't read the novel (I have) or because I dislike serious, depressing films (quite the opposite). I didn't enjoy Watchmen because it never worked as an actual movie. The entire time I'm watching, I'm hoping there will be some narrative thread...and there just isn't. This is not a problem for the novel for two reasons: one, the novel simply has more space than a 2hr43min film, and that's to be expected. But more to the point, the novel doesn't NEED a narrative thread; due to the very nature of its medium, it can be reflective and meandering and still be good. Film does not have this luxury.

In his slavish reliance on the novel in adapting the film (mustn't upset the fanboys), Zach Snyder created the CliffsNotes for Watchmen. The movie is a clip reel of all your favorite moments of the novel, some of them translated to the screen quite well, but that's exactly the problem. Snyder and team don't ADAPT the film; they translate it, and what works on the page doesn't always work on the screen.

It's truly a shame, because what Snyder has done is prove that Watchmen is filmable, where previously it was a given that Alan Moore's novel was anything but. In a way it would have been more consolation if Snyder had utterly failed, if what we received in theatres was a jumbled, unwatchable mess. Then, at least, I could sit back and say, told you so. This couldn't be done.

Instead, I have to sit here and call this film mediocre. Because it isn't bad, and if it had been executed better? We'd have an excellent Watchmen film on our hands. But there you have it: good, not great. Snyder has taken one of the most thought provoking, contemplative, radical novels of the 20th century and turned it into a passable action film with glimmers of faux-existential philosophy.

Grade: C+