Watchmen (2009)

Well, Alan Moore's "unfilmable" graphic novel has been filmed, and very well, I think, by Zack Snyder. I predict it will make a bare profit in theaters, and then live forever on DVD. And ten years from now, we'll get another version.

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I read the twelve issue limited series when it came out in 1985, and was instantly entranced with this tale, which asked "what would the world be like if superheroes really existed? What would the superheroes themselves really be like?" And Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (writer and artist) answered those questions with a multi-layered alternate-universe story with a great deal of psychological realism and minimalized superhero action. It was a book of thought, with a few outbursts of intense violence. A meditation on identity, politics, existential philosophy, and much more. It was also fiendishly clever, and its clean, classic comic-book graphics (the kind that I love most), made it a meta-comic, a comment on the nature of the readers as well as what they are reading.

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Immediately, scribers like Sam Hamm (who wrote the first Batman movie) tried to turn it into a movie. I read the script, and it sucked, missing almost everything that made the comic work. The truth is that there have been hundreds if not thousands of good, solid comic books over the years--the iconography is established, and "Watchmen" depended upon that shared cultural history for its impact. In comparison, in 1985 there had been maybe two or three decent superhero movies. There was just nothing to draw on. Now, in 2009, there have been maybe twenty superhero movies that are really solid stepping stones to draw from thematically or visually, and a Watchmen movie had a bare chance of navigating the creative waters with success.

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This story, of a group of disbanded superheroes living in a world approaching nuclear armageddon, in a country where Nixon is serving his fifth term, is at its core a murder mystery. Some killed an aging hero named The Comedian, and another hero, the borderline sociopathic Rorschach (the film's best performance) plays detective, trying to bring the hidden "mask killer" to justice, simultaneously realizing that it's all hopeless....the nuclear bombs will be flying soon, and as "Smartest man in the world" Ozymandias says, even big blue walking H-Bomb "Dr. Manhattan" can only stop 99% of the missiles, leaving just enough to destroy all life on Earth. Against armageddon are the sub-Batman "Night Owl" and his crush, "Silk Spectre 2", who was raised to be a superhero by her mom, the original Silk Spectre. These two represent "normal" people at the center of events beyond their control.

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But the death of the Comedian turns out to have ties to the nuclear threat, and in 2.7 hours of often dazzling, occasionally underwhelming filmmaking, their histories and psychologies are stripped bare, and we learn the truth. WOW this was fun, but the "R" rating is seriously earned, both for sex and violence. When Night Owl and Silk Spectre try to get it on in their normal identities, he can't get it up. (She's been Dr. Manhattan's girlfriend...kind of intimidating to follow THAT up! Wonder if Joseph had any performance problems with Mary. After all, her first boyfriend was God...but I digress.)

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After sneaking out to rescue a burning building filled with trapped civilians (superheroes have been outlawed in this world, much as in "The Incredibles," which was basically Pixar's riff on the Watchmen) they have quite the tryst up in the clouds. For fifty years and more, I've been watching the super-powered men and women in tights, and Watchmen gets right into the kinky questions everybody else has always avoided...mating rituals, the emotional scarring, the actual impact of such skill and power on the bodies of their sparring partners...as well as the way the world might have been altered had folks actually donned hoods to fight crime.

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Oh, it's all glorious fun, probably the most literal translation of a book to the screen I've ever seen. The cuts and changes Snyder made I (mostly) approve of, including the notorious Squidless ending. His new ending plays far more elegantly than the one in the original Graphic Novel, which had Moore winking rather frantically at the audience. I also enjoy the way Ozymandias is clearly gay (to the point of hanging with the Village People, in the brilliant opening montage). What a hoot. I had just so much fun.

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BUT...believe this. It is very very R rated. Probably my favorite superhero movie ever.

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WARNING: MILD SAMBO ALERT

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Actually an anti-Sambo alert. One of the changes Snyder made was to remove the home life of the prison psychiatrist who examines Rorschach. In the graphic novel, his encounter with the damaged hero triggers depression and impotence. Now, this guy is the only fleshed out black character in the book...and he is doomed, fat, and impotent to boot. Thanks, guys.

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In fact, the howling of the fanboys about how "realistic" the Watchmen is was, from that vantage point, always bullshit. It was a typical 1985 white fanboy fantasy, in which superheros bound around in tights, and all of them are white as the driven snow. Comic books were mostly still like this back then, and to this day, most dark faces are either members of teams or guests. I remember a major editor for DC telling me that if they changed the race of the character on the cover--nothing else, not artists, not writers, not distributers, not ANYTHING...if they made the cover character white or Asian or an alien, it was cool. But if they put a black man on the cover, sales dropped. But that's just that old desire for our fantasy heros to resemble us as much as possible. Nothing personal.

ﾠBut if we're talking about the real world, don't tell me that black people weren't capable enough, or motivated enough, to put on capes and masks and tights. We're just as crazy as anyone else. But just as in its era's comic books, everyone shown in "Watchmen" (in the context of a VERY white New York...except for the prison, of course) in costume is white. Pure fantasy, and the accusation of "realism" automatically stinks to me, but that's just me.

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Anyway, granted that, showing the black shrink unable to make love to his increasingly shrewish wife just struck me as Moore being a typical human being: his color is the only real color in the world. Removing those scenes didn't hurt the movie a bit.