It's Midnight: Do you know where your superheroes are?

Rating: 10/10 (1 January 2010)

It's 1985. Richard Nixon's still President of the United States, after the country's victory in the Vietnam War. New York City's still a cesspool filled with street gangs and whores. The Cold War's brewing to an apocalyptic climax in Afghanistan. Costumed crime fighters have been banned since 1977.
Yeah, it's 1985, but the one's that makes up the monolithic comic book mini-series/graphic novel, "Watchmen", scribed and sketched by fellow Brits Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons and John Higgins. Along with "Maus" and "Batman: The Dark Knight Returns", "Watchmen" is part of the Holy Trilogy of sequential literature and has been long sought by Hollywood power brokers to be cine-adapted. After two decades of development hell, false starts and eleventh-hour legal tactics, the film version has become reality. Though not "to the letter", the film's still a beautiful, brilliant, self-conscious and satirical example of adult-themed fantasy, rightfully turning the typical comic book film, let alone blockbuster, upside down.
USA-sanctioned masked trigger Edward Blake/The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan of "Grey's Anatomy") is violently killed in his penthouse apartment. The NYPD have no clues and are out of their league, but the misanthropic, ink-blot masked vigilante Walter Kovacs/Rorschach (an intense, Oscar-nominated Jackie Earle Haley of "Little Children') isn't deterred.
His fellow compeers get intertwined: humble, polite Dan Drieberg (Patrick Wilson, also of "Children"), the second man to be the masked hero Nite-Owl; hero-turn-corporate titan Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias (Matthew Goode of "The Lookout") government-sanctioned nuclear deity Dr. Jon Osterman/Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup of "Almost Famous") and his femme fatale concubine Laurie Juspeczyk/the second Silk Spectre (Malin Akerman of "Heavy Petting"). The investigation, however, leads to Jon's self-exile by scandal; Adrian being nearly killed and Walter being framed for murder, leaving Dan and Laurie to find comfort with each other and ponder who's behind their neutralization while Armageddon looms.
Of all the cuts, the film's 215 minute cut works. Director and fan Zack Snyder ("300", the Dawn of the Dead remake) has a ball and a half with the smart-as-a-tack script by David Hayter (the first two X-Men films) and Alex Tse ("Sucker Free City"). All three are graffiti artists with college degrees. It shows in the film's opening sequence: a collection of snapshots detailing the tale's alternative history. It's quite the trip. The societal conflicts, present in the GN, are preserved while the violence is extended, fast, brutal and consequential.
Working cat actors play the story's main characters, due to Mr. Snyder's plot protection against any A-lister's rep. Mr. Morgan's the embodiment of American arrogance, apathy and machismo who gets his come-uppance, despite a vaguely vocal penance to an arch-enemy. Mr. Crudup has a vox deus and the power along with it, but loses his humanity and his connection with human beings. Mr. Goode's a calculating power broker, intellectually castrating his peers, not knowing he has doomed himself.
The rest are my favorites for their humanity. Mr. Haley's reps humanity's "ugly truth", a rabid dog that got poked too many times and bites back. His sense of justice is uncompromising, yet leaves him vulnerable, alone. Like the adapted screenplay, Mr. Haley deserves an Oscar nomination, portraying an odd embodiment of fanboy immaturity.
As Drieberg, Mr. Wilson counters Mr. Haley with hope and fanboy maturity. He doesn't look for trouble, but the old kind, trading old war tales with his precursor/de facto guru Hollis Mason (Stephen McHattie of "300"), a noble ex-cop turn auto mechanic/author of the masked hero memoir "Under The Hood". However, his demeanor's anachronistic in a world of predators, cynics and war hawks, despite his mandatory retirement. Bad enough he's sexually innocent.
Played with modesty yet echoes Lynda Carter, Bettie Page, and my kindergarten teacher (don't ask!), Ms. Akerman's Laurie is a perfect match for Dan. Though looking like a hippie dominatrix, Laurie resents being a "tart" for Jon or an object of unattainable fame, manufactured by her mom, Sally Jupiter, the first Silk Spectre (the impressive Carla Gugino of "Frank Miller's Sin City"), a compeer of Blake and Mason's in the Golden Age troupe, the Minutemen. Laurie's anxiety exists, due to her mother's early-bird feminism, being a "pretty gal" who can throw a hard right. However, Blake's attempted sexual humiliation turns Sally into a bitter, booze hound matriarch from a 1980s prime time soap, bad plastic surgery and all.
Other cast members are fun: Matt Frewer ("The Max Headroom Show") is a pointy-eared ex-felon, dying from cancer. Danny Woodburn ("Seinfeld") is a locked-up midget mobster, whose vengeance towards Rorschach ends up gory and gallows funny. Bob Wisden gets Tricky Dick's arrogance and paranoia comic right as he's under aging make-up.
There's also the Bernies, an odd street Greek chorus made up of a cranky newsstand vendor (Jay Brazeau) and a streetwise but coy fanboy (Jesse Reid, who emotes modest black geekness), who are given more time here, due to the segmented presence of the animated "Tales of the Black Freighter" short. Based on the comic book Mr. Reid studies, "Freighter" tells the gruesome acts a marooned sea captain (Gerard Butler of "300") must perform to save his town and loved ones from a pirate ghost ship and its' undead crew, beautifully allegorizing with the main tale.
Maybe Alan Moore not wanting his name on this adaptation, after disliking past adaptations of his work, was ill-thought because Watchmen: The Film is an art house cake with blockbuster frosting. As the "Wild Bunch of superhero films", it deconstructs and matures the superhero archetype, gives a big hug to a medium that's been mistreated and misunderstood in its' home country, and stands a subversive fun house mirror, exposing society and questioning it. Not all of us will like it, but it exists, no matter what.
Like its' infamous sigil, a blood-stained "Smiley Face" button, the story's adage's here: "Who Watches The Watchmen?" Rorschach answers it during a session with a prison shrink: "We do." Why? We are them and vice versa.