WATCHMEN - review of the movie and only the movie

Rating: Null/10 (28 March 2009)

I haven't read the graphic novel, so I went into this as purely a movie to be viewed as a work unto itself.
It has ideas. Weighty ones. Ones that most blockbusters these days don't even attempt. It took courage not to "update" the story to the present and to nix Nixon (who, despite FROST/NIXON, is very far removed from the core audience, much more so than in the mid-80s when it was written).
I liked it's look for the most part. The effects were good, but nowhere near as spectacular as many would have it. But, to the uninitiated, it's an underwhelming mess. I can see why this has divided audiences and critics. Those familiar with the graphic novel or just ready to groove with the effects and action seem to have liked it, but others have been mixed. I am in the second camp.
The Dr. Manhatten storyline works in the main, and Jackie Earle Haley is the best thing in the film as Rorschach (though, at times, his part of the tale seems to come from a different place than the rest). But, the biggest problem, dramatically. are the performances of Malin Ackerman and Patrick Wilson. Dan, I assume is trying be diffident, but Wilson's performance just doesn't work. Ackerman fills out her suit nicely, but it all falls apart once she begins to speak. Their scenes together are performed like something that would appear in a straight to DVD release, not a huge studio film. And, the makeup on Ackerman is so caked on (even when not in costume) that you swear there would layers like rings on a tree if you scraped her face. Even that makeup job is better than the laughably poor "old age" appliances on Carla Gugino! Crikey, the comical Katherine Helmond plastic surgery makeup in BRAZIL looks more realistic!
But, as I noted, I didn't find the film totally without merit. But, ON FILM, WATCHMEN doesn't work. I also hadn't read V FOR VENDETTA, ROAD TO PERDITION or A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE and they were all good to very good FILMS. The key is not to be ultra faithful to the source (as many are applauding WATCHMEN for being), but to find a way to make the source material work dramatically on film - even to those who hadn't read the original material.
WATCHMEN fails that test.
******* SPOILERS***************
I understand that the ending is different in the novel. Here, you can't help but shake the notion that it would be a matter of a few months (a couple of years at the most), when nations would go back to being as they were before. Besides, if Dr.Manhatten is in "another galaxy" what exactly is the threat that would bind nations?