Pretentious, self-indulgent, incomprehensible tripe

Rating: 2/10 (7 March 2009)

With all the hype of a long-awaited movie adaptation, I came in with little expectation despite my tepid impression of the trailer.
It turns out this film is slow, pretentious (more on that later), and grotesquely self-indulgent. A fairly good script, co-written by prodigiously talented David Hayter who scripted X-Men movie and voice-acted as Snake in Metal Gear Solid series, has been marred by the film being so overproduced and overdirected it's like watching a farce. For those who are not familiar with the comic book, Watchmen will appear to be one of the weirdest movies ever made, outside of Terry Gilliam's realm. Terry actually tried to adapt the film in development hell in 1986 and 1989, but the project fell apart.
The plain truth is, because of the complexities of Watchmen as a comic book in terms of literal reading experience (that elevates mature comic book to art form), it is unadaptable. The result of the movie adaptation with bizarre & outlandish plot and character arcs is disastrous. The movie is not a clever satire or plausible fantasy as it pretends to be, but rather a preposterously inane farce.
Comic book and film are entirely different art forms, with comic adaptations of the movies weak and awful (i.e. Marvel's Terminator 2) and vice versa. The exception would be well-produced and freely styled adaptation of comic books such as X-Men 2, Ghost World, Iron Man and The Dark Knight.
Zack Snyder throws in the gimmicks reminiscent of music video editing styles, with slow motion and cranking motion for dramatic effects. He dwells on the scenes of grotesque violence in slow motion, as though he loves violence, pain and suffering because it's about making acts of violence stylishly appealing contrary to the reality where violence is cruel and uncool. The opening credit sequence may be weirdly cool, but unabashedly pretentious. Zack wants to tell the world he's a "cool" movie director who made a zombie movie re-make and an over-hyped box office hit (300) which I called "fascist art" in a previous review posted on IMDb.
The filmmakers' love of stylish graphic violence in close-ups, with slow and crank motions for effect, is repulsive. I thought Watchmen is supposed to be an action drama film, but it feels like watching an action movie that interchanges with grisly horror elements, pretending to dispense philosophical ideas of existence. I like nihilism, but not with sociopathic adulation of grisly movie violence as though there's any point. Not to mention an unnecessary, semi-pornographic sex scene that went on a minute too long, which again does not serve to advance the plot, only titillate the audience to discomforted silence.
Watchmen is overlong with some pacing tedium in-between, which makes it obvious the film is not tightened. Zack thought padding the length would make the film at least comprehensible in storytelling, but he fails to consider re-editing because he wants to remain as "slavishly faithful" to the comic book as possible, much to the annoyance of the audience who had not bothered to read the comic book.
With the film's flaws as the factor because of the director's sheer indulgence, Watchmen is a fascinating train wreck to watch, from the point of view of a casual comic book reader and current college student in philosophy. Fanboys' adulation of the film as a "masterpiece" expose them to be shallow "me" generation who think those who criticize Watchmen the movie for whatever reason are uninformed, uncultured morons.
Watchmen author Alan Moore was right to demand credit removal as noticed in the opening credit sequence, with the artist Dave Gibbons' sole credit as "co-creator." Because Watchmen is an awful, ludicrously nonsensical movie that will confound the people who has never read the comic book to begin with. I accept the alternative timeline storyline, but the aesthetics of the film is too surreal as a patently absurd fantasy.
The movie is proof some source materials should be left alone because a "good" adaptation in another art form is improbable. Therefore, I agree with Alan Moore's protest because it rapes the novel aesthetics of a story meant to be a compelling experience in original art form as intended.
* out of 4