Watch me(n) care less.

Rating: 2/10 (11 March 2009)

* Note: Yes, I read the graphic novel; no, I do not consider it perfection. This is not a biased Watchmen-comic fanboy review, nor a review from someone unappreciative of the original story.
Adoptions and remakes are always severely patronized. When we view them, we always have an image of the original version laced in gold in the back of our heads, with the label of PERFECTION hanging over that image. When someone interprets that original version of a story into another field of art, or reinterprets it into the same field of art, we go in unconsciously thinking that there is NO WAY it will affect us as powerfully as the original did. This alone is stupid. If you look at past novel-to-film adoptions, a lot of them have far surpassed the original text. The biggest example is A Clockwork Orange. The original novel was just another cliché the-government-is-evil novel with a cute spin on morality tied into the ending. The film, however, nearly single-handedly created the surrealist genre in cinema and minimized a lot of the cliché plot points. Just because a movie is based on a novel does not mean it has to be bad. However, if there is a flaw in the reinterpretation, we say it's the loss of the translation, but we never stop and accuse the original version of that flaw, even if that's where the flaw originated. Viola, Watchmen.
If there is anything the film version of Watchmen does, it shows the gaping flaws in the original graphic novel. Zack Snyder is taking a lot of critical trashingsome of which he deservesfrom the group of people who saw their nostalgic childhood memories/fantasies torn apart on the movie screen. But what that group of people fail to realize is that Snyder didn't change . . . well, anything at all, except the ending. He left out trivial scenes and bits of dialogue for the sake of time, but he pretty much copy/pasted everything in the graphic novel to the screen. That's something that can be proved on close examination of the two works. So there are only two reasons for people to dislike this movie: the actual story from the graphic novel, and the modern visual presentation.
As I stated earlier, a lot of negative reviews from the fanboys are (correctly) trashing their beloved graphic novel without even realizing it. The biggest problem that is obvious in both the film and novel is that the underline story of the Watchmen is just seen-this-before. The graphic novel wasn't unoriginal in the sense than you could predict every plot point, but it was unoriginal in the sense that when you look back, you see how typical the grand picture is. In both movie and novel, the ending is the cheesy and predicable reversal-of-expectations that has been done for hundreds of years. It's something you expect from a 5th grade creative writing session, not something from a said-to-be literary genius like Alan Moore. A lot of other plot points were directly ripped-off of Twilight Zone and Outer Limits episodes. Even the so-called "deep" themes are just clichés. You've heard them all before in high school psychology class. We understand the world is a bad place. We've understood it when we were 4-years-old and our grandmothers got ran over by a semi. Yet Moore carries his writing as if he's saying something completely new. Furthermore, the graphic novel and movie both reek of blatant immaturity. 1000-foot blue penises. Some of the most laughable costume choices ever drawn. The immature idea that something has to be laced with violence and sex or it isn't a mature piece of art. All the movie did was bring these flaws to the screen and expose them. These aren't Snyder's flaws, these are Moore's.
Now for Snyder. First and foremost, Watchmen should have never been entrusted to him. Period. Watchmen should have been treated like The Godfather. Instead, it got the treatment of the Spider-Man 3 outtakes. As a visionary director, Snyder is perfect when he's working on movies like 300. He has an infinite amount of talent with brining style and freshness to generic action scenes that you've literally seen thousands of times. This is why 300 worked so well. 300 was a pointless action movie, and it never tried to be anything else. Watchmen is the equal opposite. The heavy themes or nihilism and pessimism are almost made laughable in the film version of Watchmen. It's as if Snyder couldn't decide if he wanted to be a pretentious old man or a crowd-pleasing hack. And he isn't experienced enough or talented enough to attempt both at the same time. Also, his overuse of CGI literally turns entire portions of the film into a bad Disney Channel cartoon. This is partly due to Moore's immaturity, but Snyder's CGI just emphasizes it to the point I felt like I was watching Horton Hears a Who more than once.
As for the level of violence and sex: both were mild. The reason I mention it is because so many reviews are complaining about generic gore scenes, or a single breast shot, which I find downright funny. The average T-rated (13+) video game has more blood/violence than Watchmen^4. I can name several PG-rated films with more nudity. Grow up, folks.
Every factor I just listed is why Watchmen fails as a movie, and is underwhelming as a novel. The movie does absolutely nothing but rip open the mild bleeding wounds the novel had. It dumbs down an already semi-unoriginal story. It takes the boring dialogue scenes in the novel and turns them tedious and impossible-to-sit-through. It takes the downplayed childish elements in the novel and parades them in front of the camera. It turns the stylish art direction of the novel into a cheap live-action cartoon.
The Watchmen underwhelmed me in the first place. Now I just sit and laugh at them. Again: Grow up, folks.
2/10