Watchmen

So, last night I finally got the chance to see the film that I had been anticipating for many months now. The recent hype has been huge, so did the movie adaptation of Watchmen live up to expectations?

In short, the answer is: not quite. It's still a good film, perhaps even a very good film, but it ultimately suffers from pacing problems that prevent it from truly reaching its clear potential. The middle act of the film, in which most of the characters' back-stories are revealed, is the most problematic, consisting of lots of individual episodic moments that don't quite tie together smoothly. I'd imagine that this is a consequence of the original graphic novel originally being in 12 parts. Despite many fans of the book worrying that the film would be too short, I honestly think that at 162 minutes, it's already a little too long.

However, there is much to admire. The visuals, as expected, are fantastic, with excellent production design, cinematography and visual effects. The plot itself is compelling, especially in the excellent last 45 minutes or so of the film. Although at the time of writing I have only read four chapters of the novel, I can already see that the film is extremely faithful not just in terms of the look - many shots are exact copies of the comic panels - but also in terms of the dialogue, much of which has been used verbatim. It could be argued that director Zack Snyder has been a little too faithful, leading to the aforementioned pacing problems.

What I appreciated most about Watchmen is that it is fairly unique when compared to your typical big-budget blockbuster. It's dark, (very) violent, at times disturbing, deals with deep themes of politics and the nature of humanity, and yet has moments of genuine humour. Additionally, the ending is decidedly un-Hollywood (probably why I liked it so much). The use of music was also interesting; there wasn't a huge amount of original score, but rather a range of period rock and pop songs (Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix), classical music and pieces from other films, for example Philip Glass' score for Koyaanisqatsi, all used to great effect.

To be honest, I'm amazed this film exists at all. Warner Bros. apparently spent $130m on a long, 18-rated philosphical comic book adaptation with no major stars, no major villain, and where even some of the supposed heroes are sociopaths. That it works as well as it does is worthy of praise, regardless of the length issues.

VERDICT: Not quite the masterpiece I had been hoping for, but still well worth seeing, especially on a big screen.

IMDb