Susan Granger’s review of “Watchmen” (Warner Bros.)
Intense, ultra-violent and – at 2 hours, 41 minutes – far too long, this is not your ordinary superhero movie. It’s Zack Snyder’s challenging yet slavishly faithful adaptation of Alan Moore’s landmark graphic novel about psychopathic crime fighters investigating the death of one of their own.
Set in 1985 in an alternate America, the Doomsday Clock with the Soviet Union is ticking ominously and Richard Nixon still occupies the White House, having won the Vietnam War by unleashing a powerful colossus, Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup), to subjugate the Vietcong. But when a renegade known as The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is murdered, his troubled cohort Rorschach (Jackie Earl Haley) rounds up other now-banished costumed vigilantes – like Ozymandias (Matthew Goode), Nite Owl II (Patrick Wilson) and Silk Spectre II (Malin Akerman), whose mother (Carla Gugino) once had a relationship with The Comedian – to investigate an insidious and devastating conspiracy that’s hurtling us toward Armageddon.
While “The Dark Knight” set the stage for the politics of fear, this audacious, allegorical saga ruminates on pop culture’s addiction to archetypical savior figures. There are character-origin explanations, along with complicated sexual liaisons, demonstrating that that gratuitous violence has its consequences.
Behind-the-scenes, this notorious project bounced around Hollywood for years with directors Terry Gilliam (“Brazil”) and Darren Aronofsky (“The Wrestler”) attempting to get it made. But it fell to Zack Snyder and cinematographer Larry Fong, who previously collaborated on “300,” to turn the bleak brutality into a rain-soaked, R-rated rampage.
What works are the striking visuals and stunning digital effects – from Dr. Manhattan’s blue-hued nakedness (no fig leaf here) and Martian refuge to Ozymandias’ Antarctica fortress, along with performances by Morgan, Wilson and Haley. But there’s weakness in the dense exposition/multiple flashbacks and in the work of Akerman and Goode.
While hardcore fans of the source material may quibble with David Hayter and Alex Tse’s script changes, on the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Watchmen” is an eerie, awesome 8, aimed primarily at a young male audience familiar with the blood-stained smiley face.
