Review: Watchmen

In Christopher Nolan’s “Dark Knight” there’s a scene which plays out on separate ferry boats where a group of hardened prisoners and a group of everyday citizens are told they must blow the other up in order to survive. The choice both sides make to sacrifice themselves is a rare (for Hollywood, at least) look at the worthy side of our human nature. Zack Snyder’s mostly successful adaptation of Alan Moore’s classic graphic novel “Watchmen,” is a much harsher judge of humanity. In the “Watchmen” world both groups would have eagerly blown the others up and maybe done so with glee. This begs the question: at our very worst are we worth saving? This theme drives “Watchmen” along with an examination of how far one should go in order to save us – and burning a village to save a village doesn’t begin to cover it.

Because this theme is both timeless and universal, the story setting in a kind of alt-universe America, circa 1985, where Richard Nixon’s into his fifth term and the Cold War still rages, isn’t a disadvantage. In fact, by removing itself from our world this allows ideas to be explored outside of the purely political. If “Watchmen” has a political point I missed it, and while its dark view of humanity might be unfair it’s a necessary and compelling way to ask and answer the questions of human worth. “Watchmen’s” world may be nihilistic, but the ideas are not.

The Watchmen are a group of disbanded superheroes lost in cynicism and disillusionment. The government they helped to win the war in Vietnam outlawed them and now they live embittered half lives in a world that needs them but doesn’t know it. After one of their own, The Comedian, is brutally murdered in the opening scene, Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley), a masked madman with an uncompromising thirst for justice, sets out to find the killer. This puts him in touch with his former teammates – all former superheroes with wildly different skills and costumes.

If there’s a protagonist, it’s Rorschach, who narrates in the language of hard-boil and while he might be a psychotic, he’s our psychotic. His contempt for criminals is only topped by the grisly methods he uses to rid the world of them. And in their own way, each of the Watchmen is deeply flawed. Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup), a scientist involved in an accident that gave him god-like power over matter, has become hyper-intellectualized to the point of losing his humanity; Laurie Jupiter aka Silk Spectre (Malin Akerman) is torn between her devotion to Dr. Manhattan and need for her own identity; Dan Dreiberg aka Night Owl (Patrick Wilson) is lost without the group and close to becoming his predecessor – whom he visits regularly – a drunken has-been living in the past. The only one of the group who appears to have moved on is Adrian (Matthew Goode). He’s evolved into a wealthy and esteemed industrialist.

The story’s one big flaw is the lack of a strong, central plotline to carry the first couple hours (the full runtime is 163 minutes). The first two-thirds jump from character to character, filling in back story and building mythology. Depending on how interesting the character is, this is a hit and miss approach and during the weaker plotlines, like the budding romance between Laurie and Dan, an episodic feel overwhelms.

But even during the worst of the lulls, the ideas being explored keep the story alive and there is a sense of momentum, at least after the first hour, that all the time spent laying down plot elements and developing the characters will come together. This makes the payoff vital, and pay off it does. The last forty minutes are absolutely brilliant.

Also brilliant is Zack Snyder’s direction. You don’t have to be familiar with the source material (and I’m not) to understand just how close to camp the whole affair might have become in lesser hands. What holds it together is a firm, confident visionary director who understands that the literate nature of the source material is the key to retaining credibility. At times this approach works against the pacing of the story, but with the costumes and neo-noir elements, if adapted into a straightforward action film, “Watchmen” would go down as another “Flash Gordon” (1980).

And action is lacking. There’s all kinds of violence, some of it gratuitous and unnecessarily so, but almost no action scenes. The sense of adventure and thrill of being a superhero is not what “Watchmen” is about — not even close. R-rated for this reason, and due to an explicit sex scene like the kind we frequently saw in films made in 1985, this comic book film is not for kids.

But it is for adults, and if you hang in there through the dark cynicism and a deceptive bent towards nihilism, “Watchmen” has something to say about who we are, who we could be, and what we’re worth — even at our most worthless. While not as exciting or lavish as “The Dark Knight,” Snyder’s plumbed just as deep into the rich depths of the human condition to make a very good film, and on a second viewing, which I look forward to, it may just rise to something more.