The Screengrab : jeffrey dean morgan

Screengrab Review: Watchmen (Paul's Take)

Paul Clark — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 17:00:00 GMT

Well, it’s finally here, folks. After more than two decades in development, Watchmen is finally hitting screens nationwide this weekend. In a way, it’s sort of miraculous that it actually panned out. Of course, the road hasn’t been easy, with a seemingly endless parade of directors, screenwriters, producers and stars attached to the project at some point. But to me, it’s even more interesting to observe how comic book culture has progressed to this point. Just over a decade ago, it seems like Batman was the only comic getting the blockbuster treatment, and just about everything else was played for campy nostalgia, e.g. The Phantom. Hell, back in 2000 studios were worried whether the X-Men could sell tickets. So the fact that there’s not only a massively budgeted adaptation of Watchmen out there but also one that’s surprisingly faithful to its dense, ambitious source material just shows how far comics- and comic-book movies- have come in the last ten years. If only the movie was better, this saga would have the happy ending that all Watchmen fans crave.

Admittedly, Watchmen is a tough nut to crack. Combining a murder mystery, a deconstruction of superhero mythology, and a meditation on society brought to the brink of apocalypse, it’s a far cry from the classic potboilers of yesteryear. Even in an adaptation as close as this one, some material would inevitably be pared away (so long, “Tales of the Black Freighter”). But while director Zack Snyder has sworn fidelity to the original graphic novel from the beginning, it’s one thing to visually translate Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ creation to the big screen, and another entirely to turn it into something cinematic. And although Snyder pulls off the former, he falls short of the latter. It looks great, but it never quite works as an honest-to-goodness movie.

Part of the problem is that Snyder never manages to reconcile the inherent expectations of comic book blockbusters with the more literary aspects of Watchmen. There’s plenty of violence in the graphic novel, but to me the action has always taken a back seat to the ideas and themes. Watchmen is less about its heroes’ powers than about their differing ideologies and the way they’re brought out, not only by their circumstances, but also by the times in which they live. This idea that even mankind’s saviors are complex and troubled is a potent one.

Unfortunately, Snyder doesn’t explore this idea in much depth. It’s a shame, since there’s a lot of potential here, especially among the more “freakish” members of the group- Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley), essentially a masked Travis Bickle; The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), an aging Captain America gone to seed; and “quantum hero” Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup), whose sad plight has led him to grow ever more detached from human concerns. But while these characters are pregnant with possibilities, Snyder instead makes the least interesting Watchmen- the second Silk Spectre (Malin Akerman) and Night Owl II (Patrick Wilson)- the central players in the drama. It doesn’t help that Akerman’s performance is easily the worst in the movie- she can’t even convincingly gasp for air when she first arrives on Mars- or that Wilson is saddled with a look that makes him look less like Gibbons’ creation than a young Chevy Chase.

But if Snyder doesn’t quite get a grasp on the thematic and subtextual undercurrents of Watchmen, he doesn’t make it work as a straight-up comic book movie either. Oddly enough, some of the blame should be placed on Snyder and his insistence on taking his visual cues straight from the graphic novel. On a shot-by-shot basis, the film is often remarkable to behold, but in putting them together, Snyder and editor William Hoy too often fall back on the shot order used in the graphic novel rather than editing the film in a way that allows scenes to build naturally and in an exciting way. The result is a film that feels like it’s been frozen in amber, beautiful but difficult to embrace.

That said, the movie is far from a disaster. In fact, there’s still plenty to admire about Watchmen, beginning with Snyder’s attention to detail. If nothing else, the visuals of Watchmen are eye candy to fans who’ve longed for years to see this story brought to life. And some of performances are actually quite good, especially those given by Crudup, Morgan, and Haley, who not only feels just right as Rorschach but also even delivers his trademark “hurm” perfectly. Less successful is Matthew Goode as the formidably intelligent Ozymandias- Goode looks and acts the part well enough, but the role really needed some big-star charisma to make it sing, and it’s a little disappointing to think what Tom Cruise, who was allegedly interest in playing the role, might have done with it.

When I saw Watchmen the other night, I was accompanied by someone who’d never read the graphic novel but enjoys darker comic book movies like The Dark Knight. And while I couldn’t help but judge the movie in comparison to the original material (and frankly, doesn’t Snyder more or less invite this?), my friend was able to enjoy the film on the screen, unburdened as he was by expectations. I think this contrast is illustrative. If you’re in the market for something more than the usual heroes-and-villains comic book thriller, Watchmen might just hit the spot. But if you’ve seen this story play out in its ideal medium, any other version will be inherently disappointing. My only hope is that maybe some of those who enjoy the movie will be inspired to pick up the graphic novel, so they too can experience this material the way it was meant to be experienced.

Screengrab Review: “Watchmen”

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 20:00:00 GMT

There are a million reasons a Watchmen movie should never have been made and no good reason it should have, aside from the obvious one: superheroes are big box office, and Watchmen was one of the most tantalizing untouched superhero properties available. It’s also an incredibly dense, multi-layered work, deriving much of its power from its subversion of five decades worth of comic book conventions. Having read the script Sam Hamm penned for Terry Gilliam’s aborted attempt at mounting Watchmen for the screen back in the early ‘90s, I know the new adaptation of the acclaimed graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons from “visionary director” Zack Snyder isn’t the worst case scenario. Nor does it exceed expectations. It’s just sort of pointless, which is what most fans of the classic comic have probably been expecting all along.

So can we separate the movie from its source material and judge it on its own merits? We can try, but Snyder doesn’t make it easy. It’s not a good sign when the movie kicks off with the image of an aging Richard Nixon portrayed by an actor wearing a ridiculous putty ski-slope nose and tons of awful aging makeup, quickly followed by a “Pat Buchanan” who looks and sounds exactly nothing like Pat Buchanan. The set-up here, should you be completely unfamiliar with the world of Watchmen: it’s 1985, and Richard Nixon has been re-elected to an unprecedented fifth term as President. Tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union are at an all-time high, and nuclear war appears to be inevitable.

The events of this alternate timeline have been aided and abetted by costumed heroes, among them The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), who helped lead the U.S. to quick victory in Vietnam. As Watchmen opens, the aging Comedian is murdered in his own apartment, leading masked vigilante Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley) to believe that someone is picking off the Watchmen, a superhero group whose members also include dumpy Nite Owl (Patrick Wilson), sultry Silk Spectre (Malin Akerman), and superhuman Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup, boasting a pendulous blue schlong that may disturb and frighten younger viewers – or any viewers, really).

In the comics, Moore and Gibbons amplify the major plotlines concerning the hunt for the mask-killer and the quest to avert global armageddon with flashbacks to the heroes’ origins (some of which date back to a superhero team of the 1940s called the Minutemen), along with various subplots including a love triangle among Silk Spectre, Nite Owl and Dr. Manhattan and a prison detour for Rorschach. To their credit, Snyder and screenwriters David Hayter and Alex Tse include as much of this material as possible (the Watchmen comic-within-the-comic Tales from the Black Freighter is getting a separate DVD release)…so why does the 168-minute running time still seem bloated beyond all necessity?

Part of it comes down to your definition of what constitutes a “faithful” adaptation. Great swaths of dialogue are lifted intact from the graphic novel, and the major visual set-pieces are painstakingly recreated (with at least one notable exception), and that may be enough to satisfy a segment of the audience. But the pacing is often leaden, the plotting lumpy and disjointed, the storytelling single-layered at best. The connective tissue between the big moments is thin to nonexistent; for instance, viewers coming to the movie cold may be forgiven for wondering how a sketchy character like Ozymandias (Matthew Goode and his dreadful wandering accent) turns out to be so crucial to the proceedings. Snyder seems most fully engaged when the action is at its most conventional, as when Nite Owl and Silk Spectre rescue kids from a burning building or Rorschach fends off assailants in prison.

Watchmen does have its moments. The closest it comes to capturing the texture of the graphic novel is the lyrical sequence in which Dr. Manhattan, having exiled himself to Mars, relives the events that led to his transformation into a godlike being. There’s visual razzle-dazzle to spare: an arctic fortress, a demolished city, a massive clockwork gizmo floating above the surface of Mars. And Jackie Earle Haley is terrific – he knows he’s playing a Clint Eastwood character times five, and he brings the appropriate psycho gusto to lines like “I’m not locked in here with you – you’re locked in here with me!”

I’ll even give Snyder some credit for improving the ending slightly, which wasn’t difficult (blasphemy, I know, but I re-read the last two Watchmen issues last night just to refresh my memory and that is not good stuff). But I can’t think of too many “visionary” directors who would use so many obvious, overplayed music cues (the love scene set to Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” is snicker-out-loud embarrassing) or cast so many nonentities in major roles (the listless Akerman is the worst offender). His approach is depressingly literal, and none of the scenes build on what has come before – they’re just meticulously reconstructed Scenes From Watchmen. It took more than 20 years to bring his most famous work to the big screen, and now Alan Moore isn’t the only one wondering why anybody bothered.

Trailer Review: Watchmen (Trailer #2)

Paul Clark — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 17:00:00 GMT

I somehow missed this trailer a few weeks ago, so apologies if posting it now feels like too little, too late. But I think the important thing is getting it out there for the other three people who didn’t know about it and are interested in the movie, so here you are. As trailers go, this one is actually more enticing than the first one (Philip Glass > Billy Corgan), although I’m still a little uneasy about the Zack Snyder factor. On the one hand, it’s nice to see him shooting on some physical sets this time around, instead of shooting 99% of the damn thing against CGI backdrops like he did with 300. Yet his overreliance on slow-motion is troubling, both in his last movie and in the Watchmen trailers we’ve seen thusfar. After all, the graphic novel is incredibly dense, both in terms of plot and character, and if he’s working with a studio-mandated running time, too much slo-mo will necessitate paring it down the story until a lot of what makes the source material great has been lost. Oh, who am I kidding? I’m there on opening day, not least because the casting looks almost uniformly great. I’m still not sure about Matthew Goode as Ozymandias, but Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach and especially Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Comedian look perfect.

More Goddamn Watchmen

Leonard Pierce — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 18:30:00 GMT

Honestly, folks, we don't know why we're so obsessed with Watchmen news lately. We'll stop as soon as the movie comes out and is terrible, we promise. In the meantime, we're obviously not the only people who can't get enough of the hype, because when Jeffrey Dean Morgan was at a press junket promoting P.S. I Love You, all anyone wanted to talk to him about was his role as the Comedian in the upcoming comic adaptation. Morgan reports that the sets, which have only been seen in a few photos released by director Zack Snyder, are "so true to the book it's insane", discussed the challenge of playing a morally reprehensible character like the Comedian, and vows that the film is "going to change the way people look at movies". Meanwhile, artist Dave Gibbons, who drew the original Watchmen graphic novel (and who, because author Alan Moore maintains a policy of having nothing to do with film adaptations of his work, is the only creator involved in the movie), visited the set for the first time, describing the sensation of seeing the characters he helped bring into existence walking around and talking as "the most surreal experience of my life". Gibbons, who Morgan reports was tearing up at seeing the sets, keeps mum about the specifics of the film, as have most people working on the set, but claims that among the cast and crew there is a "palpable commitment to do this right". Only 15 months to go...