In pondering Watchmen, I think I will have the same problem as the directors in adapting Alan Moore's masterpiece to the screen: there is so much to talk about that it simply cannot fit. I entered it with the bias that Moore refused to be affiliated with the film, that the film was long and at times, boring. Nonetheless, it is a fragment of the world of superheroes that must be explored if one is to show any sophistication in the subject, because sophistication, or more appropriately, reflection, is the essence of the Watchmen.
The story demands that the audience look at the grander picture, which explains the nearly three-hour run time and the seemingly endless exposition. I enjoyed the character development, the stories that gave us depth without forcing us into thrills and spills. I enjoyed Dr. Manhattan's existential battles (Is anything really worth saving?). My enjoyment lasted until around midpoint, where the script woke up and realized it hadn't given us a plot to follow. It was a slice of life script for superheroes, which, in the end, wasn't satisfying. There were great moments, to be sure: Rorschach's stint in prison, the flashbacks to the awfulness of the Comedian, and Dr. Manhattan's fortress on Mars.
However, as befitting Ozymandias, the smartest man in the world, the film was 90% intellect and 10% the filmmakers trying to fill the rest of the space. That ninety percent encompasses how much the question of why humanity should be saved was actually answered. The ten percent encompasses the swiftly fading elegance of the last half. In short, when we cut to the many screens of news coverage with no tears, no reactions, just a sea of calm, practical faces, when the final scene is of a bored newspaper company only worried about finding new material, I was left to wonder whether anyone truly believed that the death of millions of people would be a calamity. The Silk Spectre's circular argument on the matter (humanity should be saved because millions of people will die) did not help.
Despite my quarrels with the balance of intellect versus heart in the film, I thoroughly enjoyed a good portion of it. It presented superheroes stripped down and (minus Dr. Manhattan) without the distractions of high-powered battles. The conclusion reminds us that we humans now make our own gods, and they, in the form of atomic energy, keep us from tearing each other apart on the greater scale. If only this film could affect us as significantly on the smaller scale, it would be a masterpiece of cinema to rival the masterpiece of graphic literature. For now, three stars.
The story demands that the audience look at the grander picture, which explains the nearly three-hour run time and the seemingly endless exposition. I enjoyed the character development, the stories that gave us depth without forcing us into thrills and spills. I enjoyed Dr. Manhattan's existential battles (Is anything really worth saving?). My enjoyment lasted until around midpoint, where the script woke up and realized it hadn't given us a plot to follow. It was a slice of life script for superheroes, which, in the end, wasn't satisfying. There were great moments, to be sure: Rorschach's stint in prison, the flashbacks to the awfulness of the Comedian, and Dr. Manhattan's fortress on Mars.
However, as befitting Ozymandias, the smartest man in the world, the film was 90% intellect and 10% the filmmakers trying to fill the rest of the space. That ninety percent encompasses how much the question of why humanity should be saved was actually answered. The ten percent encompasses the swiftly fading elegance of the last half. In short, when we cut to the many screens of news coverage with no tears, no reactions, just a sea of calm, practical faces, when the final scene is of a bored newspaper company only worried about finding new material, I was left to wonder whether anyone truly believed that the death of millions of people would be a calamity. The Silk Spectre's circular argument on the matter (humanity should be saved because millions of people will die) did not help.
Despite my quarrels with the balance of intellect versus heart in the film, I thoroughly enjoyed a good portion of it. It presented superheroes stripped down and (minus Dr. Manhattan) without the distractions of high-powered battles. The conclusion reminds us that we humans now make our own gods, and they, in the form of atomic energy, keep us from tearing each other apart on the greater scale. If only this film could affect us as significantly on the smaller scale, it would be a masterpiece of cinema to rival the masterpiece of graphic literature. For now, three stars.
No comments:
Post a Comment