I finally got around to watching the “Watchmen” movie last night, after completely missing it at the cinema, and repeatedly picking the graphic novel up in book stores over the last few years, based purely on it’s reputation as “something great that everybody should experience”. It’s probably worth mentioning that I’m not a great comic book fan, although I do like some of the more famous artists work - such as Jamie Hewlett, Alex Ross, and Adam Hughes. I’ve only bought a few comics in my entire life - a mixture of Tank Girl, and GEN-13.
So what did I think of “Watchmen” ?
It was interesting. Right from the opening titles which aped all manner of famous archive photographs and movie reels, it was evident that this movie holds a lot of hidden references for those who search for them. Having not read the book, the movie left a lot of questions - in a similar manner perhaps to watching 2001 before reading the book.
It’s a long movie, telling a very disjointed story. I had read in other reviews that casual movie goers had difficulty following the time shifts in the story - I had no problem with that, but I did have issues with the plausibility of some of it (plausibility? in a comic-book based movie about costumed crime fighters?). I’m guessing Watchmen suffers from the same problem that The Golden Compass did; it’s an abridged version of a complex story - and while it does a wonderful job of including a lot, it does it at the expense of entertaining us at times.
Perhaps the best comic-book inspired movie I have seen so far is Ironman. In many ways it has become the benchmark by which I now judge all similar movies, and when Watchmen is placed alongside Ironman, it pales significantly. Part of that is probably down to the brilliance of Robert Downey Junior and Jeff Bridges, but movies are about more than just the actors.
My main problem with the Watchmen movie was perhaps the sex scene. I had no problem with Dr Manhattan being naked for the entire movie, but did we really need to see Jupiter and Night Owl get it on? - I’ve noticed in quite a few movies recently that there’s some kind of weird requirement to throw a token sex scene in, and for it to be graphic. How far will it go? Will the next Spiderman have him banging Mary Jane up against the side of a skyscraper?