Watchmen is the fanboy’s film. On the most basic level, the experience of a movie is more immediate than the experience of a comic or a book. Movie characters exist more physically, they can move and make noises. It is just so pleasurable to see Rorschach eat beans from the can, hear his spoon scratch against aluminum. Best is the ever-changing patterns on his mask.
Actually, best is the nude Malin Akerman as opposed to the nude Dave Gibbons drawing. Obviously, director Zack Snyder has the fan in mind. Akerman wasn't terrible as Sally Jupiter but a more seasoned actress would have added a bit more womanly depth to the character. But, she is such a dead ringer that it’s like the comic book Sally jumped off the page.
This perfect fanboy film, though, is missing some of the comic's key elements. At worst, especially for those few who haven't read the source material, it's a confusing and flimsy piece. It does provide a good opportunity to reflect on some of the things that made the comic great.
In the original story, the tension is much stronger regarding the meta-comic idea that costumed heroes would cause more danger than they would prevent. The best example is the kidnapped child episode Rorschach recalls for the prison psychiatrist. Rorschach finds unquestionable proof when he inspects the killer's house -- dogs fighting over a butchered leg, child’s shoe still on. There is no doubt in the celluloid version. When he smashes the suspect’s head with a meat cleaver, Rorschach did the right thing. He has the audience's complete support, and screw the man who wants to keep him and other heroes down.
This episode, however is much more ambiguous in the book. There is no shoe on the butchered bone. Rorschach, not necessarily the reader, makes the leap that it belongs to the missing girl. Guilt is probable from the readers' POV, but probable is more than enough for Rorschach to execute. In this world, costumed heroes need some sort of check and Rorschach serves as the most extreme example.
At 2.5 hours, Watchmen is a long film. Yet its plot feels too convenient, the cause and effect too obvious. At one moment, Nite Owl and Rorscach don't know who the mastermind is and the next they know it's Ozymandias. The book, though, has a dizzier feel with its noir-like complications and distractions. Ozymandias's plan is revealed to the reader more piecemeal. We learn that several writers and artists are missing and that they are the architects of his doomsday device. We see their strange blueprints and sketches. Here, the mystery is a little more organic and these extra details also disguise what would otherwise be a rather flimsy, and unbelievable, plot. In this version, we discover much slower than our protagonists do.
What's missing, most importantly, is the literary focus on regular human beings. Moore and Gibbons's Watchmen is the first superhero piece of literature that works as a compelling narrative and as a meta-examination of the superhero genre. Still, Zack Snyder's Watchmen is at least an almost equal achievement: a $200 million straight homage by a fanboy for all his fellow nerd brothers.
