To tie in with the release of what may be the biggest comic to film disappointment in recent years, I thought I'd give reasons, obvious and not, why I'm not a caped do-gooder.
Firstly, I have no superpowers to speak of. Despite my deepest wishes, I'm not from another planet, nor have years of being gently bathed in background radiation from TV, microwaves, mobile phones and Ukrainian honey done anything to improve my speed, grant me flight or make me invincible. It didn't even improve my pick up lines. The best I can say is that I have double-jointed thumbs.
Of course this was never an obstacle to Batman nor the cast of the Watchmen. But, some of them at least had gadgets. I, however, am device-challenged. It took me a couple of days to work out how to set the date on my new phone. As for my very own Ryan-mobile...after my few experiences driving no one wants me behind the wheel.
With or without gadgets, I'm still stumped as to what I would call myself. All the good names are gone. Part of the humour of the Watchmen are the names. The idea of Rorschach is hilarious, especially when you consider how seriously he takes himself. Even Marvels seemed to be dredging up ideas when they came up with the Needle, Ahab, Dragonfly and Groundhog. The Chapman Brothers have taken this to even more ridiculous lengths. Maybe, I could be 'Captain Doubt' or 'the absolutely ordinary Shrug'...I don't know.
Even if I could find some idea that hadn't been taken, and I could find some wealthy benefactor to kit me out with crime-fighting gear, I have no idea what I'd be fighting for. My views are too liberal to believe in vigilante justice. I could be some costume themed radical - but as ordinary radicals prove, violence brings only limited gains.
Which is what Moore had in mind when he wrote Watchmen. It's just a pity the film has diluted so much of the subtext to bring the story to the big screen.
It's tough to adapt something like Watchmen to film. It's too tied in to its medium to really work on the big screen. I think they did the best they could. Maybe it was a mistake to adapt it to film, but I was more or less entertained with the results.