The Watchmen (Review)

A group of superheroes are forced into retirement when President Nixon, in his fifth term, passes the Keane Act which outlaws vigilantes. Then when one of their own is murdered, the one former superhero that hasn't given up his ways, Rorshcach, sets out to find why his friend was murdered. This is the plot of Watchmen. Zack Snyder's latest work since his cult hit 300. It's an adaptation of the extremely intelligent and well written graphic novel of the same name. As an ardent fan on the graphic novel, it was almost inevitable that I wasn't going to like the movie and I didn't have high hopes going in. But it was because the movie was too faithful to the graphic novel, that I wasn't a fan of the movie.

A successful adaptation from a book to a movie means that the movie has to be nothing like the book and needs to instead be it's own vision. One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest is a fine example of an adaptation that stays true to a good adaptation. If Milos Forman did the movie exactly the way that Ken Kesey wrote the book the movie would be a confusing mess. This is not what Watchmen was but its reliability to the novel left things unsatisfying.

I am not disrespecting Mr. Snyder in any way. I think he is a very talented director and his vision can save even the poorest of plot lines. I would have just hoped that he would've taken more liberties than he did. The liberties he did take helped push the movie along and made it more of a movie than a fictional documentary but it still left many things awkward and unanswered.

The performances in the film varied from wonderful to horrible. I would like to hope that we will be seeing more of Jackie Earle Haley, who played the mysterious Rorschach, in the future. He made a very complicated character his own, transforming himself into the darkest of characters, giving him the most powerful performance of the movie.

Jefferey Dean Morgan, who plays the Comedian, joins the list of dark and complicated characters in the movie. His part was very small but he managed to play it with a cold complexity that made him and his character very enigmatic and fun to watch. Matthew Goode turned a character that was simply arrogant in the novel into a more subtle villainous character.

I have yet to find out who had the bright idea to hire Malin Akerman for the role of Silk Spectre II. It isn't a very crucial character but it was a character that was sorely miscast nonetheless. She was extremely attractive and this was the first problem was that Laurie Jupiter (Silk Spectre II) is meant to be someone much older and past her prime. I know this makes me a hypocrite for being upset about them doing something different from the novel. But some liberties that are taken don't even fit the main idea of the story, like casting Laurie Jupiter as someone much younger. Her performance was also extremely forced watching her act was something that was very uncomfortable for me to watch.

The soundtrack to the movie was something else that was completely off. There is a difference between a good soundtrack and a soundtrack with good songs and the Watchmen soundtrack was a soundtrack with good songs but not a good soundtrack. Every time a song would begin playing in the movie I raised my eyebrows wondering how this song could possibly fit with the tone of that particular scene in the movie. There were some songs that fit very well. The beautifully shot opening credit sequence accompanied by Bob Dylan's Times are Changin' was very well placed with the basic tone of the film. But putting songs by Jimi Hendrix and Simon and Garfunkel in what should be more emotional and thrilling scenes just didn't seem right.

It wasn't bad but it was just a poor adaptation that could have been done better.

2 out of 4 stars.