ongoing

Longtime pop culture sage/former Boston Phoenix critic M. Howell contributed this to JSInk.
   “Who watches the 'Watchmen?'”  Well, damn near everyone over the age of 17 it seems – and likely a few more under that limit as well. But why? A decades-old property – a comic book, er, excuse me, “graphic novel” no less – with virtually no public profile outside of a small segment of rabid devotees of the book, most of which would be more likely to sneer at any filmed attempt either in solidarity with Moore’s refusal to participate or over their hurt feelings that the movie version they had mentally cast and produced was far superior. Lots of violence, most of it gory. Lots of sex, most of it the unpleasant kind. Set in a dingy, grim alternate past where Richard Nixon has just one his third term and Vietnam has, somewhat reluctantly, become the 51st state.

   Pass the popcorn.

   Zack Snyder (“300”) has taken a book universally regarded as unfilmable, one that has been kicking around development purgatory almost since its 1987 release as a graphic novel. (Collecting the 12 not-so-monthly issues of the comic book into one place apparently gave the work the credibility it needed to get Hollywood’s attention.) and created a sensation. Think of it this way: it was considered highly risky to make a wide-audience film of a second-tier but still popular comic book character who had  been around for more than 50 years – "Iron Man." : "Watchmen" lasted twelve issues. Its characters were created solely for that series – in fact creator Alan Moore made certain that there could not be any further adventures for nearly every featured character. Also, rather than standing for truth, justice and the American Way – or even having slight foible like Iron Man’s drinking problem – the characters of Watchmen were murderers, psychopaths, rapists, and other unsavory things. The nicest one is impotent unless he’s just beaten someone up. (Gets the blood flowin’, if you  catch my drift.) They ain’t headed for Saturday Morning TV. (Although there’s a damn nice attempt to be found on You Tube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDDH Hrt6l4w ) .

From a creative standpoint – and that assuredly translate to a marketing standpoint as well. Any Watchmen project had to please three distinct audiences: the fans of the graphic novel, who may have greeted the prospect with heightened levels of anticipation or fear or likely both who would serve as the film’s core audience as well as the early warning system for the mass audience; that selfsame mass audience, who had turned “300” into a surprise hit, “The Dark Knight” into a serious contender for an Academy Award as well as a relentless money-generator, and “Superman Returns” into a cosmic flop; finally Watchmen needed to tickle the tastemakers. It couldn’t be one of those dark and gory flicks like “Saw” or “Last House on the Left” that everyone knows is coming (you can’t miss the massive television ad exposure) but no one knows anyone who went and yet they still rake in barrels of cash. Watchman the movie had to mean something, even if that meaning was not the one(s) that Alan Moore intended.

Time to stand up and declare my prejudices. I was one of those who was fully captured from the first pages of the first issue. Yep, I read it in the original timeframe, reading and re-reading each issue through the endless weeks until the next one would arrive (it was supposedly a monthly publication, but it was more on an Axl Rose-type schedule). With the help of legendary editor John Ferguson at The Boston Phoenix - JSInk aside: he was one of my editors at the Boston Globe, too, the best I worked for - I penned one of the first and most likely the longest non-fanbook reviews. I also traveled to Warner Books’ offices in Manhattan where, in a darkened room, I interviewed the notably reclusive Mr. Alan Moore. (http://thePhoenix.com/Boston/News/77803-Interview-Alan-Moore-author-of-Watchmen/ )

During that interview, Moore touched on why he believed that Watchmen would never succeed as a film. He said that the novel contained  “things that comics can do which no other medium can. For example, with comics you can give a density and complexity that films cannot aspire to. Purely because with a film you're locked into a two-hour running time.”

Watchmen the film runs a full twenty-two minutes past the two-hour mark and still feels like it could have been longer. Happily for exhibitors and bladders, though, it doesn’t. It also doesn’t waste any of its 162 minutes, from a whirling dervish of a credit sequence that established the backstory of the original gaggle of crimefighters through their destruction, deaths, and disappearances leading up to the arrival of a true super-human, Dr. Manhattan, who is a game-changer in every way. The ultimate weapon exists, crows one higher-up, “and he is American!”

With such a creature pledged to the Stars and Stripes, there seems little use for the costumed crimefighters. Congress passes the Keene Act, requiring them to work for the government or retire and most opt for the latter. Only the essential Dr. Manhattan and the nihilistic Comedian officially stay in action. Manhattan because he is the keystone to this new society; the Comedian because he’ll do things no one else will.

Note the cautionary “officially” above. There is one character, the mangy obsessive Rorschach, whose mask is like his namesake test: an ever- shifting series of blots that leave the viewer to decide what his features and expression might be underneath. Rorschach is, in his own way, the conscience of the group, the one person who is absolutely certain of what he thinks about every person and every situation. And what he’s certain is that “someone is killing masks” – starting with his old comrade The Comedian.

That is the ostensible plot: there’s a mask-killer on the loose and the remaining characters have quite differing reactions to the situation. Rorschach jumps into action, rattling the underworld’s hangout and shaming his former partner, Nite Owl, into signing on. The sexy Silk Spectre, daughter of the original and mistress of Dr. Manhattan, gets caught up in it, too – partially because she needs action (in more ways than one) and partially because her big blue paramour is slowly distancing himself from any Earthly concerns. “Mars doesn’t have any life,” he tells her in one of the film’s many bravura set pieces, “and gets along perfectly fine.” Also distancing himself from the quest is Adrian Veidt, thought to be the world’s smartest man, who went from crimebuster to capitalist, amassing a huge fortune through a series of oddly interconnected companies.

A synopsis of the plot is a hideous disservice to both the story and the film, as Snyder has gone way beyond obsessive trying to capture the book’s intricate, detailed world. Artist/co-creator Dave Gibbons packed each panel (and there were often nine precise ones to a page) with  detail upon detail in creating the world the Watchmen inhabit, and Snyder must have driven several armies of set designer insane trying to match him object for object. His altered American of the 1980s is chillingly real.

As are its inhabitants, for the most part. Snyder wisely cast little-known actors and the ones the general audience might recognize are hidden behind full masks or bald and blue.  Once you get used to the fact that these Watchmen are all emotionally crippled in one way or another, the stunted quality of their speech and actions makes sense. These are people in costumes but they are not powerful people.

Except when they fight. There’s a long, in-your-face (and probably a little over the top in the violence department) jailbreak that shows the Watchmen finally coming to life. It’s what Nite Owl needs and Silk Spectre craves. It’s the reason for the spandex and the crazy modes of transportation. It’s been missing from their lives and they didn’t realize just how much they missed it. When the adrenaline returns, life is good.

Except as both The Comedian and Bob Dylan know, “life is but a joke.” And the awful, horrifying awareness of the joke that forms the endgame of Watchmen leaves us – as if was meant to – slackjawed and numb. If Veidt talks longer than you want him to and Dr. Manhattan’s increasing emotional recusal makes you frustrated and the very end makes you want to scream but you know it won’t make a damn bit of difference, welcome to the world of Watchmen. Overlong (by some standards. Personally I thought the only way to make it would be as a 12-issue HBO miniseries). Overstuffed. Overly faithful and overly ambitious. A film I never thought I’d see is one that I’m ready to see over and over.

Ticket: $9.75 or so. Check website below for theaters and showtimes.

www.mrmovietimes.com