Jon22: The Website of Jonathan Dobres

I said I wasn’t going to review it, and so help me God, I’m going to stick to that. But still, some things need to be said. This will be a spoiler-heavy commentary, so don’t read it if you haven’t been exposed to Watchmen in novel or cinematic form yet.

I refuse to be That Guy, the one who complains endlessly about how the movie based on the comic that gave his life meaning totally sucks because the characters weren’t the right height. To that end, I have boiled my thoughts down to three problems with Zack Snyder’s Watchmen adaptation, presented in order of increasing importance.

I.  Gory Over Story

I suppose this shouldn’t have been surprising coming from the director of 300, a film which alternates humorlessly between glorified torture porn and glorified actual porn. Snyder’s adaptation greatly embellishes Watchmen‘s already considerable violent content, raising the bludgeoning, mutilation, and dismemberment to truly grotesque heights. The shame is that every second spent glorying in someone’s painful demise would have been better spent developing the characters. We get to see Dr. Manhattan as a human for an entire chapter in the graphic novel, but on screen, he’s Jon Osterman for all of a few minutes. Hollis Mason’s murder? Out, and with it, any substantial emotional connection between the two Nite Owls. Fortunately, this frees up plenty of time for us to watch an inmate get his arms chainsawed off at the elbows.

II.  Being Good vs. Being Afraid

In Moore’s graphic novel, Adrien Veidt’s master plan is to develop a horrific genetic monster, a Super Duper Psychic Squid that he plans to teleport into Madison Square Garden, where it will immediately die. Upon its death, it releases a psychic shockwave that kills half of New York City. The idea here is that the world will assume this to be some kind of alien threat, put aside its comparably petty international differences, step back from the brink of nuclear war, and unite in fear against a much larger enemy. The movie deletes Super Duper Psychic Squid, and instead has Veidt weaponize Dr. Manhattan’s unique energies, making it appear as if this previously dependable superbeing has gone rogue, and is now Earth’s greatest threat.

I do not have a problem with the deletion of Super Duper Psychic Squid. It was very mad scientist of Veidt, which was perfectly ironic for a story in which superheroes and supervillains are not supposed to exist. On the other hand, it asks a lot of the reader to believe that Veidt is suddenly capable of unprecedented super-science. The exploitation of Dr. Manhattan is, if anything, a much more plausible device.

My problem is that Dr. Manhattan is sentient, whereas the Squid is not. The human race cannot be sure where it came from, why it ended up on Earth, or what it might have wanted. The feeling that unites the human race in the aftermath of its destruction is the fear of the unknown. All humanity knows is that there are bigger problems out there than who’s currently invading Afghanistan. It is perfectly acceptable to let Dr. Manhattan fill this role of the “feared other,” but Snyder goes a step too far when he implies that people are choosing to get along because “Jon might be watching.” Now, humanity is united because they’re afraid that the Big Blue Man in the Sky will get mad if they aren’t. It all feels a little too Old Testament, and I’m sure Moore would find the subtext horrific.

III.  “Nothing Ever Ends”

“Nothing ever ends.” In the comic, these are Dr. Manhattan’s final words to Veidt, after the mad genius displays a rare moment of uncertainty and asks, “I did the right thing, didn’t I? It all worked out in the end.” With these three words, the demigod tells the overconfident human that all his scheming and all his horrible sacrifice has been for nothing, and that in the grand scheme that only Manhattan himself can perceive, all these machinations are pitifully deluded. This is Moore’s ultimate “screw you” to anyone who was looking for a vindicatory ending. Our last glimpse of Veidt shows the self-described Smartest Man in the World dwarfed by his own shadow, his eyes cast over his shoulder, wondering if it has all been for nothing.

We don’t get this scene in the movie. Instead, Laurie mentions it to Dan with the line, “Well, you know what Jon used to say…” It is no longer a cold truth issued from the lips of a far-seeing demigod, but rather, the casual remembrance of something someone’s boyfriend said one time. It loses all its power, and seriously damages Watchmen‘s entire message.

All that said, Snyder’s adaptation of Watchmen is about as good as anyone could have hoped for. The actors are all perfectly cast, the art direction is flawless, and it’s slavishly faithful to the source material, with the mind-boggling exception of these few changes. See it in theaters, don’t take the kids, and read the novel first.