I was really disappointed by the Watchmen movie. It felt soulless and cheap, coated in too much gloss and splattered blood. I really wonder what Snyder thought was the point of the book. What were the main themes and issues posed by the text? Then, what did he think the movie Watchmen was about? To me, it seemed like it was about nothing.
Snyder seems to be charmed by "pretty pictures" and doesn't have much sense of story. The first act of the movie rushed by in a blur, while the final act in Adrian's fortress plodded and stalled. Snyder chose actors who might be able to strike a pose for promotional stills, but had no ability to convey the complex emotions in the text.
Matthew Goode was laughable as Ozymandias. Striking a girlish pose with his huge head and long nose made him immediately identifiable in the opening scene with the Comedian. Malin Ackerman's pretty I guess, but she couldn't hold up the dramatic scenes and she had no physical presence. Her attempts to look bad ass while fighting were totally embarrassing. Only the awesome acting by Haley brought any real feeling in to the picture. Rorschach was the highlight for me. Otherwise, I was never engaged. Just watching shit fly by.
The movie is a crazy subversion of a subversive text - dragging the Watchmen into just the kind of cheesy Hollywood production that the book was originally a reaction against. Snyder used ridiculous music cues like 99 Luftballoons and Boogie Man instead of Neighborhood Threat or The Comedians, both referenced in the novel. Plus, the use of Valkyries was tasteless and hackneyed, especially compared to its use in the novel, "the saddest thing" Hollis Mason can think of. Finally, the movie was full of over-the-top graphic violence and sequences that made violence sexy.
Watchmen was a book that challenged the notion that fighting is glorious. Violence tears up the lives of every single character. Issue 11 is full of mounting tension and the threat of violence. With Manhattan gone the world is on the brink of war, and in NYC a domestic squabble sparks a riot in the streets, all intertwined with the grisly twist ending to The Black Freighter and Adrian's description of his "plot to put an end to war, an end to fighting." That's what had driven the Comedian over the edge! Then as the cops roll into the square...boom.
Where was the tension in Act 3 of the movie? It was just the few characters in Adrian's arctic fortress, rolling around like buffoons in capes. Totally lifeless. At the end, how was the viewer supposed to feel? The final issue of the book begins with absolute carnage. Panel after panel, panning over the faces of all these characters you had come to know. Bodies hanging from windows and in piles in front of Madison Square Garden. The deaths in the film were antiseptic, bright blue flashes of CGI that supposedly wiped out...oh some number of people. The movie just sort of limped into an epilogue, with little sense of drama.
In one of the most important scenes in the book, Jon tells Adrian he's going off to create life of his own. Adrian says, "I did the right thing, didn't I? It all worked out in the end." Jon replies, "'In the end?' Nothing ends Adrian. Nothing ever ends." Who does Zach Snyder give that important line to? Yeah, Malin f'ing Ackerman.
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