Last night I watched THE WATCHMEN movie. When the comic book was released in 1987 (I was 17 and a junior in high school), I remember there being a big uproar in the comic book community about WATCHMEN (this was before the web or bloggers - we got our information through --gasp! -- magazines). I bought the complete graphic novel, and only made it half way through - and frankly, I didn't see what all the hype was about. After watching the movie 22 years removed from the material, now I understand.
WATCHMEN is as close to reality as a "real" comic story could ever get. WATCHMEN, as a piece of visual literature, both redefines, honors, deconstructs and renews the very universe of comic books. It is both trapped by it's own structure and yet completely liberated from it. The entire concept is a paradox that makes perfect sense. It uses every superhero cliche and is not caught in any cliche. Simply put, it is brilliant writing and well deserved of all the accolades heaped upon it. Alan Moore is the Einstein of the comic book world. Stan Lee, Bob Kane, Jack Kirby, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster may have created the medium, but Alan Moore matured it into adulthood.
The movie was very good. Long and slavish in detail to the comic book. Slavish to the point where it was like watching a visual comic book. WATCHMEN never took on a life of it's own as a feature film. DARK KNIGHT is both a classic Batman story in structure, yet completely inhabits it's own world as a standout feature film. What I thought while watching, is that this movie, done properly, would have won an Academy Award for Best Picture, but not this version. It makes me wonder what Chris Nolan would have done with WATCHMEN.
That's not to say that Zac Synder's movie isn't very good, it is. As a comic book fan, I really enjoyed it. The story's depth remains with me after watching the film. Mr. Synder is a brilliant visual filmmaker. He is the greatest of what I would define as the generation of filmmakers about to come out of the video game industry. And if Mr. Synder is a preview of what directing from that "school" will be like, the movie going experience will be visually unprecidented in scope and action. As someone who works for the studio, I was mildly disappointed. It's a fan film that will not attract the broader general audience to see the film in the way that DARK KNIGHT did. It will open huge and make a lot of money, but it not a billion dollars. I think Warner Bros. is doing a good job marketing the film into an event, but the marketing is not really preparing the audience for what the film is at heart to the general public - and that's a detective story - the foundation of all comics. I have not yet seen any studio successfully market a murder mystery, but that hasn't been done since Agatha Christie films. Studios don't make murder mystery films anymore, just the murder part (horror - which itself has simply declined into repetitive torture genre films).
There are 2 unrelated points I want to make. 1. As exciting as both DARK KNIGHT & WATCHMEN are, I still like heroes with superpowers. Smart guys who make suits (Iron Man, Batman) are fine. I get the appeal, but give me a mutant any day. In my mind, you're not a superhero if you don't have powers. And 2. Everyone should go back and rewatch movies and reread books they read when they were children or teenagers. When I see a movie that I loved as a kid, it takes on a whole new and deeper meaning for me as an adult.
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