Wick's Review

Summary - OK 2.5

It’s a big movie with a lot on its mind: Mostly that heroes are often seriously flawed and therefore institutions are intrinsically untrustworthy. But also that five out of six superheros are men, and the token female must dress as a dominatrix – with a bad costume in the case of Watchmen’s Silk Spectre II.

Watchmen plays as the evil twin of The Incredibles: has-been superheros get enticed back into action to save the world. While the ambitions are much higher here than in Pixar’s light entertainment, the deeper messages are disappointing: less mature, more adolescent. This makes the movie – while never uninteresting – as much a slog as an entertainment.

Acting - Very Good 3.5

Jackie Earl Haley gives the movie’s one outstanding performance as Rorschach. This guy plays edgy freaks as well as they’ve ever been played, e.g., his devious child molester in Little Children.

Patrick Wilson, Haley’s fellow Little Children star, delivers his patented diffident nice guy shtick. Given that he’s got the best costume, is a studly avenger, has the hottest ride and a super-hot superhero girlfriend, what’s there to be diffident about? Man up Dude.

Carla Guigino, great in a role that could easily have dipped into parody, demonstrates real range to go with her mature sex appeal.

Malin Ackerman disappoints as the token female superhero. Notwithstanding the striking impression she makes in her spiked heels and unflattering vinyl costume, her wooden line readings are damn near Keanu-esque: Her face barely moves, marking her as more model than performer. Fortunately much of her screen time consists of getting fondled and fucked by her disappointing superhero lovers. The Blue Man Group-sex scene was particularly amusing. Nice to see that proto-deities don’t understand women any better than we mortal men.

Jeffery Dean Morgan, looking like an American Javier Bardem, delivers a manly performance as the repellent Comedian. This actor deserves more roles.

Mathew Goode plays way too fey for my taste, but it did suit his role as “the smartest man in the world.”

Billy Crudup has barely any screen time in normal guise, and made little impression when he was on screen. His huge Blue Man, OTOH, was both overwhelming and overly passive. Take a stand dude!

Film - OK 2.5

Adolescently self-serious, supernaturally inconsistent, and visually hit-or-miss, Watchmen compares unfavorably to recent comik benchmarks like The Dark Knight and Iron Man.

Edge - Sordid 2.6

Attempted rape, wanton killing of innocents, war crimes: The movie revels in its indecency.

Reality - Fantasy 4.2

Watchmen’s left wing existentialism posits that America required a band of amoral superheroes to stand up to the Soviet Union. The flaws of the Watchmen, some of whom are prone to war crimes, suggests a moral equivalence between the US and the USSR. In short, flawed superhero exceptionalism stands in for authentic American exceptionalism.

Funny how history played differently: Ronald Reagan (aided by Maggie Thatcher, Lech Walesa and John Paul II) defeated Soviet Socialism with nary a ripple in the space-time continuum. Guess that makes them real life Watchmen, sans the moral tarnish. Of course, Watchmen author Alan Moore no doubt believes that the leaders of the Western World were and are covered in moral tarnish, a view never more in vogue than during the Reagan years when Moore wrote Watchmen. To amplify that notion he places the proto-fascist Richard Nixon as the ongoing US President. However, the fact that the Cold War ended with a whimper and not a nuclear holocaust is an inconvenient truth that damages the story’s thesis.

More practically, Watchmen is far from state-of-the-art in supernatural consistency. While guns and other weapons are often present, most fights conclude via fisticuffs, clearly to heighten the caped crusader drama of the thing. But why stop there? Bring back the BAM, POW, CRASH of the Adam West Batman series.

7 Comments

• MJ5K Mar 3, 2010 6:11PM

  Regarding Wick’s Review
  You thought the visuals were bad, Wick? Visually, this film was amazing, IMO. Sure, some of the costumes looked a little cheesy but the CGI on Nite Owl’s ship, the Vietnam war scene, and Dr. Manhattan’s Mars fortress were pretty cool, at least I thought.

• Spaceghost Mar 22, 2009 8:38AM

  Regarding Wick’s Review
  The more I talk to people about this movie, the more I wonder if my love of it comes from knowing the source material so well. Those who have read the comic seem to love the movie, those who have not seem to dislike or not even understand what happens. Wick talks about the adolescent nature of the ideas, but in my head that’s a good thing. The large point of Watchmen is to dissect the adolescent nature of comics and superheroes in general.

  Wish I could separate my head from the comic on this one and be a bit more objective.

• Wick Mar 15, 2009 1:57PM

  Regarding Wick’s Review
  Sorry for the buzzkill dudes, but I found the movie as flawed as its heroes. Happy I saw it though. Sure was interesting.

• Wick Mar 10, 2009 9:19PM

  Regarding Snackula’s Review
  Best review line yet: “the end result is a bit pulpy and mashed, as if a giant squid were laying on top of it.”

• Fire at Will! Mar 7, 2009 10:59PM

  Thanks Spaceghost – I had been waiting for this film for a while, so I felt it justified a good one! Yours is brilliant though – especially your points regarding adaptation at the start. We disagree on the music, but then reviews are subjective! It’s excellent that we’ve been able to see a film such as this and feel so passionate about it.

• Spaceghost Mar 7, 2009 7:31AM

  Regarding willjros’s Review
  Fantastic review on this one Willjros. I disagree to an extent on the music, but otherwise very good descriptions all around.

• Wick Mar 6, 2009 7:26AM

  Regarding John A Massie’s Review
  Congrats to Massie for posting the first review of Watchmen. As someone who hasn’t read the comik, I’m very much looking forward to the seeing the movie, especially after reading this review.

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