Watchmen. THE Review.

Watchmen.

So I watched it. No pun intended. In fact I watched it at the IMAX near Waterloo. I'd never been there before, despite repeated attempts to find a decent time to watch The Dark Knight there. And it was pretty spectacular - well worth a visit if you've never been there. 

And in fairness, the film was not bad at all. In fact, had I not read the novel, then I would think that it was a pretty bloody awesome. It has a real epic sway to it, and look stunning. The visual effects (and this was always going to be a FX heavy film) were grand - without ever becoming obtrusive. It was impressive, it really was.

Of course, most people will have caught the caveat in the above paragraph. "Had I not read the novel..." I have read the novel. Many times. I think it is a stunning piece of writing, and great novel in its own right. It is also a detailed, intricate piece of work that needs to be re-read and continuously digested. Simple it ain't. And like many highly complex and detailed novels, it will always be difficult to put it up on the big screen. 

The film does try. Visually, it is very close to the source material. There are no real compromises with the costumes, and many of the frames of the original comic are recreated 100% on the screen. It looks like a labour of love, and the picture exudes a real desire to be faithful - if not reverential - to the graphic novel. This also applies to the script. It sounds like comic book, with pieces of dialogue lifted directed from the panels of the original. It even recreates the more obscure elements of the novel, such as the ongoing Nixon Presidency. The film also recreates the 1980's realistically - almost to the point of being utterly anal about it. The director, and everyone else in the film, clearly wanted to be faithful to the original, and also wanted to make the legions of Watchmen. 

Which, for me, is at the nub of the problem. The film tries to faithfully reproduce a novel that is far to broad and deep for the confines of a commercially released film. You just can't do it justice, even within the vast run time of this picture. Reviewing the film in my mind, it becomes clear that it felt like a hurried, rushed reproduction of the graphic novel. A photocopy of the comic. And like all photocopies, it loses something in the reproduction.

One of the joys of the graphic novel is the level of detail within it. It is a non-linear story that truly fits together like a jigsaw - a jigsaw where the pieces are revealed over a long period of time. The characters are all rounded, complete and flawed people. Even the minor players have back stories. And whilst the film gamely tries to reproduce all this on the silver screen, it fails. And instead we are left with characters who don't quite add up, and a plot that manages to simultaneously seem hurried yet dragged out. The film feels like a half-remembered dream - the dream, of course, being the original graphic novel.

To do the story - and the whole concept - justice, you simply need a longer run time. And I'm talking about six to eight hours, at least. So I think that Watchmen should have been produced as a mini-series. Done by someone like HBO, with a real sense that this is an important story that should be told. With a more sedate pace throughout the film/series, and with a real chance to let everything evolve as it does in the graphic novel, the ending would become so much more compelling. And we would have cared about all the characters by the end, regardless of their flaws. I see the source material as a "slow burner" - and this is something that needed to be reflected in the screen adaptation. Of course, with a Hollywood action movie, that just couldn't happen.

The alternative is to take the basic ideas in Watchmen, mix them up, and make something recognisable but new with them. This idea would of course be complete sacrilege to legions of Watchmen fans out there, but with a simpler plot and fewer characters, you might actually end up with a far superior film. There is nothing wrong with taking the sentiments of a comic or a novel and moulding them into something more suitable for the Big Screen. It worked very well in Spiderman, The Dark Knight and Iron Man. Likewise, with novels like The Shining. Part of the problem with Watchmen was that is tried to change the medium of the story without really thinking what was the best way to represent the film within the both liberating and constricting confines of a live action film. 

Of course, you can level the charge that pretty much the whole of this review represents the rambling of a fanboy who wouldn't be happy if he had directed, written and played every single part in this film, and to some extent that is very true. And I'm not saying Watchmen is in anyway a bad film - quite the opposite in fact. It is probably the best Alan Moore adaptation I have ever seen (although this is damning with faint praise). But part of me feels that it could - and should - of been far more than it was. 

In summary, go see the film - it will be a worthwhile investment of both your time and money. But read the graphic novel first, because that is the true classic. And if you have a choice between reading the book and watching the film, I'd definitely do the former.