Watch the Watchmen

Watchmen is big and gorgeous with plenty to say and the
misanthropic chutzpa to say it. Rarely has such a fully realized
alternative future reached fruition on the big screen. I gloried
in the opening montage where cherished cultural touchstones
were embraced even as they were twisted and perverted. I
howled inside when Alfred Eisenstaedt’s famous “V-J Day in
Times Square” photograph was subverted by the sailor being
replaced by the super butch super heroine Silhouette (Apollonia
Vanova). The use of such hoary but hilarious devices as the
ersatz but dead nuts on John McLaughlin Group (featuring a
faux Elenor Clift and a fake ass Pat Buchanan) to advance
story and provide context is inspired. Every frame of the
movie is chocked full of information (if ever a movie would
reward frequent viewing, Watchmen is it).

Watchmen is the movie The Dark Knight is reputed to be.
While The Dark Knight is just a big fat comic book, Watchmen
is true to its lineage as the first graphic novel to win the Hugo
award. And while I loved it, that is not necessarily a good thing.
A real movie about real guys in tights, Watchmen doesn’t show
any inclination to don super suits. Which is kind of a problem,
this being a superhero movie and the first rule of Superhero
Club is to dispense with the exposition and cut to the chase.
Not only does Watchmen violate that rule, it trammels it,
exposition leaking out of every sweaty, blood soaked pore.

Built on the simplest and most sturdy of narrative chassis,
Watchmen opens with a splashy murder and then follows
a sad sack detective - Jackie Earle Haley in fedora and
rumpled trench coat - on a lonely but relentless search
for the truth and justice (if not the American Way).
Haley is a revelation as Rorschach the human ink blot.
He inhabits his deeply flawed, psychologically damaged
but relentlessly “moral” avenger with a steely humanity
that is often thrilling. His one man against many stance
while incarcerated is an exhilarating set piece. His mission
statement: “I am not in prison with them; they are in
prison with ME!” is tattooed on my consciousness. In
many ways Haley’s performance is as impressive as
Health Ledger’s turn as the Joker in The Dark Knight.

Equally impressive is Jeffrey Dean Morgan as the
Comedian and Billy Crudup as Dr. Manhattan. The
blue-skinned Dr. Manhattan is a marvelous construct
and Morgan’s sweaty, hormone oozing, cigar chomping,
pure id performance as an opportunistic soldier of
fortune with a heart of lead is the messy glue that
holds this dystopian narrative together. The duplicity
and complicity of Morgan’s character both informs and
illuminates. His and Dr. Manhattan’s jingoistic stomp
through the killing fields of Viet Nam won my heart
and my mind.

At its core, Watchmen is a Superman movie where
Lex Luthor (Matthew Goode as Ozymandias, the smartest
human on earth) wins. It also takes the notion of the all
powerful superhuman to its inevitable conclusion. And,
frankly, it’s more than a little disconcerting.