FILM REVIEW – WATCHMEN (2009)
Long anticipated, and it
doesn’t diosapoint despite a troubled history in Development Hell, and claims
by Terry Gillaim that it was ‘unfilmable’ – It seems a long time since I have
been this blown away by a new film. The opening credit sequence alone is
stunning with characters interacting with historic figures and changing some
aspects of modern history. The
Comedian, the hero who sees life itself as a sick joke, is seen on the grassy
knoll as Kennedy is asssinated, clearly helping in the killing. Other figures
seen in the period montage are Trumone Capote and Andy Warhol.
This is a very bleak look at
the nature of the costumed hero, rendering them often indistinguishable from
the vlllains they fight, as they set national interests and their own ideals
before their morals.
This is never more so thatn
with The Comedian, who is killed as the film begins, and Rorsharch, the one
character who is even more embittered and jaded.
Rorsharch, never comfortable
without a mask covered in shifting Rorsharch ink-blot psychiatry tests,
provides the main Film Noir framing narration of the film, as he conducts his
investigation into the murder and tries to warn and protect fellow heroes from
a potential killer.
Officially, the Watchmen are
off duty, as costumed avengers have been banned by US law. Rorsharch was never
able to bring himself to stop, and he works on, a fugitive in his own field,
hero and seriel killer combined.
His first warning goes to
Adrian Veldt, a former Watchman who has freely revealed his identity to the
World, and now works as a genius and science project funding millionaire
entrepenuer. He has an Alexander The
Great fixation.
Rorsharch goes on to warn the
equally retired but young and beautiful Silk Spectrre 2 (named after her
Mother, the first Silk Spectre, one of a an earlier generation of heroes, who
have mostly died off. Silk Spectre One had been attacked in an abortive rape
attempt by The Comedian. (a scene captured in brutal flashback),
Silk Spectre Two, played by the
stunning Malin Maria Akerman, (who resembles a young Lucy Lawless) is torn
between two men, Doc Manhatten, the only true Superhero in the film, and the
forcibly retired Night Owl, (also a descendent of a hero from a previous
generation.
Billy Crudup’s Doc Manhatten is
the most charaismatic figure in the film, turned into a hero by a nuclear
experiment gone wrong, he is bordering on God like in power, able to melt
matter and energy and move to Mars in a heartbeat if he wishes. He is so taken by the inner atomic energy
and time patterns he sees that he is becoming alienated from the humanity he tries to serve.
As a hero, Doc Manhatten was unleashed
in Vietnam, bringing about a US victory, and earniing Nixon athird term of
office. In serving Nixon, TheWatchmen had also got ridof woodford &
Berssteien, the reporters responsible for cracking the watergate scandal.
Thanks to America still using
Doc Manhatten as their supreme weapon, the Russians see to be on the brinkof
launching a nuclear attack on the States.
Itistherefore a bad toime for someone to start killingthe costumeheroes,
and Rorsharch begins to uncover a direct connection between the two
situations. Unfortunately, he is
arrested, and sent to jail, where he haslost his mask, but not his ability to
slaughter his many enemies (mostiof the inmates being men he has helped put
away).
As Night Owl & Silk Spectre
2 discover that making love is improved by donningtheir fetishisistic costumes
and performing heroics, they decide to spring rorsharch from jail,
thoughtheyarrive to find he has pretty well managed it by himself, killing his
enemies (even flushing a dwarf down the tolet). The team need only onemore ally, Doc Manhatten, who has exiled
himself to Mars in shock after being falslyaccusedof hgiving cancxer to
everyone who worked with him in the past. Silk Spectre 2 ends up onars with
him, where she uncovers a shocking truth from herown past, and yet persuades
Manhatten to come home, unaware that his very arival could spark a tragedy and
a moral dilemna the heroes haveno easy solutions for. The key to everything
lies with the relatively silent hero, Ozymandius.
Almost everything about the
film is pretty near pitchperfect. The performances are wonderful, and the
soundtrack is very apt, with music by Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel, and Jimi
Hendrix (All Along The Watchtower could hardlybeleft out really). The only anacronistic song is Nena’s 99 Red
Ballons, which, though it has an anti-nuclear message, post dates the period
covered by the film. Night Owl &
Silk Spectremaking love to Halleluliah is very funny, and there is a very corny
gag in the Veirtnam scenes as
TheApocolypse Now use of Wagner’s Ride Of The Valkeries is replayed over Doc
Manhatten’s decimation of the Vietcong.
Richard Nixon is well played
too, though his prosthetic nose may be either very silly, or pssobly a
satirical way of comparing him to Pinocchio in his tendency to tell lies a
great deal of the time.
These heroes are far from
totally heroic, apart from Night Owl & Silk Spectre. The Commedian is a rapist,
and a murderer, cheerfully killing a Veitnamese girl as she tells him he has
made her pregnant, and chastising Doc Manhhatten for standing back to watch
without helping her. As for Rorsharch,
- well he is just something else, an extra-ordinary figure in a truly
mind-jolting film that screams out for multiple viewing.
There is a lot of sex and
violence here, and it works well. Doc Manahatten’s fullfrontal nudity is likely
to please many (especialy on I-Max giant screen showings), while Rorshark’s
decimation of the prison population is teeth clenchingly brutal, but stunning
to watch. A classic by any definiton.
Arthur Chappell
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