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Last Updated: Apr 16th, 2009 - 18:29:24 |
I suppose it’s fair to say that cynics need superheroes too.
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| The Comedian is a not-so-funny, brutish superhero in "Watchmen." |
This sad conclusion is the best that I can offer about “Watchmen,” the new big-budget, rambling (nearly three hours) movie based on the popular graphic novel of the same name. Set primarily during the 1970’s and 80’s, when in actuality the Cold War between the U.S. and The Soviet Union was waning, the meandering plot takes as its backdrop the threat of global annihilation from nuclear weapons and the foolish game of chicken played with missiles in Washington and Moscow.
These two decades also mark the waning years for a group of superheroes called The Watchmen, who enjoyed their heyday during the 1930’s and 40’s. When a member of the group, The Comedian, is murdered, another group member, Rorschach, begins to investigate the death. That investigation leads Rorschach and other Watchmen to uncover a bigger plot with global implications.
In between these two points in the film, the saga of the Watchmen unwinds with grand cinematic style that would be expected of the director of “300” (the racist epic based on the Battle of Thermopylae between the Spartans and the Persian Army). In “Watchmen, this prologue and series of flashbacks offers director Zack Snyder's selective version about the general worldview of the Watchmen and alpha personalities emerge.
Chief among the alphas is the Comedian, a right-wing brute and a naked vigilante. He beats and tries to rape Silk Spectre, the female member of the group and, based on this plot, he is the one who really murders President John F. Kennedy in November of 1963. He beats and shoots down street protesters during the 1970’s (one of the few times that people of color appear in the film. Another scene is at a prison.) who are, to him, just the scum of society. The other alpha is Ozymandias, who evolves into a corporate giant and espouses green technology and an end to the arms race. Perhaps a third alpha, mainly because he is bright blue in color, is Dr. Manhattan, a scientist who was transformed by a nuclear accident in a government laboratory.
After Comedian’s death, Rorschach seems to fill his shoes with a street tough demeanor. He despises drug users, criminals and seems to lump progressives into this seamy category as well. For much of the movie, Rorschach carries the banner for the Watchmen and it is through his actions and the flashbacks that we get a flavor for their legacy, which is often disturbing. Snyder marginalizes those parts of the book's narrative that warn against intolerance and racism. The Black character included in the book is omitted from the movie altogether.
Without giving away anything more about the movie, let’s just say that, in the end, the real game of global annihilation is played out not by governments but in the Watchmen’s own backyard. Though the movie cheerleads throughout for the most fascist and brutish characters, in the end it suggests quietly that on the political spectrum both the left and right are dangerous (and that anarchists and existentialists are dangerous too—but, more often, are irrelevant). The quiet support of the "center," represented by Watchmen who are not alpha personalities, is not given the cinematic oomph that is given to brutality. And the lessons of love so omnipresent in the book get lost amid the cynicism.
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