Who Watches The Watchmen (Movie)? Answer: You Should

Written by: Big Ross, CC2K Staff Writer

       SPOILER ALERT!!!!         SPOILER ALERT!!!!        SPOILER ALERT!!!!!        SPOILER ALERT!!!!

Okay, still with me?  Good.  Here we go.  If you've read the novel you know that Veidt is responsible for Blake's murder, and serves as the story's antagonist as he carries out a plan to prevent global nuclear war.  To accomplish this he has a team of experts construct a lifeless, genetic monstrosity that he teleports into the heart of New York City.  It's arrival unleashes a psychic shockwave that kills millions and leaves survivors convinced that Earth has and will continue to be invaded by aliens.  The Cold War ends, the world unites in peace and common purpose: to defend themselves against a common enemy.  While Veidt's intentions remain intact, the execution of his plan changes from the novel to the film.

A while back CC2k reviewed two very different scripts for a Watchmen movie, neither remotely satisfying to a fan of the source material.  It seems that Snyder has integrated the good from both, thrown out the bad, and gone back to the source for direction and inspiration, something else he should be commended for doing.  With respect to the story's climax, one script by David Hayter had Veidt threatening the world with some kind of sun laser that he used to coerce worldwide peace, and the other by Alexander Tse had Veidt trick Dr. Manhattan into artificially replicating his own energy under the guise of providing a clean, endless energy source for the world, only to the use it as a weapon to trick the world into thinking Dr. Manhattan had attacked humanity.  Snyder abandoned the original alien invasion concept in favor of Tse's idea of Manhattan as enemy of the world.  And to be honest, I like the decision.  Granted I sort of condemned this change as Tse wrote it, but thankfully Snyder took the best parts and presented them in a much better way than Tse had envisioned.  But the bottom line is that it works, and in my opinion it works on several levels. 

1. There just isn't any more room in the film to introduce the slow progression of Veidt's plan as it transpires in the novel.  The pieces are already in place to setup Veidt using and tricking Manhattan, so why not go that route? 
2. This development plays up the idea of the superman manifest within society by posing the question, "what would happen if a super-being turned on us?"  It also fits nicely into Dr. Manhattan's decision to leave the galaxy at the end of the story, almost forcing his hand just as Dan and Laurie have no real choice but to live with Veidt's actions.
3. This might get me flamed again, but isn't the idea of a giant, tentacled behemoth sort of tired, and well…lame?  I mean, how many times has one of these shown up in a movie?  Hellboy.  Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.  The Mist.  And those are just in the last few years.  And tricking the world into thinking there's an alien invasion?  I know it worked for Orson Welles in 1938, but regardless of how serious the tone is in the novel, I can't help but think that this is something that would elicit laughs instead of shock from most movie-goers.    

And that's about it for this review.  Is Zack Snyder's Watchmen a completely faithful adaptation of Moore's work? Of course not.  But while it may deviate here and omit there, it remains faithful in tone and spirit throughout.  Watchmen is a better film than his previous comic adaptation (300), and I think it can sit proudly among Spider-Man 2, X2, and Batman Begins as one of the best comic book-inspired films ever made. As to whether or not the film manages to follow in its source material's footsteps and cross genre boundries to become a truly great film period, I leave that to critics more qualified than I to judge.  Regardless, whether you're a fan of movies or comic books, don't miss out on watching the Watchmen.