Watchmen (2009)

March 3, 2025 8:42 AM

In a gritty and alternate 1985, the glory days of costumed vigilantes have been brought to a close by a government crackdown. But after one of the masked veterans is brutally murdered, an investigation into the killer is initiated. The reunited heroes set out to prevent their own destruction, but in doing so they uncover a sinister plot that puts all of humanity in grave danger.

Posting this mostly because it's another "no one's posted this on FF yet?" kind of thing. The film had been in development hell for nearly two decades (with Terry Gilliam and Tim Burton among those considered to direct) before Zack Snyder finally got the job. It underperformed at the box office and got so-so reviews, but Snyder nevertheless ended up getting to do a bunch of other movies for DC/Warner Bros. before the DCEU was shut down.

posted by Halloween Jack (32 comments total)

This adaptation fell so flat for me - its slavish dedication to recreating (most of) the panel framing and dialog completely missed the point that the original was a deeply metatextual deconstruction of 'superhero comics' as a whole. The performances seemed wooden, and while the one of the comics core themes is the trauma and horror of actual 'comic book' violence, Snyder seemed to overtly fetishize that same violence in his presentation. If I never have to see another fast-slow cam "look how cool it is when this guy gets hit" Snyder shot, it will be too soon...
posted by FatherDagon at 9:53 AM on March 3 [20 favorites]

Yeah it was a weird thing that it was a very accurate representation of the comic other than swapping giant space squid for Dr M and thus really boring because anyone who loved the book already knew what would happen.

The Philip Glass backed scene on Mars between Laurie and Dr M is still chilling, but otherwise yeah. The TV series tho is fantastic.
posted by kokaku at 10:17 AM on March 3 [3 favorites]

This movie ruined Jeff Buckley’s cover of “Hallelujah” for me and my wife. It’s only in the past six months that we’ve been able to listen to it again.
posted by thecaddy at 10:21 AM on March 3 [5 favorites]

FatherDagon's take is right where I land as well. Most of us, I would guess. Well said.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:11 AM on March 3 [2 favorites]

I saw this in the theater with an audience that laughed uproariously at every bit of violence or sex, including the attempted rape. It was deeply disorienting.
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:23 AM on March 3 [3 favorites]

Although this movie is bad, and the DCU films Snyder made are also bad, they are mostly bad because they stand as the official adaptations of, respectively, perhaps the most acclaimed graphic novel of all time, and some of the most iconic characters in modern American culture. By which I mean to say, if this movie had been Teh Watchmanz, a weird film that kind of parodied Watchmen or something, it might have been easier to appreciate it for the bizarre, campy thing that it is, whether anything about how strange it is was done on purpose, or is just the product of a filmmaker who just kind of flies by the seat of his pants and does stuff. I think what makes Zack Snyder interesting as a filmmaker is that he has a lot of propulsive power, a lot of raw energy; in comics terms, he's more of a Rob Liefeld than an Alan Moore or a Dave Gibbons. Rob Liefeld's Watchmen is a comic I would enjoy reading, I think, but I would have a hard time taking it seriously as a companion to the real thing.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 11:24 AM on March 3 [7 favorites]

As FatherDagon said above, a big part of the problem is that when a work of art is inherently a critique/re-evaluation of a medium, taking its plot at face value and simply transferring those events to another medium is doomed from the jump.

I feel like the TV show worked so well because it transferred the criticism, the meta aspects, and the dense symbolism to TV, into a work that then re-evaluated and critiqued screen superheroes, rather than simply repeating the events from the book in live action. They took the ethos, not the plot.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:29 AM on March 3 [6 favorites]

I think the ending to this works better than the giant squid would have on film.

Bears considering that this is the high point of Snyder's career. It's better than Rebel Moon, that's for sure.
posted by biffa at 11:58 AM on March 3 [1 favorite]

in comics terms, he's more of a Rob Liefeld

That is an excellent way of describing him! I hadn't made the mental link between things like Liefeld's rightly-mocked Captain America and the weird orgy of destruction at the end of Man Of Steel, but the analogy holds up incredibly well to my mind.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 12:16 PM on March 3 [2 favorites]

I agree that the film ending actually somehow improves on the original which is baffling considering the ham-handedness of the rest of the adaptation.
posted by Eddie Mars at 12:30 PM on March 3 [2 favorites]

I think the ending to this works better than the giant squid would have on film.

The tenor of the ending is completely different, though. Book Veldt intended the squid to unite humanity by exposing it to "alien" beings that may or may not have intended the incursion to be an attack; Film Veldt stages it to look like Doctor Manhattan has transformed into a vengeful god and therefore aims to untie humanity by ... having them all cower in fear before the same deity.

It looks better on film than the squid could have at the time (though the sequel series handled it pretty well?), but I really don't like the "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" tone.
posted by thecaddy at 12:39 PM on March 3

Veidt

But I'll abide untie
posted by ginger.beef at 12:52 PM on March 3 [1 favorite]

I thought the opening scene was excellent. I prefer to think that the rest of the film never got made, but someday might.

I loved the TV series, including for the way it understood the original text and extrapolated from it, rather than treating it as sacred (even going so far as to recontextualize Hooded Justice? Yes, and; yes, please.)

This, though? [sigh]
posted by johnofjack at 1:00 PM on March 3 [4 favorites]

Has anyone watched the animated adaptations dropping on HBO? They're supposed to be rather faithful, again, but the person overseeing the adaptation is J. Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5 fame).

This film encapsulated a lot of what Snyder suffers from, spectacle versus substance. It's one reason why his one animated film (about owls) is actually fairly entertaining because it's a medium designed from the get go to use visuals to tell a story. I absolutely agree about the performances being wooden or just the lack of energy. He may have been so busy recreating that panel from Moore's work he forgot that he had medium where energy and motion is expressed. Honestly, Snyder probably could make a pretty good silent film if he tried his hand at it.

I agree with johnofjack about the beginning, it's pretty captivating, but it didn't require the structure of a full feature film. He could go from point a to point c without much more than just showing a different image, while leaning heavily into "Hallelujah."

And to complete the dogpile, the show was magnificent.
posted by Atreides at 2:00 PM on March 3

I think the show was kinda hit and miss, to be honest; stuff like the Hooded Justice episode was good, but I don't care for the character assassination of Veidt (apparently a semi-competent dumbass with delusions of grandeur), and the ending is a hot mess. It's funny, because the book is a remarkably unified work despite its million plotlines, and the show is more kind of a "how much shit can I throw at this wall" affair. That said, it's at least an attempt to make television, as opposed to shooting a comic book.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 2:38 PM on March 3

Snyder probably could make a pretty good silent film if he tried his hand at it.

His director's cut of Justice League isn't silent... but it is an academy ratio black and white film in which virtually all important moments are communicated by exquisitely framed beautiful faces pantomiming big feelings against huge swells of orchestral music. There's dialogue but it doesn't matter, generally.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 3:45 PM on March 3 [2 favorites]

Yeah it was a weird thing that it was a very accurate representation of the comic other than swapping giant space squid for Dr M and thus really boring because anyone who loved the book already knew what would happen.

Well, that and some little stuff like adding a bit with Nite-Owl beating up an unresisting Ozymandias near the end of the film. Again, it's spectacle and violence replacing more challenging subtext.
posted by kewb at 6:25 PM on March 3

I never read the comic. The film wasn't great, but I loved this delivery by Rorschach: None of you seem to understand. I'm not locked in here with you. You're locked in here with *ME*!
posted by obol at 12:07 AM on March 4 [1 favorite]

I was really annoyed by the changed ending when I first saw the movie, and I'm still annoyed, because I don't think the premise works.

The reason that the fake giant squid alien in the book unites all of humanity is that it's an alien -- an unknown enemy from beyond, who is unambiguously an external threat to all of mankind.

Dr Manhattan used to be a guy -- an American guy! -- with human motivations and allegiances, and has been working for the US government for a long time.

I absolutely don't buy that if Dr Manhattan went rogue and started destroying cities it would unite humanity in the same way, even if the city that was destroyed was New York. He's a guy! Who worked for the US government! There would be endless speculation over whether he was secretly working for one of the powers in service of some convoluted conspiracy, everyone would blame everyone else, and it would probably accelerate a global conflict.
posted by confluency at 12:33 AM on March 4 [3 favorites]

I started hating this movie during the opening credits. The comic book Watchmen quoted at least two Bob Dylan songs -- "Desolation Row" and "All Along the Watchtower" -- and they use "The Times They Are A'Changin'"?!
posted by Gelatin at 6:19 AM on March 4

The tenor of the ending is completely different, though. Book Veldt intended the squid to unite humanity by exposing it to "alien" beings that may or may not have intended the incursion to be an attack

Which Moore cribbed from the Outer Limits episode "The Architects of Fear," which he lampshades by having that episode play on a TV in the background of the final issue.

A superhero going rogue was much better considered in Irredeemable (and no, the nations of the world didn't unite against him; they competed with each other to suck up to him).
posted by Gelatin at 7:38 AM on March 4

Swapping out the squid makes Veidt less crazy. This lot put on fancy dress costumes and go out and beat people up; they're all nutters, and Veidt's the biggest headbanger of them all. Post 9/11, especially, we know that his plan in the movie is stupid and doomed to failure, but it's not insane like the squid plan.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 7:41 AM on March 4

Well, in the book, Veidt's plan works. It is clear to the reader (we see Nixon in the war room) that the world is indeed about to end in a nuclear war, pretty much any day. Veidt heads that off. I don't think 9/11 is a good parallel to anything in the story, but it is worth noting that there was indeed a fair amount of peaceful accord with the US in the wake of 9/11, that the US quickly blew straight out of its ass.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 8:53 AM on March 4

Well, in the book, Veidt's plan works.

...at first.

"'In the end?' Nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends."

"I leave it entirely in your hands."
posted by Gelatin at 8:56 AM on March 4 [1 favorite]

Unfortunately, one world's smartest man can only hold back the flood tide of billions of stupid people temporarily, lol.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:28 AM on March 4 [1 favorite]

Following on thecaddy's comment, that scene backed by "Hallelujah" was particularly painful. And, it was immediately followed by Silk Spectre throwing up in a toilet. At first I thought the jump cut might have been a clever bit of meta-commentary, but then I remembered this was a Snyder film.
posted by abraxasaxarba at 3:30 PM on March 4

Snyder is such a useless hack. All those fights scenes of people punching through brick walls. The whole point of Watchmen was that they were just normal human beings... until Doctor Manhattan came along.

The reason that the fake giant squid alien in the book unites all of humanity is that it's an alien -- an unknown enemy from beyond, who is unambiguously an external threat to all of mankind.

Because Snyder is a hack, he did not understand the source material at all. He merely viewed the dialogue as a convenient way to segue between actions scenes. I truly do not get how he still gets hired for for anything.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 6:57 PM on March 4 [2 favorites]

I kind of liked this, like the fetishistic violence felt like a commentary even if unwitting.

What i couldn't abide was putting that world-endingly good closing line ("'In the end?' Nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends.") into reported dialogue. Also casting an obvious weaselly villain-lookin dude as Adrian Veidt, rather than an open-faced ubermensch guy as in the comics.
posted by Sebmojo at 5:41 PM on March 5

I thought that the casting was all over the map. Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Jackie Earle Haley seemed to have been born to play the Comedian and Rorschach, and I thought that Billy Crudup and Patrick Wilson (Doctor Manhattan, Nite Owl) were also good, but Malin Åkerman seems to play Laurie as a teenager even when she's in her mid-to-late thirties, and Matthew Goode is channeling Jeremy Irons from one of his more risible paycheck movies. (I thought that the TV series casting Irons as the elderly Ozymandias was a very sly in-joke.) As for the movie itself, it was an ambitious failure, although it had its moments; the opening credits montage worked for me in summarizing many of the lengthy text pieces from the comics (and had a sly joke of its own in that the first Nite Owl punching out a mugger that was preying on a family coming out of a theater suggests that Hollis Mason averted Bruce Wayne becoming Batman), and I do think that the altered plot does make a bit more sense (although, again, the TV show cleverly played off of the original plot by requiring Veidt to regularly send down random rains of little squids to maintain the deception). But Snyder never uses a scalpel when he can find an excuse to bring in a jackhammer, and a lot of the subtlety of the book gets lost. Early on, when the Comedian is fighting his killer, one of them punches straight through a granite countertop, and that sort of overkill keeps cropping up.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:59 AM on March 6

TBH I think the recent animated adaptation, while better than this, leaves a lot to be desired...but its depiction of the squid is pretty great (it's still alive for a while!!), and more than convinced me that a good live action version would have worked. I've never really been sure why people think it wouldn't have -- the sheer fact of the creature makes the threat it presents undeniable. Also, the book makes it clear that Shea and other creators were tasked with creating "visions" of an alien world that were beamed directly into survivors' brains when the squid died. There's no real question that it is what it seems to be.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:51 PM on March 7

I started hating this movie during the opening credits.

Yeah I thought pinning the whole JFK thing onto the Comedian was way out of line - yeah, he could be a creepy asshole but he wasn't that creepy. Not in the original, anyway.
posted by Rash at 8:12 PM on March 10

The "JFK thing" came from a couple of throwaway lines in the original graphic novel. Someone asks Edward Blake at a party about Woodward and Bernstein being found dead in a parking garage, and Blake denies knowing anything, then (in a joking manner) says "just don't ask where I was when I heard about JFK." Later, Veidt says about Blake, "Know what? He was in Dallas, minding Nixon, the day Kennedy died. Nobody's sure why Nixon was there." It's a historical fact that Nixon was indeed there on 11/22/63, but it's very well known why he was there--there was a Pepsi bottlers' convention in town at the same time and he was working for Pepsi as an attorney. Moore would later repeat this fact (Nixon being in town, not the explanation) in Brought to Light, a graphic novel by him and Bill Sienkiewicz that's sort of a grand unified theory of American conspiracies based mostly on the work of the Christic Institute.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:34 AM on March 15 [1 favorite]