Greetings all and welcome to DEEP/DIVE: FilmBunker’s newest (and greatest) editorial series! Join us for a somewhat regular column, where we will skewer, dissect and gleefully over-analyse a wide selection of fine films without any real need for doing so, because ‘The Internet’. Said films may be approaching, or have surpassed, a particular retrospective milestone. They may have penetrated the cultural zeitgeist in a way that demands increased attention from neurotic and/or caffeine-riddled critics. Or they might just have, like, really dank memes. Whatever the reason, FilmBunker is ready to wade through a sea of hot takes and pop-up browser tabs in order to take the plunge.
Watchmen (2009)
Released: Feb 23 2009 (UK)/March 6 2009 (US)
Directed by: Zack Snyder
Runtime: 162 minutes (Theatrical Cut)
There’s a moment towards the end of the brilliant title sequence which opens 2009’s Watchmen, where the camera pulls back on a row of television sets, all displaying key aspects of the film’s alternate history version of 1985—the repeal of the 22nd Amendment governing term limits for the office of The President of the United States, Richard Nixon’s subsequent third term as U.S. President, and the outlawing of masked vigilantes—as a rioter emblazons a storefront window with blood-red graffiti, reading: ‘WHO WATCHES THE WATCHMEN?’ And before the viewer can fully grasp the implications of this curious question, American film director Zack Snyder’s name floats on screen for a few seconds, only to be engulfed by the all-consuming fireball of a Molotov cocktail. As far as title sequences go, the entire six-minute package is a masterclass of world-building, thematic resonance and visual storytelling, made all the more affecting through its pairing with Bob Dylan’s 1964 folk classic, “The Times They Are a-Changin”.
However, before I get side-tracked by meaningless production details and cultural touchstones, allow me to get a little ‘meta’ for a second. Because watching this film all over again caused me to pose a curious question of my own: ‘WHO WATCHES ZACK SNYDER’S WATCHMEN?’
Now, contrary to popular opinion, I would argue that Snyder was probably the best person to take a decent shot at adapting one of comic’s holy grails, in the form of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ 1987 limited series graphic-novel, Watchmen: a grim, satirical and dystopian riff on the superhero genre with an alternate history premise, focusing on a group of former American superheroes who get caught in the web of a deadly conspiracy after one of their own is brutally murdered. And believe it or not, there was indeed a time before Snyder turned the DCEU into his own grim-dark fantasy project, incurring the ire of comic-book nerds and regular film-goers with his “Martha’s” and his neutered colour palette and the abomination that is Henry Cavill’s CGI moustache. However, if we dial things all the way back to the early 2000s, Snyder’s career most definitely started out on an upward trajectory.
His 2004 feature debut was a remake of George A. Romero’s 1978 zombie classic Dawn of the Dead (no small feat in of itself), which took a ‘re-imagined’ concept and a screenplay from James Gunn (pre-Marvel fame) and turned it into a twenty-first-century horror classic. Not wanting to be outdone, his next project was equally ambitious. As an adaptation of Frank Miller’s 1998 comic series, 2006’s 300 became Snyder’s Hollywood calling card and went on to define much of his visual aesthetic and directing style for the next decade. Taking cues from Robert Rodriguez’s work on 2005’s revelatory Sin City, Snyder used the superimposition chroma key technique to replicate the look and feel of the comic, combining it with gratuitous, slow-motion long takes, rolling pans, borderline ridiculous dialogue (compounded by actor Gerard Butler’s thick Scottish accent as Spartan King Leonidas) and a sea of chiselled washboard abs. The result was loud, violent and dumb as a bag of rocks, but it also happened to be a cinematic experience that practically begged to be enjoyed on the biggest screen possible. As a pure, unadulterated visual spectacle, it blew past the expectations of Snyder’s harshest critics and set the stage for the air of hype and apprehension surrounding his next project.
After sitting in development hell for over twenty years, the prospect of a successful film adaptation of Watchmen was often mentioned in the same breath as other “unfilmable” works, such as John Milton’s Paradise Lost and Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian (get your dirty hands off it, Franco). Co-creator Alan Moore was always vehemently opposed to the idea of adapting his work to film. “There is something about the quality of comics that makes things possible that you couldn’t do in any other medium. Things that we did in Watchmen on paper could be frankly horrible or sensationalist or unpleasant if you were to interpret them literally through the medium of cinema,” Moore explains in a 2009 interview with The Guardian, shortly after the film’s release. “When it’s just lines on paper, the reader is in control of the experience – it’s a tableau vivant. And that gives it the necessary distance. It’s not the same when you’re being dragged through it at 24 frames per second.” At the time of the interview, Moore also admitted to not having seen the film, and even now, ten years on, it’s likely safe to say that he still hasn’t. So, the question now becomes: was (or, as cultural artefacts continue to persist in the present day, is) Watchmen actually any good? As a film, does is it live up to and venerate the lofty tradition maintained by the source material thirty years on from its publication?
More on my personal thoughts and reaction in a second, but what I can tell you is that upon release, opinions were heavily divided. The film garnered an R-rating due to scenes of strong violence, sexuality, nudity and coarse language, and when coupled with a hefty running time and ‘convoluted’ narrative, this appeared to polarise audiences. Reviewing for Variety, Justin Chang felt that film’s strict adherence to Moore and Gibbon’s established narrative and ideas, inhibited Snyder’s ability to tell an honest story and subvert existing tropes: “The movie is ultimately undone by its own reverence… Wavering between seriousness and camp, and absent the cerebral tone that gave weight to some of the book’s headier ideas, the film seems to yield to the very superhero clichés it purports to subvert.” Whereas esteemed critic Roger Ebert viewed the film in a more positive light, praising the film’s aesthetics and heady, philosophical underpinnings in his review: “It’s a compelling visceral film — sound, images and characters combined into a decidedly odd visual experience that evokes the feel of a graphic novel. It seems charged from within by its power as a fable; we sense it’s not interested in a plot so much as with the dilemma of functioning in a world losing hope… I’m not sure I understood all the nuances and implications, but I am sure I had a powerful experience.”
However, while these critical responses are representative of subversive and provocative works of fiction like Watchmen, they also help to explain the various prevailing cultural attitudes during the late 2000s, especially with regard to the intersection of contemporary cinema and the established legacy of comic-book franchises. By the early to mid-2000s, both the Spider-Man and X-Men franchises had already established film trilogies, priming uninitiated audiences to the tropes, narrative beats and costumed capers of archetypal superheroes. Then, 2008 saw the release of two highly influential films to the genre: Jon Favreau’s Ironman was a huge commercial success, finding its footing with audiences off the back of a tight script and Robert Downey Jr’s. charismatic performance, laying the groundwork for Marvel’s Cinematic Universe and eventual box-office dominance; while Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight turned inspiration from another of comic’s holy grails (Moore and Brian Bolland’s 1988 graphic novel The Killing Joke) into a stunning display of action as escalation and ethics in the face of outright chaos, not to mention an ultimately tragic yet career-defining turn from Heath Ledger as The Joker.
So, given that Watchmen was in continual development throughout the advent of this cinematic phenomenon, it seems to me that Snyder’s end result cannot be divorced from the environment that allowed it to finally translate to the big screen in the first place. In her preface to Watchmen as Literature: A Critical Study of the Graphic Novel, author Sara J. Van Ness writes, “Many of the reviewers used similar rhetorical strategies, ones that reflected their inability to separate the film from its various contexts: the original graphic-novel, Alan Moore’s writing in general, graphic-novel and comic-book fandom, and even other superhero films. When Snyder set out to create a film from source material to which he was clearly devoted, it appeared as though he was fighting a losing battle, as so many viewers were similarly invested in and passionate about the work.”
With all this in mind, I suppose I can now make my own feelings known. Seeing Watchmen in the cinema upon release as a burgeoning, wide-eyed young adult, I enjoyed the absolute shit out of it. And, surprise, I still do. Despite the superhero zeitgeist which has now permeated almost every aspect of popular culture ad nauseum, it still holds up as a well-executed and thought-provoking stand-alone film. It’s easily Snyder’s best film to date, and even now, from the rosy vantage point of 2019, it’s a film that causes me to ponder on just what exactly a dystopian, nightmare future might actually look like… After watching the film, I wanted to know more about Moore’s world, diving headfirst into the lore and backstory. I read the original graphic novel (it’s incredible, read it now) and watched the 325-minute motion comic on Blu-ray. I spent hours perusing forums on the internet, exploring other people’s responses to the film’s themes and ideas. And for this very column, I slowly worked my way through the three-and-a-half-hour long Ultimate Cut version of the film, which features deleted scenes and the incorporation of Tales of the Black Freighter, an animated meta-comic referenced within the world of the film and the graphic novel.
In summary, the conversation on Watchmen remains extensive and ceaseless. HBO are now having a crack at it, with a television series based off the graphic novel to be released later this year. I know people who love and praise this film, and I also know many who don’t. And say what you will about Snyder’s more recent output (newsflash: it’s trash), looking back on Watchmen, it’s hard to not be impressed by what he achieved given the Sisyphean circumstances. As Ebert notes in a blog post exploring the quantum metaphysics of Dr. Manhattan: “Faithfulness in adaptation is not necessarily a virtue; this is a movie and not a marriage. But I think it has use here, because it helps to evoke the film noir vision which so many comic-based movies inhabit.” For me, Watchmen remains one of the only comic-book films that I can enjoy for popcorn spectacle and endless quotes, yet also think and ruminate on for weeks afterwards; in a way that only Logan has come close to rivalling amongst the 35+ comic-book films present in the decade since its release.
So, to answer my own question rather obnoxiously: ‘WHO WATCHES ZACK SNYDER’S WATCHMEN?’ I do. “Good joke. Everybody laugh. Roll on snare drum. Curtains.”
Join us next time for more DEEP/DIVE, where we force ourselves to sit through one of the worst manga & anime adaptations of all time: the great cinematic train wreck that is Dragonball Evolution.
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