Firstly, if Alan Moore says Watchmen can’t and shouldn’t be filmed, that’s good enough for me.  Alan Moore is a visionary and literary genius.  I am not.  Nor are the people who are willing to see the credibility of Comic Books as an art form sacrificed so they can be entertained for two plus hours.  You know who I’m talking about –Fanboys, the same tools that are simple enough to wonder why Alan Moore hasn’t written a sequel to Watchmen and couldn’t wait for the sequel to Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.

You know, carriers of the same gray matter that embraced the last three (hell...four) Star Wars movies simply because they have George Lucas' name on them - never mind they were boring, incomprehensible, rife with embarrassing, groan-inducing dialog and largely unwatchable.  Along with Bryan Singer and Kevin Smith, Zack Snyder has now fleshed out the holy trinity of comic book geek-related cinema "do-no-wrongers."  No doubt Fanboys have taking to referring to him as "Zack", as though he’d bother to learn their names.  They sound like teenage girls talking about Zack Efron.

Fanboys have convinced themselves that they liked the last Superman movie simply because Bryan Singer directed it with Richard Donner's approval.  Never mind the dark sensibilities of alienation Singer injected have zero to do with Superman and the characters didn’t remotely resemble those of the comic in either motivation or action and never mind the second half of Donner's first Superman film pretty much sucks (funny, I don’t remember Lois ever smoking and I don’t recall an Otis or Miss Teschmacher in the comics).  Basically it's all Trekkie mentality (and no, not "TrekkER"...you weirdos aren't butching up your nickname on my watch) -a school of thought which dictates as long as there’s product to be had, it’s good, especially if it is self-referential and self-reverential.

Much of it has to do with the fact that most Fanboys are wannabes and this is particularly true in comics.  One creator was quoted saying "there is no criticism in comics, only people who want my job."  This is best symbolized by the career of Rob Liefeld, an artist marginally more skilled than the average portfolio-slinging trend-follower who never makes it as an artist in comics.  Seeing one of such marginal talent being published gives them hope and they must therefore be embraced by Fanboydom.

Fanboys are scary in more ways than one.  I was threatened by a one several years back after I stated online that Dark Knight Returns, like Watchmen, was a work of art, rationalizing that there isn’t a sequel to the Mona Lisa and, heaven forbid, wouldn’t it be cool if comics were taken seriously as an art form that takes itself seriously instead of just another visual media, commercial cottage industry for a friggin’ switch?

Typically, this Fanboy Tool has been remiss in responding to my cordial invitation to bite me.  Then again, I was proven right when DK2 proved to be a waste of paper with a crap story, featuring the worst artwork published by DC in the last 25 years, to the surprise of no one blessed with a pair of eyes that have witnessed the downward spiral of Frank Miller's artwork.

Anyway, I figured out a while ago (around the release of Tim Burton’s Batman), that although I am a fan of the source-material and it's kinda cool to see living people play out a comic book story, that doesn't mean it should happen, nor does it make it automatically good.  Even if they get some of it right, like Donner did with Superman’s origin, comic book movies are common these days and some just flat suck.  Bryan Singer’s Superman, the first attempt at a Hulk movie, Ghost Rider, Catwoman, The Spirit (Frank Miller can obviously do wrong) and now Watchmen come to mind, not to mention every Batman film with which Tim Burton was even remotely involved.

But, I digress…

Watchmen, as directed by Zack Snyder is no less than an empty-headed Fanboy fetish film for con-season circle-jerks.  It is an exercise in just how bad things can go wrong when a trendy action director is granted access to a historic character piece.  Snyder was a director out of his milieu.  Did you see Benjamin Button?  Same thing.  Call me pretentious if you want, for I care not (Mark sniffed).  Zack Snyder had no business directing Watchmen.  It was boring, ill-paced and devoid of impact.  It had little emotional resonance, zero suspense and even less thrills.

Watchmen was needlessly violent, confusing (and I've read it three times so it shouldn't be), amateurish in its storytelling sensibilities, unoriginal in technique and execution and an insult to anyone possessed of even a remote literary background who actually read and understood what Alan Moore was trying to accomplish with Watchman as a story meant to only be told in comic book form.

The choices in popular music were silly, unoriginal and made little cinematic sense. Snyder did not gracefully pace to them or cleverly cut to them.  He just played them, as though the atmospherics of contrast between scenes of destruction and Nat King Cole would "just work" in an ironic fashion.  And how completely of unoriginal of him to try.  John Woo he most certainly is not.

Well, it doesn't "just work".  Flight of the Valkyries?  Was Snyder serious with that?  Look.  that song is PERMANENTLY associated with Apocalypse Now as a storytelling element  Was it supposed to be funny?  Because the audience was laughing.  Does he even know how to be original?  How hamfisted can a director be before I laugh when I’m supposed to feel chills, laugh at his ineptitude?

The plot revelations had no weight.  As a viewer, I did not feel any sense of world crisis in the atmosphere, no one's death made me feel much and even on the one occasion a scene was played and cut for laughs, it wasn't remotely funny.  I guess the fact that I neither fell asleep nor walked out should be considered a compliment.

Snyder did get the Minutemen right, from a visual sense anyway.  It was cool seeing cloth costumes for a switch and the retro-look of the individual Minuteman origin/backstory snippets rocked.  However, mere snatches of visual accuracy do not necessarily a wholly good interpretation, or even a good movie make.  Watchmen is loaded with visual accuracy, unfortunately it doesn’t add up to much.  It’s supposed to be a period film, circa 1985, but nothing suggested it really –certainly not the music, costumes or set design.  Sure, he had 99 Luft Balloons playing but like most of the music choices it was a distraction not a complement to the goings-on.

As far as characterizations go, Doctor Manhattan is completely wrong.  Does he sound ominous, detached or creepy?  Nope, Snyder decided Dr. Manhattan, a man one with the universe, has Billy Cruddup's voice …and it’s not just a bad choice, it’s a clueless one.  The weightiest character in the book, the one fraught with irony and philosophical contradiction and sporting the least humanity, a man decimated and reassembled with the power of a star sounds like Billy Cruddup?

Um, no.  He should sound soulless, without even a grasp of the concepts of humanity, compassion or remorse.  His voice should sound hollow, devoid (I know what you’re thinking and, no, I don’t mean George W. Bush).  He should sound like 2001: A Space Odyssey's HAL or Brian Cox's Hannibal Lecter in Manhunter.

How could Snyder miss such a no-brainer?  Is he high?

It is a choice reminiscent of the Paul Dini Superman cartoon with Tim Daly voicing both Superman and Clark Kent - his voice fits neither character and its register does not change with his identity.

Then there is Silk Spectre, far more powerful, confident in her sexuality from the get-go and, well, a murderer of street trash (via a gleeful knife to the neck).  Three things she never was in the comic.  Her character registers little baggage and is little more than a sex toy in this movie.

When confronted by a gang of street toughs, she and the Night Owl evidently enjoy the violence they are forced to participate in, which, again, is nothing like the way they acted in the published work, hesitant, shaken and a tad remorseful.

Ozymandias is clearly the mustache-twirling villain from scene one instead of hiding behind his image as fey narcissist, rendering the revelation of his involvement, well, uninvolving and not a shocker in the least, a non-stunner.

The Comedian they got right, but as a character he is more a force of nature than macguffin in the movie.  The whodunit aspect of Watchmen barely exists other than when Rorschach’s voice-over tells you it does.  It’s not an element sensed in the air and there’s zero suspense –and not just because I know how it ends, as the ending was changed.  There is no "Oh, my God" feeling when Ozymandias comes clean.  Unto his own, The Comedian and his backstory are interesting, but as part of the main plot line, he’s just kind of there when needed.  He is the most well-developed of any of the characters in Watchmen, but that is not saying a whole lot.

Rorschach they mostly got right except he seemed possessed of super-powers of agility and durability he does not have.  There were blows delivered to him by Ozmandias that should have either killed him or paralyzed him.  Again, what looks cool and what plays are two different things.  Rorschach looked cool being tossed about but it was over-the-top violence no man could recover from.  Also, why is Rorschach now portrayed a sadistic dealer of punishment, reveling in violence instead of one who simply uses it as a tool, with neither thought or joy?  He displayed too much satisfaction doling it out.  Rorschach’s heart rate should NEVER rise.  This Rorschach’s obviously did.  Now he’ll joyfully and repeatedly whack you about the skull with a butcher knife instead of casually strolling away as you burn, chained to a cast-iron stove, having forgotten you already.  A pure sociopath, Rorschach doesn’t wallow in others’ pain, he’s indifferent to it.  It gets the job done.  It is a tool, an end to a means.

Directors always point out that things change in the translation to screen.  I defy Zack Snyder to state why Rorschach now cleaves skulls with glee.  It is a scene changed for absolutely no structural reason.  It was gratuitous violence for the sake of gratuitous violence.  It was a needless decision and anathema to the character of Rorschach.

It was never clear whether the actors playing Nixon, Pat Buchanan and Ted Koppel were intentional or unintentional awfully done impersonations or intentional or unintentional awfully done caricatures. Either way they were insipid and ill-conceived. Both the makeup artist and person responsible for casting them should have been fired.  Better yet, the characters should have only appeared in silhouette or bathed in shadow in the first place.  This Nixon could not even move his upper lip and none of the actors sounded or looked like those they were meant to represent in the least. They looked about as convincing as Jon Voight was when he played Howard Kossell in The Greatest ...in other words, not at all convincing and rubbery.  What's more, the entire scene was a visual ripoff of Dr. Strangelove, just as Ridley Scott's camera angles permeated the film.

Sure, as I've noted a zillion time that Picasso once said "good artists borrow, great artists steal.  However, there's a difference between an homage and a lack of original storytelling vision.  Snyder fills images interestingly enough, it's the storytelling, pacing and characterization skills that are missing from his movies.  In other words, he hasn't earned the right to steal.

So they managed a few interesting translations of elements of character and more visuals evocative of the source material than one could hope for and yet it still did not seem to work as anything other than something easily-pleased Fanboys will enjoy.

Here's why.  Here's the venom Alan Moore spoke of.

As published, Watchmen was a work designed to both implement and showcase the finer intricacies of comic book storytelling using techniques unique to the medium and if Alan Moore says it can't be filmed, it can't be friggin' filmed. Period.

As I stated above, the man is a literary storytelling genius and there's what...maybe a dozen of those guys alive at any given time in literary history?  Alan Moore CHOSE not to become a genius film director because doubtless, as a storytelling genius, film would likely be childs play for him.  That and he, himself has stated he finds comics a richer medium to work in.

So, no Ridley Scott wannabe (no less than 3 of Scott's TV commercials from the 80's have cameos and it would not surprise me if Snyder once worked at Scott Free Productions under Ridley and Tony Scott) is going to pull it off no matter how much frame-pulling, freeze-framing, washed-out color, jump-edited 90's GAP-ad pyrotechnics he deploys. Anyone who witnessed the derivation-fest of post-Heston, toga and sandals homoerotica that was 300 could see it coming.  He's all flash that will one day be passe'.  In cinema, it's the story that must hold up over time, otherwise a films' original visual merits will wash away with time.

Snyder is not a visionary in the least or original enough to steal from truly great artists of cinema.  He is a ripoff artist.  With its scenes of wheat-field family reunions, pseudo-wannabe Shakespearean political machinations and glycerin-soaked abs, 300 was the single most derivative movie in recent memory, nothing more than Gladiator-in-panties filtered through the eyes of a far lesser "talent".

See, Zach Snyder isn't an actor's director or even one I consider a filmmaker.  Like McG, he is an MTV level video director of digitally-processed images, chiefly concerned with imagery, and in Watchmen’s case, largely unoriginal imagery.  He thinks replicating the comic is enough to successfully adapt the movie and it’s not.  There is more to it than that.

Watchmen is a character pieces whodunnit and a costume drama with snatches of action and Snyder and his writers (David Hayter, actually credited among the many writers of the X-Men films and first-timer Alex Tse don't seem to understand that just because you copy what's on the comic book page doesn't mean it's going play onscreen.

Comics and film are two distinctly different mediums with sensibilities that must accommodate one another when translating one medium to the other.  The Hollywood translation of The Great Gatsby is probably the most glaring example of this rule of screenwriting 101, as it too is an awful film which drew dialog and imagery directly from the page.

I cannot imagine what people who have never read the comic must think whilst viewing Watchmen.  (I do know of a couple of people completely unfamiliar with Watchmen.  They were bored senseless and walked out.)  Primary characters disappear for nearly an hour, many of the briefer flashback scenes are clumsily paced and placed and not a single character is a pop culture icon.  It’s like a series of inside jokes poorly executed.

So much that should have been cool, that was intended to be cool, just wasn’t…and this movie, like it’s author has made perfectly clear, should never have been attempted.

But no. Fanboys, in their endless devotion to people they don't know, will embrace it simply because Snyder "did good" translating 300.  That’s how fanboys roll.  Think about it.  They actually believe Kevin Smith has contributed something memorable to the comic book storytelling medium simply because he used to be one of them.  If they think Smith and his chatty Batman, over-written Daredevil, no-show Bullseye, needlessly and sadistically trauma'd Black Cat and cliché Green Arrow are actually relevant, no doubt Fanboys see Zack Snyder as the second coming of David Fincher (Ain’t it Cool News’ primary over-worshipped "visionary").

Just as Charleton Heston labored cluelessly through (and later -after the director and writer enlightened him -lived homophobically in denial of) some of the gayest scenes in cinema history, just as dimbulb fans live in denial of the outright crappiness of post-Kirshner Star Wars movies, the laughable second and third chapters of the Matrix franchise and character-bastardization of Bryan Singer's Superman and Lex Luthor, these fanboy tools will embrace the mess of half-witted filmmaking that is Watchmen, further empowering Snyder and licensing him to more shots at ruining other, relevant comic book works.

There was a time when I would have been afraid he might get hold of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, but Frank Miller himself already rendered moot any claims to art DK once had by scrawling his own Godawful sequel for a lousy buck.

It is not that Watchmen was only a bad interpretation of Watchmen, it's that it was just very bad filmmaking by a very predictable, unoriginal and trendy MTV director, one whose style has all the subtlety of a linebacker.

So, Watchmen just wasn't what I consider to be a good movie.  Sure I may have gotten a tad harsh on Snyder or Fanboys above, but there have been plenty of movies I thought I'd never like that surprised me because they turned out to be well-made movies with well-told stories.

That being said, I hope Zack Snyder stays away from Marvel Studios and here's praying Watchmen flops.  I don’t want Zack Snyder anywhere near any property that matters, or matters to me, ever again.

Copyright 2009 Mark A. Bittmann

Mark Bittmann