Watchmen and Adaptation

This is meant to be both a review of the film and an examination of the 'art' of adapting material for the screen. I saw Zack Snyder's film at an advance screening this past Tuesday, and as a fan of the original comic book I felt the theatre very impressed; 'Watchmen' stands toe-to-toe with the other big two comic book movies released in the past year ('Iron Man' and 'The Dark Knight') in its own way, and like those two films it has strengths and weaknesses. However, unlike 'Iron Man' and 'Knight', 'Watchmen' has strict source material, instead of a amorphous created universe from which to draw concrete story elements. Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons created a piece of magnificent art with their graphic novel, a story so thoughtfully constructed that most who've read it came to the conclusion that it couldn't be adapted into a film. Still, the overwhelming appeal of superhero movies recently meant that, inevitably, 'Watchmen' would fall under the camera lens. Enter Snyder, director of '300,' another graphic novel adaptation.

Let me say this, first and foremost: if you haven't read the original graphic novel, Snyder's adaptation is going to strike you as needlessly confusing. I wouldn't be surprised if you disliked the film. On the other hand, if you're one of those individuals who adhere to the (misguided) principle that adaptation ruins the original material, you will also dislike the film. Is the graphic novel better than the film? Absolutely. For 'Watchmen' to move faithfully from page to screen would require a runtime of - and this is a conservative estimate - ten hours at least. Hoepfully, you fall into the same category of viewer as I do: a huge fan of the graphic novel who realizes the constraints of making a theatrical motion picture adaptation and can take Snyder's film for what it is, an ansolutely fantastic companion piece to the original work. Snyder flawlessly takes the most visually dramatic moments of the graphic novel and populates them with spot-on depictions of the main characters, so that 'Watchmen' functions as an added layer of depth to the original story. I went back and read a bit of the graphic novel after seeing the film, and as much as I loved Rorschach before, having Jackie Earle Haley provide the added cinematic qualities to the character is a positive without a negative. Was I disappointed Snyder omitted/modified elements of the original? Of course, but that doesn't make me dislike the film. In fact, his tweaked ending is, for my money, just as interesting as the original. Snyder will be criticized for his choices, and perhaps rightly so. However, 'Watchmen' is every bit the accomplishment that 'Iron Man' or 'Dark Knight' were, in its own way. My recommendation: pick up a copy of the graphic novel and read it through before seeing the film. Together they function as the finest example of cross-medium popular entertaiment I've ever seen, and for me that's enough to give 'Watchmen' four stars.

-V.