Watchmen: Chapter I
Believe it or not, there was a time when people said that Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ “Watchmen” could never be adapted into a movie. It was, after all, the superhero comic book equivalent of “Citizen Kane,” an audacious blend of storytelling, social commentary and visual panache that exploited the unique artistic possibilities of its medium. And it would be prohibitively expensive to produce and R-rated if they were faithful to Moore and Gibbons’ work, which is tricky enough in the current Hollywood studio system.
But that was then and this is now Zack Snyder brought “Watchmen” to theaters 15 years ago in a well intentioned but overcooked misfire that stayed true to the material until it didn’t (thereby altering a single load bearing plot point that caused the whole thing to collapse). That long-awaited movie came and went without making half as big an impact on superhero cinema as its source material made on comics, an HBO series set decades later and released last year was widely praised for among other things not being a direct adaptation of Moore and Gibbons’ text, so it had different hurdles to leap.
The newest attempt at adapting their work is called “Watchmen: Chapter 1,” a CG-animated two-part motion comic that directly transposes many of the panels from Gibbons’ artwork alongside much of his narration and dialogue. To say this adaptation dares audiences to find fault with it would be like saying Dr. Manhattan has some physical advantages over Captain Underpants. The only way anyone could have any problems with such an adaptation is if they had problems with the comics themselves. Alas, this isn’t that. It’s a commendable retelling of the story in terms more literal than any fans dared imagine right down to how it stumbles over what should have been obvious opportunities to visualize certain parts of the narrative or solve certain unfilmable aspects of the script.
For those who have never read it or seen the previous movie, “Watchmen” is set in an alternate 1985 where superheroes exist but were neither super nor heroic. They all went into the vigilante business for personal and typically suspect reasons, and they definitely didn’t save the world. The only “hero” with genuine super powers, Doctor Manhattan (voiced by Michael Cerveris), won the Vietnam War almost singlehandedly and kept Nixon in office for five consecutive terms. Earth is now teetering on doomsday, and it’s mostly their fault.
The story begins when one of these “costumed adventurers,” a rugged brute known as The Comedian (Rick D. Wasserman), gets thrown out a window to his death. Rorschach (Titus Welliver) believes someone may be hunting down old “masks,” so he risks his life to warn others while trying to solve the mystery himself. Nite-Owl (Matthew Rhys) has given up crime-fighting and thus given up on himself, Ozymandias (Troy Baker) has sold out completely, using his godlike intellect to run a corporation that trades in nostalgia for his old superhero schtick, Silk Spectre (Katee Sackhoff), who only became a hero because her mom was, lives with Doctor Manhattan, whose powers have made him more distant from their relationship than ever before or at least since he stopped being human altogether.
“Watchmen: Chapter 1” does not cover the first chapter of the comics, but the first half of the mini-series. The work of Moore and Gibbons was serialized and that’s how the movie plays it, arriving at key moments and revelations again and again before fading away and picking up once more. It was bound to feel a little episodic for any faithful adaptation, and any criticism of that approach would of course be missing the point. It’s the first half of a serialized story. Them’s the breaks.
Unfortunately “Watchmen: Chapter 1” is preyed upon by problems in every shot. The CG-animation style used to replicate the artwork gets the lines and framing but not so much the atmosphere. The colors are bright, the lighting is crisp, all this grounding in relative realism has done been thrown out like Comedian himself through a window. The story is told but it never feels like storytelling, it doesn’t help that character animations aren’t always convincing either early scenes show pedestrians walking with all stiffness of an early Hanna Barbera cartoon.
Efforts to capture specific panels from the comics are noble up until a point, but adapting “Watchmen” into a different medium’s biggest problem isn’t even just what we’re shown or told. The problem is Moore and Gibbons’ work was designed as a comic, because comics aren’t just storyboards. There’s a chapter where Doctor Manhattan explains his non-linear understanding of time from Mars, where he has exiled himself. All his memories co-exist with his present they all co exist on the page, too, because their shared physical space stands in for shared chronology.
“Watchmen: Chapter 1,” like Snyder’s adaptation after it, captures narrative progression of Doctor Manhattan’s non linear memories; however cinema takes place over finite amount of time as opposed to finite amount space so it emphasizes “progression” and only gives us gist of “non linear.” We know what happens, basic concepts come across, but the mediums are fundamentally different and “Watchmen” was designed to maximize potential of only one. This was what we meant when we said comics couldn’t be filmed, getting gist isn’t same as “getting it.”
Despite any fundamental problems with any “Watchmen” adaptation, and an adequate but not entirely effective visual aesthetic, “Chapter 1” does good job retelling this story. The score by Tim Kelly does much to revive atmosphere lost by animation, with moody drones that fittingly evoke work of Vangelis. Acting is also largely excellent and frequently brings texture and insight to the dialogue, Welliver in particular highlights different dimensions of Rorschach whose growling monologues have violent but pitiful quality to them. When he muses, “All the whores and politicians will up and shout ‘Save us!’ and I’ll look down and whisper, ‘No,’” it doesn’t sound like he’s making grim prediction it sounds like he’s describing pathetic power fantasy. Even real-life superheroes have to pretend they’re more important than they are, that’s why some of them put on costumes in first place.
The “Watchmen: Chapter 1” episode was directed by Brandon Vietti, who also created the great TV series “Young Justice,” which remains one of the best animated superhero storytelling shows ever. What he’s done here is difficult if not thankless and the fact that it works even as well as it does speaks to his skill. But you can’t help wondering what it’s all for beyond a translation that’s as direct and complete as possible if this faithful, it arguably becomes redundant since the comics tell the same story in a more unique and challenging way. If there were any higher-minded goals involved, I suppose we’ll have to wait for next week’s “Chapter 2” to find out.
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