Zack Snyder
Watchmen

Introduction: the reviewer had prepared a few "note bene" that would focus his point of view and provide readers with a key to interpreting a review that may seem convoluted to most, especially to the fans of Moore and Gibbons' masterpiece. In short, he had found the right formula to be as much of a smart-ass as possible. He had, but he forgot them all in drafting this very introduction.

I understand the various causes and their subsequent effects. I understand Alan Moore's anger at refusing to be credited for a movie that would propose (and ruin) his masterpiece to the general public, I understand the choice of a director like Zack Snyder, and I understand that in times of crisis, DC Comics would decide to make a film about one of the milestones of graphic novels, if not of all modern literature. I understand and, before anything else, analyze, ignoring the word of critics and others who were already harshly criticizing the director and the film. But tonight I don't want to personify Doctor Manhattan, nor do I want to enter a quantum physics experiment room to become him, knowing that in 99% of the cases my body won't reassemble. The 1% is the stroke of luck needed for it to happen: the one Jon Osterman had, to be understood. I just want to be the reviewer, and to do that, I will write about the film.

What strikes those who have read the graphic novel is Snyder's extreme courage: the special effects and the chosen music are superb, the attention to detail is marvelous, and the cuts to the plot to adapt it to the big screen are well made. After all, we are talking about someone who has projected one of Frank Miller's masterpieces in three dimensions. Some consider him the Mengelé of graphic novel filmmakers, others a genius of comic book adaptation. For me, he is just a slightly naive 43-year-old kid: he created a great movie to introduce the average public to Moore's work and stopped there. Modesty or thirst for money, posterity will judge. Despite the meticulous work applied to best render a twelve-issue graphic novel in three hours (Terry Gilliam once said that the material of the work could give light to an eight-hour film), the film on one side elevates those who already know, who already understand everything and makes them marvel at the slightly surprising yet inevitably logical modified ending but still leaves a bitter taste in their mouth for the choices made in the action scenes: the continuous slow motions in the fights indeed become a bit nauseating. Aldo Biscardi will forgive me, but I only want the replay when Italy scores a divine try against the All Blacks. For those who haven't read and don't even imagine the impact the graphic novel had at the time, I'd be tempted to call them ignoramuses but I'll hold back, the film is often chaotic: after an hour and a half of film I heard people still asking who Ozymandias was and how Jon Osterman became Doc Manhattan. But the miracle nevertheless happens: Snyder manages to give emphasis to scenes and events that already had it while modifying some aspects, as mathematicians would say the form changes but the substance remains, offering fans a good blockbuster and beginners a strong kick in the ass to read the graphic novel.

Conclusion: despite revealing itself as a film rich in comic book-level details and paradoxically poor in cinematic-level details (the characters, despite the great performance of all the actors, remain confined in their status as comic book characters, except for Rorschach and Doctor Manhattan, the true engines of the entire film, as mentioned above, often chaotic for those who haven't read it) give a bit of recognition to this 43-year-old guy and his work in the field of adapting graphic novels to cinema. Modesty or thirst for money, posterity will judge. For a comic book enthusiast like me, seeing people at the end of a movie wondering how the graphic novel might be can only be pleasing, and I hope it can also please Alan Moore.

Afterword: the reviewer, after becoming a Nietzschean semi-god, returns to his guise as a mere mortal and admires his mother's ecstatic face while reading Watchmen, which she had always refused to read.