Zack Snyder
Watchmen

Arriving in the theater, I was overcome with a thrill. A shiver ran down my spine when the opening credits, with yellow background on black, finished. The film I had been waiting for a year and a half was about to begin.

The story unfolds in an alternate 1985, a world born from a historical modification stemming from an imaginary event - in this case, the appearance of "superheroes" in early '40s America. In this setting, Nixon has just been elected for the fifth time, Uncle Sam won the Vietnam War thanks to government superheroes (Dr. Manhattan and the Comedian), and a nuclear holocaust with the USSR is scheduled for "in 5 minutes" on the Doomsday Clock. Within this context, on an October night, a Comedian has died.

Edward Blake, aka the Comedian, a cynical and pseudo-Nazi superhero, was thrown from the unbreakable glass of his apartment. What investigators are sure of is that it's a murder following a robbery. But Rorschach, an illegally active masked hero, disagrees. To investigate the murder, he reunites his companions, many of whom had retired in 1977 following the law regulating superheroes: either they became government operatives (like Manhattan and the Comedian) or stopped beating people up while dressed as clowns. At the same time, nuclear holocaust looms as the ominous end of events. Thus we meet the Owl, Ozymandias, Dr. Manhattan, ...

This film, an adaptation of the comic published in 1987, scripted by Alan Moore (also the author of V for Vendetta, From Hell, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) and illustrated by Dave Gibbons, finds its strength in its relative faithfulness to the comic. The plot variations are generally understandable, except for the ending, which completely alters the work's meaning.

But excluding the final scenes, the director spoiled us a bit. Only a keen eye could spot the Pyramid Co. trucks and notice the people in the background, glimpsing a red-haired man with the sign "The end is nigh." Those who learn the story for the first time will pay attention to this the second or third time, as happens when reading the comic. However, many details that made the work more nuanced are missing, like the pirate story (to be included as a DVD bonus), the murder of the first Owl, the final dialogue between Dr. Manhattan and Veidt, ... but a 5-hour movie wasn't feasible: this way, the film contains the whole story but reduced to the essentials.

The techniques used by the filmmaker are spot on: the film is pushed towards a faded color, reminiscent of the comic page; scenes are always connected, with no pauses. In general, we can say that developing the film (like the comic) on 2 or more spatiotemporal levels and multiplying points of view is a narratively perfect move. The musical choices are noteworthy, especially in the opening credits, which retrace superhero activities over 45 years. The songs are sometimes in questionable taste, like during the cloud sex scene (Hallelujah!), but one must see the hidden meaning. Cheerful songs are there only in the presence of the Comedian.

The themes the film tackles are the same as in the comic, the most important being the realization of the absence of barriers between good and evil, which meet and mingle. These superheroes are the example: none is wholly good, and none is wholly evil. In this relativistic play, the most interesting character is certainly Rorschach, who kills criminals, cannot stand the decadence of '80s mores, and never accepts compromise. Like other superheroes, he no longer wears a mask for idealism, but rather for egoism and sadism.

In conclusion, I can say that this film left me with a good impression based on my initial expectations of a general reworking like in V for Vendetta. What saddens me is that I believe many who will go to see it won't understand all the moral references and will regard it as an unusual blockbuster where superheroes are sadists.