Watching the WATCHMEN

Now that I have you all here, I have to make a terrible geek confession. I. Have. Never. Read. Watchmen. Or at least all of it. I was sick of hearing about the damn thing by the end of the 80’s. Being the loyal contrarian I be, I rarely trust the collective fringe-cultural mind to tell me what it is supposed to be “brilliant” or “groundbreaking.” I mean, I’ve never even liked Tom Waits (not being into drunk circus clown music.). I honestly got the point of Alan Moore’s “Watchmen” when I skimmed through it: Superheroes Are Fascist. It’s a point worth exploring and Moore does so with a vengeance. I just always thought it a typically somewhat British prejudice, whose collective memory recalls the suffering brought on by other false Supermen of the Third Reich. I do understand. And Moore was right to bring this up in the red shadow of the Reagan era, when the US was exporting Rambo and Contra funds. My shallow reason for not getting into “Watchmen” was I never connected with Dave Gibbon’s influential art. That was always my basic comic contract, I had to love the art first. I don’t care if Shakespeare was writing. I’d take Jack Kirby over the Bard if it meant Kirby’s epic, dynamic panels.

So I was happy to go see the long-awaited film version of WATCHMEN without any pesky comparison tests in my head doing commentary over the movie. And I’ll just say I was impressed with the film’s scope and subversion. You have to give credit to Zack Snyder and Warner Brothers for putting out such a dark and yes, adult, superhero film and keeping relatively true to the source material. Not everything works, but enough does to make it worth seeing. WATCHMEN is worth everything just for Jackie Earle Haley, another comeback kid, as the sociopathic vigilante Rorshach. Haley is magnificent and anchors the film. I think all the performers have their moments and the film is so damned unusual for its vast socio-political referents you have to be impressed. I also like how the 80’s nuclear war paranoia is brought back where it should be: right in front of us. So go see WATCHMEN and support cinema that’s daring to be different. I’ll be watching you…