Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach in Watchmen. (Courtesy Photo)

Directed by: Zack Snyder
Starring: Billy Crudup, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Jackie Earle Haley, Malin Akerman, Patrick Wilson, Matthew Goode
Rating: R

When I was a kid one of my absolute favorite movies was a minor Disney movie called Condorman. I grew up convinced it was an overlooked classic. When I finally saw it again a few years ago, it was almost heartbreaking—a piece of my own history cruelly re-written into a clumsy mess of a movie. But I accepted the truth and moved on. It’s time for fans of Watchmen to do the same. Alan Moore’s legendary comic book series was a genre-exploding event in 1986, reimagining the masked heroes of the preceding 40 years as very damaged individuals. I read it for the first time this past year, and discovered a collection of fascinating ideas stirred into an overlong, humorless, nearly characterless dirge. That dirge is now considered the seminal work of the comic-book form, the only one ever to win a Hugo Award.

It’s 1985, seven years after the passage of legislation to outlaw costumed vigilante heroes. Thanks to the all-powerful Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup), the United States won the war in Vietnam and Richard Nixon is still president. Edward Blake (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), formerly the Comedian, is found murdered. This prompts the solitary, unhinged Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley) to wonder if masked heroes are being knocked off. He approaches the remaining former Watchmen—Dr. Manhattan, better known as Jon Osterman, and girlfriend Sally Jupiter (Malin Akerman), formerly Silk Spectre; Dan Dreiberg (Patrick Wilson), formerly the Nite Owl II; and Adrian Veidt (Matthew Goode), formerly Ozymandias. None believe Rorschach’s theory until an attempt is made on Veidt’s life. Meanwhile Jon is growing more distant from Sally and, for that matter, the rest of humanity. As she runs into Dan’s arms, Rorschach is framed for murder and imprisoned. While Jon gets over the breakup on Mars, Sally and Dan don their costumes once more and spring Rorschach. Together the three try to solve the mystery and stave off the impending nuclear holocaust.

Pretty straightforward, right? One great assessment of Watchmen was made by its artist, John Gibbons: it’s a comic book about comic books. As such it snakes cleverly through many of the well-worn conventions and turns them on their ear. It also has a lot of very compelling things to say about our society in the mid-80s, some of which is still relevant today. But the best ideas need a functioning story in which to resonate, and too much of Watchmen is ground to a halt in order to scrutinize a smart but simple idea too closely. Gibbons also said he designed the characters “so they’d be easy to draw.” Moore admitted that they had to fill 12 issues with only six issues worth of story. Let’s just say these revelations explain a lot. Efforts to get Watchmen onto the big screen have been ongoing since its publication, with many a wise man suggesting it was an unfilmable piece. Director Zack Snyder, fresh off blowing people away with the insane 300, finally completed the task. The result is an audacious, fervently faithful adaptation that very neatly exposes the gigantic problems in Moore’s original story. It has moments of true exhilaration, but they’re trapped inside a cement balloon of a movie that spirals ever lower as it tries to rise.

The cast is about 50-50. The best is Jackie Earle Haley, continuing the resurgence that began with 2006’s Little Children. Haley commits wholeheartedly to the deranged nobility of Rorschach, and his scenes inside the prison, when Moore’s rampant social commentary is mercifully set aside for some good clean payoff, are the high points of the movie. Next best is Haley’s Little Children co-star Patrick Wilson, who actually improves upon the paunchy, insecure Dan Dreiberg. He supplies the only true warmth in the movie, and proves to be a more nuanced actor than his leading-man roles have allowed. Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Denny from Grey’s Anatomy) looks every inch the role as the Comedian, but he’s strangely limited vocally. Billy Crudup (Almost Famous) does his best with Jon Osterman, but the character suffers the most in transference from page to screen. Matthew Goode is a very interesting actor (Match Point, The Lookout), but not as Adrian Veidt. And poor Malin Akerman has shown some knack for comedy (The Heartbreak Kid, 27 Dresses), but does not nearly have the goods to make Sally the emotional linchpin of the story.

Snyder goes a bit overboard in some areas, like his absurdly on-the-nose soundtrack. In its defense it does supply some of the only laughs, while the intended comedy is so out of tone with the rest of the movie it just makes you uncomfortable. But Snyder may have made about as good a movie as you can from that source material. But once he committed to such a faithful adaptation, the move was doomed to failure. Watchmen, for all its innovation is a poorly constructed story, set off by a murder that never validates itself and ending with a conclusion that is as dubious as it is audacious. A diligent, reasoned re-thinking might have lifted what really works in the story—Rorschach, the Comedian, Nite Owl II, the prison sequence—and overhauled what doesn’t—most of the sidebar themes, the Mars sequences, the excruciating third act. But that really was never a choice, for it would have incensed the acolytes. If you need someone to blame, blame them.

Alex Manugian lives in Sherman Oaks, California. He grew up in Groton and has reviewed movies for Harvard residents for many years.