The movie may not be the comic book, but I loved Watchmen. Great eye candy, awesome soundtrack, and it’s packed with pop culture references—and some of those made me think that Ozymandias is Steve Jobs.
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD
You can check io9’s review here
I loved it. Guilty as charged.
I just sat there in good company, devouring candy with both my eyes and mouth, and spent three hours entertained; marveling at the perfect photography, the decay of the future-retro-New York, Rorschach, every little detail from Gibbons’ art in every frame, Rorschach, the awesome music making some of the scenes flow like Eddie Blake’s whiskey-thinned blood over the sidewalk, the raw violence, the cheesy love scene in Archie, Rorschach, and even Dr. Manhattan’s schlong.
And while the movie leaves a lot out from the comic book—stop with the graphic novel nonsense, they are called comic books—it also added things that the comic book didn’t have. Things that will please the geek in you, like the continuous references to pop culture. At least, I was in awe when I saw things like Nixon and Kissinger with all the generals, planning Nuclear Holocaust in Dr. Strangelove’s War Room.
But there’s a lot more hidden in there, lurking in the shadows. Specially, in what is referred to the villian/savior of the Earth: Ozymandias.
Adrian Veidt.
The supersmart CEO of a large corporation.
Who is a vegan.
And whose computer in his minimalist office is a Mac SE.
A Mac SE running the original Macintosh Operating System in inverted video mode.
Who is a fierce negotiator and businessman.
Who wears a black turtleneck (although with an 80s suit on top.)
Someone who is described as having a unique vision of the world.
Someone obsessed with design and details.
Someone who says he wants to change that world, who is determined to make things better.
Someone who, while watching the world coming to its end, just before saving it, is watching the Apple 1984 ad in one of the multiple TV screens in Karnak, his Antarctic secret base.
I mean… hello?
I know. Maybe I’m seeing a crazy conspiracy here, like Rorschach. Rorschach, by the way, was right.
So yes, I loved Watchmen the movie. And yes, as you can see, maybe I was too entertained seeing things and remembering details. After all, I know it by heart. I know every panel and some of the dialog by heart—I bought the original issues when I was in school back in the mid-80s, and have read them every year since then, like a ritual. I read them first when I was a kid who couldn’t get into the whole mental wanking that everyone talks about, going on for pages and pages of intellectual drivel: Watchmen’s deeeeeep meaning, Watchmen’s multiple layers of vanilla frosted complications, Watchmen’s political manifestos on a stick, Watchmen this, Watchmen that. I read them a few times then and read them a few years later, when I had enough experience to actually mentally wank about the deep meaning of it all—talking with friends about the futility of life on Earth, the manipulation of the masses, evil, good, and means justifying yadda yadda yadda and blah blah blah. Who cares.
In the end, I was just entertained by a nice story like I have been with the movie. That’s what the movie is: A great story.
So while I wish they actually made it into a five hour movie instead of three, and even though the ending is changed, and all that, the basics are all there. And when you pack the essence of such huge body of work with masterful craftmanship and cinematography, some great performances—Rorschach, I love you—and pepper it with a kick ass soundtrack that spawns from Bob Dylan to Leonard Cohen to Jimi Hendrix to Nina Simone to Janis Joplin to Billie Holiday and even a kickass version of Dylan’s Desolation Row by My Chemical Romance, I’m sold.
So yeah, Watchmen is not perfect. It’s not going to change your life, as some people expect. Yes, it doesn’t have the scope of the comic books, but who cares: Watchmen is a great ride that captures the essence of Moore and Gibbons work. And for that, I enjoyed like when I was a kid, back in 1986.
