Trust Woody Allen to make you sit through a film about an insufferable intellectual who calls children, “submental cretins”. Diminutive middle-aged man constantly ranting about death, sex and existential angst – never gets old. And always funny.

I’ve been drawn to Woody Allen’s shtick since college (there’s a dirty joke somewhere in there); I’m one of those very few people (going by the huge backlash from critics) who think that Allenesque male angst  and pathos are as socially and culturally relevant today as they were back in the 70s. And if you look a little closer, you’ll realize that Allen’s philosophy has somewhat evolved over the last 40 years.

Towards the end of  Manhattan, Issac Davis speaks into a tape recorder and asks himself why life is worth living. There’s Groucho Marx, Willie Mays, Flaubert’s Sentimental Education and then, Tracy’s face. That scene has always appealed to the romantic in me.

Exactly 30 years later, an older and perhaps wiser Boris Yellnikoff seems to have gotten a little less materialistic.

My story is, whatever works as long as you don’t hurt anybody. Any way you can filtch a little joy in this cruel and pointless life, that’s my story.

I’m willing to overlook the cinematic flaws for the simple reason that at the end of the day, his films tend to remind you that there’s always clever humor to be mined from meaninglessness and paranoia.

I stand by what I said – Watchmen is an unnecessary adaptation of the graphic novel. As a piece of visual pulp art, the film succeeds. But as an adaptation of Alan Moore‘s ideas, Watchmen is a failure albeit an interesting one.

The opening credit sequence is a brilliant slow motion montage set to Bob Dylan’s Times They Are A-Changin’. This establishes the Watchmen universe – an alternate reality where Nixon is in his fifth term, superheroes are real, a giant blue man wins the Vietnam conflict for America and the Cold War has escalated to a nuclear stand-off. The plot follows a masked anti-hero, Rorschach as he tries to uncover clues to the murder of a former masked vigilante, The Comedian.

Visually, Dave Gibbons‘ frames are perfectly translated on celluloid and despite what I feared, the slow motion shots and fight sequences are quite nicely staged when compared to lazy quick cuts prevelant in action films today. The colour palette suits the dark tone of the film. Dave Gibbon’s choice of colour in the book was unlike those of most comics at the time (case in point, Frank Miller‘s revival of Batman) and was an attempt at highlighting the absurdity of masked men running around in tights; that doesn’t seem to have been lost on Snyder.

The plot and narrative lean heavily on Alan Moore’s writing and for most part, doesn’t stray away from the brilliant source material. Where the film fails (and disastrously s0) is when it tries to come up with an original alternative for the ending. There is a huge tonal shift in the third act and character motivations are never obvious to a viewer unfamiliar with the book. Honestly, it was downright silly. However, my favourite bit from the book – Doctor Manhattan’s self imposed exile to Mars – was perfectly done. Doc Manhattan is a naked blue godlike being who has since his freak accident (physics lab accident, of course) become detached from humanity. He teleports himself to Mars after learning he may have been the reason his old friends and lovers seem to have developed cancer. This is perhaps the most outrageous and fantastic arc in the book but it fits right in with the rest of the film.

The soundtrack unfortunately is grating and very out of place. Apart from the opening and closing credits, the songs feel like they were picked out of a Greatest Hits collection from the 80s (Cindy Lauper, Simon and Garfunkel etc). Audiences laughed at what was supposed to be a disturbing sex scene only because Leonard Cohen and a church choir crooned ‘Hallelujah’ in the background. Alan Moore would roll in his grave if he were dead.

I walked out with pretty much the same feeling I had after 300. The film is beautiful to look at but is a muddled mess with flashes of brilliance here and there. Zack Snyder may be a devout fanboy but he may have missed out on what Moore really tried to say – there is no civility in civilization. 

6.5/10