Review: Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

I had originally seen the movie about 10 years ago, and it didn’t make much of an impression on me. I finally took the time to read the comic and finally understand what all the buzz was about.

The good

• Exceptional writing. Not just for a comic book—it’s good writing regardless of medium.

• Deep, interesting, unique, flawed characters. A refreshing change from the flat, overpowered, always-good-and-perfect Superman style superheroes you see elsewhere.

• Powerful, fascinating, multi-layered story. Essentially, it’s one story—of what happens when people take justice into their own hands and unilaterally decide what’s good and evil—repeated in different ways across all the different characters, and even the comic-within-the-comic (the “Tales of the Black Freighter”). The book asks again and again, both literally and figuratively, “who watches the watchmen?” Who decides what’s right or wrong? What is it OK to do in pursuit of what you believe is right? What happens when humans, who are inevitably flawed, make a mistake in choosing what’s right and wrong? And what happens when humans do nothing? There are no easy answers or happy ending here, and that’s great.

• Amazing narrative style that is able to jump back and forth between different points in time, different characters, different perspectives, different stories (including that comic-in-a-comic), and still somehow all come together. Chapter IV: Watchmaker, was especially remarkable for the way it plays with time, story arcs, and cause and effect.

• Strong art style with many memorable visuals.

The not so good

• There are few women in the story, and they mostly play the role of lover, sex toy, or mother.

• I think the story would’ve worked better overall without Dr. Manhattan. To be fair, he’s the focus of one of my favorite chapters, and some of my favorite scenes, but he felt wildly out of place in this story. All the other heroes feel human, fallible, and mortal, and the whole point of the story is what happens when limited, flawed humans are faced with tough decisions. Dr. Manhattan, by contrast, is practically a god, mostly disconnected from humanity, and with nearly limitless powers (e.g., the ability to see the future and past, the ability to bend matter to his will, immortality), which of course have to go unused or be suppressed in silly ways or the story doesn’t work. His story is deeply interesting, but I think it would’ve worked better in a totally separate comic book, leaving this one to focus solely on more-or-less normal human beings.

Overall

Whether you’re a comic book fan or not, this one is well worth reading. You’ll want to read it slowly and deeply and take lots of time to discuss it with friends.

Oh, and skip the movie. Or at least, don’t watch it until after reading the book. The move isn’t all bad: from a visual style, it reproduces the book very faithfully, which is neat to see; the actor who plays Rorschach absolutely nails it, and many of his scenes are actually better than the book; and the finale is done quite well.

However, the movie loses all the spirit and nuance of the book, which is what actually makes it special. The acting in the movie isn’t great, the glowing blue, fully computer-generated Dr. Manhattan amidst the otherwise gritty and real-world style of the movie doesn’t work, the politicians and military in the movie come off as cartoony, and the core philosophical debate and dilemma just doesn’t come across. So in the end, you get an OK, but largely forgettable action movie with a clever plot twist… Rather than a deep, powerful story that you’ll debate for years.

Rating: 5 stars