A 'Love' Between Bros

by Brett Parker

Most romantic comedies follow the formula of a single guy who pursues and courts an attractive woman, all with the help of a goofy and loyal best guy friend. I Love You, Man is a rom-com that shakes up this formula in an unexpected way: it follows a guy who sets out to obtain a male buddy with the encouragement of his lovely girlfriend. It’s a rather clever and refreshing take on the formula, one that allows us to consider the current state of masculinity in a seemingly female-dominating society.

As the film opens, we witness a real estate agent named Peter (Paul Rudd) proposing to his loving girlfriend, Zooey (Rashida Jones). She happily accepts and announces the big news to all her girlfriends via cell phone. Peter strangely has no one to call. It is revealed at a family dinner that Peter really has no guy friends of his own. Peter is a rather effeminate male who’s spent most of his life so focused on his girlfriends that he never really developed any guy’s guy friends, the type that pounds beers, checks out girls, and jams out to rock in a garage. A running joke in the film is that Peter’s gay brother, Robbie (Andy Samburg) is more masculine that he is. Peter’s Mom (Jane Curtain) and Dad (J.K. Simmons) note that he needs to find a best man for his own wedding.

Peter decides to solve this problem by going on a series of “man-dates” in hopes to find a candidate for a new best friend. These dates prove to be unsuccessful, for Peter finds the candidates too old, too goofy, or in one funny instance, too gay. Things look up for him though at an open house for Lou Ferrigno (yes, the Lou Ferrigno). It’s there he meets Sydney (Jason Segal), a breezy and funny dude with a laid-back demeanor. They exchange business cards and Peter decides to see if he’s buddy material. The two begin hanging out and pretty soon, they’re drinking beers and jamming out to Rush tunes in Sydney’s garage. Peter has finally found his best man, but as he gets more and more into doing manly activities, it begins to put a considerable strain on his relationship with Zooey.

I Love You, Man is a further entry into the self-conscious renaissance of the bromance movie, a type of buddy film in which the values of male bonding are favored above all, seriously overshadowing traditional views of male-female romance. The idea of buddy comedy stretches all the way back to Abbot & Costello and the Three Stooges, but I think the roots of bromance, specifically, began with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the story of two neurotic outlaws who, in the end, only had each other. Their friendship wasn’t basked in slapstick goofiness, but felt genuine and powerful. There have been considerable variations of bromance over the years, but as we revel in the Judd Apatow era of comedy, bromance is blossoming into a more colorful and conscious view than before. Friendship and loyalty towards your fellow man is being molded into the most attractive and favorable ideal in contemporary comedies, with romantic relationships feeling less fulfilling by comparison.

What’s most interesting about this film is the meditations it evokes about what it feels like to be a man’s man in today’s society. Women’s lib has developed strongly over the years to give women a more powerful hold on society than ever before. By contrast, being an all-out macho guy’s guy has become something of an obnoxious punch line in today’s world. Peter has spent so much of his normal life being sanitized in soft, feminine surroundings that being macho is almost a foreign concept to him, which it might also be for all of us. Think about it: we used to idolize Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty for partying and womanizing, now we condemn Colin Farrell for it. Go to a local bar and you’ll see an attractive female wearing a football jersey and cheering for the big game with an obnoxious testosterone act meant to parody the endangered acts of masculinity in question. Peter’s confusion towards traditional male behavior and his considerably awkward plots to obtain it are not at all far-fetched. Sydney also becomes a victim of this effeminate environment; he is threatened by isolation and loneliness for his masculine behavior while his buddies succumb to the demands of their wives. No room for strictly running with the wolves nowadays! While there’s nothing wrong with female independence, perhaps some fun aspects of male behavior is in fact missing today.

Aside from these psychological observations, I Love You, Man is a pretty funny comedy, although not as funny as Rudd’s last outing, Role Models, another film that suggested male bonding is the perfect solace from an indifferent world. I wish the film didn’t strictly follow a rom-com formula but let its characters breathe a bit more. The director, John Hamburg, had the same problem with his last film, Along Came Polly: he let a formulaic plot get in the way of genuinely fascinating comic characters. The film does have its big laughs though. This film has one of the most shocking and hilarious vomiting scenes I’ve ever seen. Sydney’s flip-out on a passerby objecting to his dog’s poop provides a hysterical line of dialogue. Plus there’s a goofy joy to be held in the scenes where Peter and Sydney practice in their very own Rush cover band (providing what is perhaps the funniest Back to the Future reference I’ve ever seen on film).

The film’s cast provides inventive comic riffs off the personas they’ve come to construct over their careers. Paul Rudd is usually the sarcastic wise-cracker who knocks on all dweebs in his path. This time he is the dweeb. He totally immerses himself in the nerdish meekness Peter demands without ever dulling his comic edge. Jason Segal fulfills the promise he made on Forgetting Sarah Marshall by turning in another charming and likeable comic performance that seems to come from a genuine place. And I loved the presence of Lou Ferrigno playing a comic version of himself. He is not an outsized caricature of himself, but has a relaxed presence brimming with humor and dignity. A scene in which he puts down Sydney with a sleeper-hold is worth the price of admission alone. Edward Norton was right: he is the man!

I really wish I Love You, Man reached further with its deeper ideals, but as it is, it’s very entertaining and likeable. If it pushed its human observations beyond just being a sitcom, it really could’ve touched greatness. But it’s always nice to see a sitcom with both brains and heart, not to mention a few big laughs. Long live the bromantic comedy!

'Duplicity': Starry-Eyed Hollywood Surprise

by Brett Parker

The opening scene of Duplicity shows Clive Owen approaching Julia Roberts at a lavish poolside party. Both are dressed in elegant summer styles and the camera basks them in a sun-soaked glow that makes them shine like the stars they are. Owen tries to hit on Roberts with confident smoothness while Roberts scans his charms with a knowing sassiness only a true slickster could surpass. As I stared at all this on the big screen, I thought: have I wandered into Hollywood heaven?

I’m happy to report that things only get better from there. Duplicity is a classy and breezy exercise in classic Hollywood banter, a dizzying look at inter-corporate espionage, and a plot twist extravaganza that reaches considerably absurd yet fun heights. Plausibility may get stretched and patience may get tested, but at least we get to see two charming movie stars having fun with being charming movie stars.

The film places Owen and Roberts in the roles of secret agents from competing agencies (he’s MI-6, she’s C.I.A.). Ray (Owen) and Claire (Roberts) meet and fall in love, sparking a dream of retiring comfortably together in an exotic locale. They both eventually resign from their agencies in hopes of staging a corporate swindle that can net them a handsome retirement package. The plan: both will take jobs as corporate spies for opposing bath product companies, sharing vital information with each other. They target Howard Tully (Tom Wilkinson) and Richard Garsick (Paul Giamatti), bitter corporate rivals who are racing each other for a top secret formula that holds the secret to the ultimate shampoo product. Ray and Claire plan on using their resources to find the formula first and sell it to European buyers.

There’s one big problem, however, that poses a considerable threat to their elaborate plan: Ray and Claire have major trust issues. On their first meeting, Claire drugged Ray into a deep sleep in order to steal Egyptian Weapon codes from his belongings. Claire claims she really cares for Ray and was just doing her job, but Ray has his reservations. Both are such sly and cunning agents with a talent for deception that an aura of distrust constantly haunts their relationship. They consistently wonder if their counterpart has the audacity to swindle them for their own personal gain (Ray hilariously notes, “this sucks!”). Can Ray and Claire stay true to each other and pull off their plan together? Will they ever be able to switch off their agent mentality and be a normal couple?

This has to be my favorite kind of cinematic territory: when big-time movie stars show off classy glamour in a clever plot that allows them to be both stylish and witty. Indeed, Owen and Roberts play on the screen like Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn used to do in the old days. It’s a style I welcome with open arms and a big smile. It’s pretty remarkable that after all of these years, Roberts can still dish out that high-wattage mix of sass and sexiness just like she could in her younger years, a mix that fits perfectly with the role of Claire. I once wrote that Clive Owen is “arguably the coolest man alive” and this film only strengthens that theory (there's even a scene where Ray's co-workers analyze his coolness to his face). He can rock a suit and smoldering charm almost as good as Cary Grant yet he possesses an aura of danger that’s entirely his own. His deadpan reaction after being caught stealing a secret formula is priceless.

I found myself fascinated with the film’s exploration of inter-corporate espionage, where big-time companies use innovative technology and elaborate sneakiness to pry into the competition. Some of these tactics include tapping into the rival’s copy machines, keeping tabs on their internet porn intake, and even sleeping with travel agents. This all may seem too “James Bond” to take place in the real world, but in these times of shameless CEOs trying to cop bonuses for themselves, I’m convinced that such conniving mechanisms of corporate business actually does take place. Duplicity was written and directed by Tony Gilroy, whose last film, Michael Clayton, knew a lot about shady corporate dealings and the moral vacuum that haunts it. While that film was interested in the moral tragedies of such a world, Duplicity uses it to display clever plot twists and snappy dialogue.

Get ready for plot twists of the mind-bending kind in this film. Flashbacks and revelations make us aware that nothing is what it seems. Even nothing by itself is not what it seems! As the twists keep coming and the plot keeps peeling off, you won’t believe how far back this one peels! I’ll try not to reveal too much, only to say that I’m in awe of how far certain characters go in order to achieve a rather clever business strategy. For some viewers, suspension of disbelief will be snapped in half, but I can probably believe that in some circles of the corporate world, people actually attempt the elaborate lengths of deception these characters go to. I also found great humor in the bittersweet irony the final plot twist leaves for the main characters.

There are certain detractors who accuse this movie of just being a commercial excuse for movie stars to look suave and revel in Hollywood slickness. To those people I ask, what’s the problem? In an era hung up on realism, people forget the earlier times where people went to the movies to live vicariously through super cool glamour gods. I’ve always preferred movies that show things we dream to be as opposed to the way things are. You can do a lot worse than Owen and Roberts going old school in an exotic locale.

A Whole Lot of Love For 'Two Lovers'

by Brett Parker

There is nothing more satisfying than a relationship movie that gets everything right. It’s very rare in today’s cinema to find a dating film with a slice-of-life satisfaction; one that’s devoid of clichés and pays attention to blunt details we can all relate to. That’s exactly what James Grey’s Two Lovers is, a film that knows a tremendous amount about what it feels like to be a brokenhearted man wrestling with loneliness and an unstable woman. If you’ve ever dealt with these two things at any time in your life, then you will find in this film a bittersweet sympathy and insight. Except for what I believe to be a slight misstep in the final act, this drama is damn near flawless.

Joaquin Phoenix stars as Leonard Kraditor, a Brooklyn-born man who is suffering deep emotional wounds from life. Due to mysterious issues with health and family, Leonard’s fiancée (Anne Joyce) cut him off and moved far away. This break-up caused Leonard to move back into his parents’ apartment and work for his father’s Laundromat business. We learn that Leonard is on medication and has made multiple suicide attempts. Leonard feels isolated in a world that has plagued him with almost unbearable heartache. His parents attempt to help him by setting him up with Sandra (Vanessa Shaw), the attractive daughter of family friends. Leonard finds her pretty, but doesn’t feel the same sparks he once felt over his fiancé.

Those sparks are ignited once Leonard walks into Michelle (Gwyneth Paltrow), a beautiful blonde who happens to live in the same apartment building as him. Michelle is a gorgeous blonde who appears to possess style, class, and sweetness. She is like a blast of color and sunshine into Leonard’s dreary universe. They begin to start hanging out and a nice chemistry grows between them. Through her, Leonard begins to find a certain happiness again and he attempts to romantically conquer her.

Things aren’t really that simple though. It turns out that Michelle is a lot more troubled than she appears to be. She has a considerable drug problem and is hopelessly in love with a married man named Ronald (Elias Koteas). She flakes out on Leonard and comes crying to him every time there’s a complication with Ronald. Leonard doesn’t think he can handle the stress of dealing with such a woman, so he begins to slowly give dating Sandra a try. Better to have a woman at your side than no one at all, Leonard figures. But as Sandra begins to want something more serious, Michelle begins to hint at affectionate feelings she may have for Leonard. Should Leonard play it safe with Sandra’s sure thing, or should he follow his wild passion for Michelle?

James Grey is turning out to be one of our most patient and uncompromising of directors. His forte so far has been New York-based crime dramas (he directed Phoenix in both The Yards and We Own the Night), but now he has knocked one out of the park with what has to be one of the most superior of relationship films. He has crafted a vivid portrayal of male heartbreak and romantic yearning, yet miraculously this film is not basked in the kind of melancholy usually commonplace with such films. The camera doesn’t simply document Leonard being depressed but shows him genuinely trying to make sense of his emotions and doing what’s best for his aching heart. Leonard is not painted as a depressing mope but a humorous and kind outsider trying his very best to function in a rather unsatisfying world. This film easily could’ve reveled in his character wounds, but the material wisely sees the bigger picture.

It’s some kind of miracle that Grey is able to pull such startling realism and patient subtlety from what could’ve been sanitized and contrived material. We’ve seen such notes played in films before, but rarely have we related to it so strongly. This may not be a scenario of the highest drama, but it strongly affects us because just about everyone has felt hurt like Leonard at one point in their lives. Almost all of us have had an unhealthy attraction to an unobtainable head case such as Michelle. The emotions and plights may belong to these characters, but Grey and his co-screenwriter Ric Menello have carefully crafted things so that anyone can relate strongly to Leonard and Michelle.

In a way, this film presents the same moral dilemma proposed by Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona: is it better to indulge in the wild passions of our hearts or conform to a safe, societal mechanism of “romance?” While Allen’s film left that question open-ended, Grey’s presents us with a final answer. I will not reveal what happens in the film’s final scene, just to say that Leonard makes a decision that I thought to be unwise and too compromised. It’s a testament to Grey that his final decision feels true to the character without contrivance, but I wish Leonard had the strength and wisdom to realize that it’s not worth it to let your heart be dictated by women, or anyone else for that matter. Perhaps Grey is trying to suggest the ways we compromise in life in order to combat our heartaches and loneliness.

Of course this drama would be nothing without the film’s wise and attentive performances, which are aces all around. The entire cast, especially Paltrow, defies character standards we’ve come to expect from these roles, fleshing out human portraits of real people dealing with perplexing emotions. No one is made out to be victims or villains, just people looking out for what’s best for their feelings. This is strongly felt in the acting miracle that is Joaquin Phoenix’s performance as Leonard. Phoenix weaves a portrait of such complexity, humor, and longing that we’re in awe of the chords that it strikes within our hearts. He makes us feel Leonard’s every feeling of pain and joy with such a courageous humanity that it shames a ridiculous amount of leading man performances of cinema past. Leonard is right up there with Johnny Cash on the list of Phoenix’s best performances.

By now, almost everyone knows about Phoenix’s seemingly-disastrous decision to retire from acting to flesh out a new career as a hip-hop artist. Armed with an unkempt beard and an alarming strangeness, Phoenix seems fed up with acting and feels rap is now his true calling. While he is a grown man who is allowed to follow his passions, I seriously hope he reconsiders returning to the big screen. We need actors like him. If he indeed never steps in front of a camera again, then cinema will be losing one of its most articulate and fearless of actors. Phoenix pours a devastating amount of uncompromising emotions and fascinating details into his character portrayals without the knowing showiness of most method chameleons. In Phoenix’s work, we can see our own vulnerabilities and our own needs to make connections and sense of the world around us. He’s too good to walk away now.

If performances like Phoenix’s portrayal of Leonard is desperately wanted, then romantic dramas like Two Lovers is also just as craved. This film blows the doors off of the contrived phoniness of most Hollywood romances and is the sucker-punch of truth you’ve been yearning for. It’s like an oasis of heart in a desert of commercial frustration. This is destined to be one of the very best films of the year and is not to be missed!

A New 'House' on the Horror Block

by Brett Parker

The Last House on the Left is a good-looking, well-acted practice in repulsive brutality. Here’s a film from the slasher genre that’s gripping, effective, and better than most, yet it features an unflinching rape scene, gore that’s almost too graphic, and a bleak nihilism that every audience member will feel to their core. One could condemn the film for its acts of violence, but then one would have do condemn all horror violence, when you think about it.

The film is a remake of Wes Craven’s 1972 film of the same name, which itself was a remake of Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring. The story follows a young girl named Mari (Sara Paxton) as she stays at her summer home by the lake with her parents, Emma (Monica Potter) and John (Tony Goldwyn). As her parents prepare for a quiet night, Mari suggests driving into town to meet up with her friend Paige (Martha MacIsaac). Mari takes the family car and visits Paige at the convenience store where she works. As they talk of trying to score weed, they are overheard by a quiet young man named Justin (Spencer Treat Clark) who says he has some good drugs at his motel room.

Mari and Emma go to Justin’s motel room and the real terror begins. It turns out that Justin is related to a family of wanted serial killers. His father, Krug (Garret Dillahunt) is the evil ring leader while his girlfriend Sadie (Riki Lindhome) and his brother Francis (Aaron Paul) make up his soldiers in sadism. The killers take the girls hostage into the woods, in which they ridicule, torture, and rape them. They stab Paige to death and put a bullet in Mari as she makes an escape into the lake.

As a storm rages outside, the killers attempt to seek shelter in a nearby house. That house happens to be Mari’s summer home, where Emma and John are holed up without power. They light candles and feed the killers without realizing who they are. However, Mari is able to crawl out of the lake wounded and make her way back to the house, allowing her parents to figure out that their current house guests tried to brutally murder their child. This sets off Emma and John on an exceedingly violent mission to obtain safety and revenge.

I’ve only seen the original Last House on the Left once, but I remember having an admiration for it. As a horror film, it evoked genuine terror that held you in its grasp the entire time. The film was done on a low budget which gave the camera a realistic, docudrama feel. The cast didn’t feel like polished actors, but rugged human types that embodied their roles perfectly (David Hess was especially effective as Krug; he sticks out most in the mind). The only missteps were the strangely distracting folk songs that plagued the soundtrack and the development of Mari’s parents: they went from loving parents to deranged killers at the flick of a switch (perhaps the film was making a point with this).

Whatever could’ve been improved in the original is in fact improved this time around. There’s no goofy folk songs anywhere on the soundtrack and Mari’s parents are given more dramatic depth and conviction, thanks in no small part to Potter and Goldwyn. Other than that, the remake is competent and entertaining, if not as much as the original. The cinematography is well-serving and appropriate, but it lacks the scrappy grittiness of the original. The killers are acted with creepy conviction, but the actors look a tad too pretty to be outcast killers. I kept thinking Dillahunt belonged at a superhero audition.

There’s no way you can talk about this film without acknowledging the film’s violence. What can be said about a film that uses rape and torture for the sake of entertainment value? While the original film acknowledged and depicted such sadism, the remake seems to linger all-too-attentively on these uneasy details. The rape scene is filmed in unflinching close-ups as well as scenes of body parts being bloodily penetrated. We feel a lot of these intimate details are unnecessary. Of course, most films in this genre are all about jazzing up nauseating slayings for a bloodthirsty audience, yet we feel very uneasy about it this time. While the original film exercised past anxieties over the Charles Manson murders, we feel this time that all of this violence is evoked to make more money off the horror crowds.

I could write on about how the rape and torture scenes violate standards of taste and decency, but doesn’t all horror violence do that anyways? I’d feel like a huge hypocrite if I condemned the film’s rape scene, but never said anything about Jason Voorhees going into a wood chipper or Michael Myers decapitating young women. Isn’t most horror violence just as depraving and sickening as the punishments Krug and his comrades dish out here? Since the genre’s origins, Horror movies have been an outlet for viewers to work out certain nightmare anxieties floating around in their subconscious. There’s a reason why slasher films have such high grosses. These films allow us to vicariously exercise our fears and anxieties about death and torture, even the kind that involves microwaving one’s head. The shower scene in Psycho, for example, is analyzed as a classic scene, but isn’t a woman being stabbed to death naked in a shower just as vile as a woman being raped in the woods?

Perhaps the success of the horror genre suggests what I think The Last House on the Left is getting at: embedded within all human nature is a dark, hostile side which is not impossible to evoke. Remember that in ancient times, crowds use to gather for public tortures and executions. So is the current Last House on the Left a public torture worth attending? Well, it’s not for the faint of heart or the easily disturbed. I’m somewhat on-the-fence about it: it’s a terrifying exercise, yet I’m in no rush to see it again. It’s a good movie, but I liked the original one a whole lot better and I think you’re better off just renting that.

Are These 'Watchmen' Worth Watching?

by Brett Parker

There are people who consider Alan Moore and David Gibbons’ Watchmen to be the greatest graphic novel of all time. I happen to be one of those people. Since the day I first read it, I’ve been in considerable awe of the novel’s multilayered genius. It’s a rich text filled with wonderful new things to discover every time you read it. Never before had a comic penetrated so deeply into the myth of the superhero, bringing to the forefront shattering revelations that were both disturbing and thoughtful. Watchmen forever changed the landscape of comics (some would even say pop culture) and its influence is still felt today.

Since the early 90s, Watchmen has been struggling to find its way to the big screen, much to the dismay of Alan Moore. Some say the novel’s imagery cries out to be put on film, while Moore states the comic’s structure is adaptation-proof. Ferocious visionary Terry Gilliam wrestled to get the project off the ground before deeming the material unfilmable. Darren Aronofsky and Paul Greengrass tried to shake up the material’s relevance by updating the novel’s Cold War setting to the modern war on terror. In the end, it was Zack Snyder (300, Dawn of the Dead), who finally got the project to the screen in an adaptation he promised would be very faithful.

Watchmen fans had their worries about the project. Snyder is a competent director, but one of light pop. Does he have the chops to pull off such a complex and brainy adaptation of a visionary masterpiece? If Watchmen was a major supernova in the world of comics, can he make the movie into a force of equal nature? There's a sinking feeling within the fanboy community that perhaps the material would be served better in the hands of a more prestigious director.

Watchmen diehards would certainly be the harshest critics of Snyder’s final film. I know I certainly was. The first time I saw the film, I found myself nitpicking at the film way too much. I was so intent on doing a book-to-movie comparison in my head that I didn’t allow myself to sit back and let the movie soak in as a whole. Like most literary film goers, I found myself both irked and awed by specific departures from the novel. Certain subplots were dropped, dramatic developments were rushed, and lots of things were switched around. I was being so tough on the film for having the book so fresh in my head.

I knew I needed to see it again. This time, I would relax. I would let the movie just flow and see how it made me feel once the lights went up. After seeing it multiple times, I’ve concluded that Snyder’s adaptation fails to be a complex cinematic masterpiece but is, in fact, highly-elevated pop. In a way, the film could never achieve the meditative brilliance of the novel, but it does hold more bravery and ideas than the typical superhero film. So rich is the source material that even a half-baked adaptation would still resemble something exceptional. The film’s great failing is that it feels a tad like Batman Forever when what we truly want is a Children of Men impact.

The genius of Watchmen is the way it places the myth of the superhero in a real world setting. It shows, without compromise, what it would look like if superheroes actually existed amidst American history. According to the story’s history, masked vigilantes came into fruitation throughout the early 1940s and became commonplace. They even served as government agents before a bill came to pass in the 1970s that outlawed superheroes. The American landscape was forever altered, however, with the arrival of a God-like superman called Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup), a glowing nuclear being capable of manipulating matter to his will.

The film opens in an alternate 1985 in which President Nixon (Robert Wisden) is still president and the Russians, terrified of Dr. Manhattan, threaten America with a nuclear attack. An aging superhero named The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is murdered in his New York apartment. An unbending vigilante named Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley) believes this murder is part of a plot to wipe out the last of the remaining superheroes. There’s Night Owl (Patrick Wilson), a tech genius and impotent schlub, Silk Spectre (Malin Akerman), a second-generation avenger, Ozymandias (Matthew Goode), the world’s smartest man and biggest tycoon, and Dr. Manhattan himself, who wonders how he could possibly be stopped in such a plot. As the plot begins to unravel and nuclear war grows imminent, the heroes begin to realize just how bleak and dangerous a world they inhabit and how, most disturbingly, they helped contribute to that.

If you’ve never seen, or even heard, of Watchmen, this movie will certainly blow your mind. It’s a visual feast filled with uncompromising developments and thoughtful ideas rather uncommon in typical pop. It is certainly a grand entertainment filled with dazzling effects, great music, and fascinating characters. Unsuspecting moviegoers will be treated to an epic superhero tale that spans from Antarctica to Planet Mars, with scenes ranging from action-packed to attentively dramatic, unflinching in its dark analysis of the superhero mind.

Now diehard fans of the original graphic novel will feel that the film could never live up to the impact the book created. My gripes with this film are common with most literary lovers who have to watch a film adaptation of one of their favorite novels. Certain developments are too compressed or smoothed over. Specific moments miss the point of the novel’s original intent. Key moments in the novel that were startling and shocking (Silk Spectre’s attempted rape, Rorschach’s origin, Ozymandias’ elaborate plan) lack the same startling punch when translated to film. Even with all of these considered changes, we almost feel like the film is too faithful to the novel. It’s certainly an effective film, but we’re left wondering if Snyder’s faithfulness evoked a well-served film narrative.

Even if Watchmen isn’t as great of a film as it could possibly be, I still don’t feel the need to condemn Snyder for this. The guy knew he was taking on a project bigger than his entire filmography and he threw everything he had into it. Weekly web diaries document how Snyder paid obsessive attention to every aspect of this production and fans could sense that Snyder was pushing himself as greatly as he could. He knew that to serve this material great justice, he had to go beyond anything he had ever done in this business before. Watchmen is certainly Snyder’s best work and I give him great credit for pushing beyond his limits and making a mad dash for greatness.

Watchmen certainly has wonderful production values all across the board. Production Designer Alex McDowell helps to create a convincing 1985 that’s filled with small details that help make this lived-in reality all the more convincing. Tyler Bates creates a musical score that reaches sublime heights, evoking memories of the Blade Runner score. And while the film’s selection of pop songs may seem jarring and random, they help give the film a welcomed energy and color. I also admired Larry Fong’s photography, which captures the comic book colors of this world while also evoking a darkened atmosphere reminiscent of Seven or Taxi Driver.

Since Watchmen is essentially an elaborate character study, the material lives and dies by its casting of these superhero figures. I’m happy to report that the principal cast perfectly embodies the characters as we would picture them in our minds. The complexities and depths of all the main characters are nailed perfectly by the cast. I was also surprised to discover that my least favorite part of the novel became my favorite part of the film: the romantic subplot between Night Owl and Silk Spectre. Wilson and Akerman bring a touching poignancy to their scenes, as two heroes who feel internally lost in a world that has no more room for masked heroes. It’s through this plot that we feel the material’s sad truths about superhero archetypes.

I’m of the opinion that anything can be turned into a movie, so I was never down with the popular opinion that Watchmen could never work as a movie. This one certainly does. Yet as grand and entertaining as Snyder’s adaptation is, one can’t help but wonder if a better translation could’ve been made. What dramatic heights could Darren Aronofsky have taken us too? What would Watchmen have looked like basked in Terry Gilliam’s deranged creativity? Or perhaps no film could ever live up to the greatness of the novel, so sublime is the source material. But you can almost drive yourself mad thinking of such possibilities. Snyder’s Watchmen is certainly worth your investment, both financially and intellectually.