Watchmen Chapter 1 review
Watchmen Chapter 1 proves Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ landmark comic book series can be properly adapted for other mediums. The trick “shockingly” enough is to simply trust the source material’s story is compelling enough to keep viewers and fans invested.
Prior to landing the gig of steering the DC Extended Universe Zack Snyder directed a live-action adaptation of Watchmen in 2009. Snyder’s effort was solid while staying on brand with copious amounts of slow-mo and a touch more emphasis on visuals over story. In fairness to Snyder, condensing the 12-issue comic series into a two hours and 42 minutes film was a major challenge.
The Warner Bros. Animation effort solution? Break the story into two 90-minute plus installments and focus on the story first and the cool visuals second. And have one of the more respected comic book writers/TV screenwriters J. Michael Straczynski map out how best to incorporate Moore’s dialogue.
Watchmen Chapter 1 will likely be best appreciated by viewers already familiar with the material. Not because the story is so hard to get into, but it’s easier to appreciate the care and love that went into the project.
Director Brandon Vietti (Batman: Death in the Family) is clearly a fan of the source material. Snyder conveyed the point of the scenes, but Vietti took the extra step of using the exact same layouts and perspectives Gibbons used when drawing the panels.
Edward Blake (Rick D. Wasserman, Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes) is found dead, the victim of a violent assault. One of the last active vigilantes, Rorschach (Titus Welliver), learns that Blake was his old crimefighting teammate, The Comedian.
Immediately paranoid that vigilantes are being targeted, Rorschach reaches out to his old comrades Dan Dreiberg/Nite-Owl (Matthew Rhys), Dr. Manhattan (Michael Cerveris), Laurie Juspeczyk/Silk Spectre (Katee Sackhoff, The Mandalorian) and Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias (Troy Baker).
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More incidents play out suggesting that Rorschach might not be as paranoid as his allies initially thought. He just might have been ahead of the curve.
Watchmen isn’t set up like a standard superhero story. It’s more of a character study that humanized the heroes in a manner that no comic before it attempted. That could make for a boring film, but the character backstories are so engaging it’s easy to stay invested.
Dr. Manhattan’s origin story is wonderfully told and done in a way to appropriately cover all the nuances of the time displaced tale.
Vietti and Straczynski also include the Tales of the Black Freighter, a side story in the comic that isn’t essential to the main plot but is a welcome addition to comic fans.
There’s no weak link among the voice cast. Welliver is especially strong as Rorschach and Cerveris captures the detached, traumatic of Manhattan’s past. And Sackhoff and Rhys exquisitely handle the evolving friendship of Dan and Laurie as it starts to become something more.
The 3D cell-shaded animation effectively mimics Gibbon’s art style. That’s a nice touch as Gibbons has been far more involved in the Watchmen brand than Moore over the years. Certain movements can “trip up” the animation giving it a herky-jerky look at times. Thankfully that’s not a consistent issue with the action sequences, which are smoothly animated.
Snyder opted for a mix of contemporary music, which became distracting at times. The score for Watchmen Chapter 1 is more complementary giving the film a more epic and important feel.
Earlier this year, Warner Bros. Animation released the immensely disappointing Crisis on Infinite Earths. That failed spectacularly by squandering the rare opportunity to fully tell the comic story in three chapters.
Watchmen Chapter 1 is already a massive improvement simply for doing justice to the story resulting in one of the best WBA entries in years.
Rating: 10 out of 10
Photo Credit: Warner Bros. Animation
Pre-order Watchman Chapter 1 on Blu Ray at Amazon.
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