What’s It About
Above, in an apartment building, two detectives investigate the death of Edward Blake. Someone threw Blake over his balcony. Without any leads, the detectives decide to keep investigating in private to avoid attracting any “masked avengers” who might want to solve the case themselves.
MOVIESinMO REVIEW
Did someone hack the Matrix? Is this déjà vu? No, wait, Watchmen just got the reverse Disney treatment. You know, when a decent live-action film from back in 2009 is remade as an animated feature, only to end up worse. Just like those Disney conversions, the result is underwhelming. In this alternate timeline, Watchmen: Chapter I transports us to 1985. Nixon is still president, and the U.S. triumphed in the Vietnam War—two suspiciously linked things. Superheroes were outlawed in 1977 and branded as vigilantes—rightly so, in some cases, because a few were decent folks, but others were far from it. Among the latter was The Comedian, aka Edward Blake (voiced by Rick D. Wasserman). Notice the past tense. He was hurled out of his high-rise window and hit the pavement with a splat. Did he deserve it? Hard to say, but flashbacks reveal him to be a fascist psychopath. One of his former crime-fighting comrades, Rorschach, aka Walter Kovacs (voiced by Titus Welliver), a foul-smelling creep in a trench coat with a morphing inkblot mask, believes The Comedian’s murder is part of a larger plot targeting ex-superheroes. Rorschach’s an unhinged conspiracy theorist, narrating his journal entries like he absorbed all the wrong lessons from Taxi Driver. His theories might seem outlandish, but he could be onto something. There’s definitely something rotten going on here. Rorschach’s sleazy “investigation” involves roughing up lowlifes at a dingy bar—breaking fingers for answers that never really come—and catching up with his old Watchmen buddies: Nite Owl/Dan Dreiberg (Matthew Rhys), a middle-aged, slightly schlubby guy who’s lost his sense of purpose in retirement; Ozymandias/Adrian Veidt (Troy Baker), a megalomaniac billionaire running a massive corporation and selling action figures of himself; and Silk Spectre/Laurie Juspeczyk (Katee Sackhoff), struggling with her identity while married to Jonathan Osterman/Dr. Manhattan (Michael Cerveris). Dr. Manhattan is a perpetually nude, seemingly omnipotent, and immortal atomic being who can bend matter to his will and doesn’t experience time like the rest of us. Under U.S. government control, he watches human suffering with a detached gaze, his mere presence potentially preventing nuclear war with Russia. As deaths, funerals, and reunions unfold, Laurie, increasingly unhappy, leaves Dr. Manhattan’s cold abode and reconnects with Dan. Meanwhile, Rorschach prowls the city like a noir detective, piecing together clues. Flashbacks pull us into the grim history of the Watchmen: The Comedian burning children in Vietnam, The Comedian assaulting Laurie’s mother, the original Silk Spectre (Adrienne Barbeau), and so on. In the present, Dr. Manhattan discovers—oops!—he might be toxically radioactive. Dan and Laurie find their superhero mojo again after a run-in with street thugs, Veidt broods in his gilded tower, and Rorschach visits an old, retired supervillain. All the while, the world inches closer to chaos as U.S.-Russia tensions skyrocket, and doomsday prophets haunt the streets with signs proclaiming THE END IS NIGH. Watchmen: Chapter I sticks slavishly to the source material, even keeping the in-world graphic novel Tales of the Black Freighter as part of the narrative. Snyder’s film adaptation streamlined the story by cutting the Black Freighter segments, but this version reinstates them, for better or worse. This retelling will make sense for those familiar with the Watchmen saga, but it feels redundant for anyone who’s already read the graphic novel. Watchmen: Chapter I struggles to justify its existence, failing to capture the impact of the original and ultimately serving as a reminder to revisit the graphic novel instead of indulging in yet another adaptation.
OUR RATING – A REPETITIVE 4