Okay, so the Watchmen movie probably does suck, but. . . .
Just read Anthony Lane's review of Watchmen in the New Yorker . [There are spoilers in the review, particularly if you haven't read the comic.] I haven't seen the movie, and I already had quite low expectations. . . .
But what puzzles me about the review is Lane's apparent contempt for comic books (yes, I do mean comic books, dammit, not graphic novels) and their readers and for Alan Moore himself. Moore's work here may be very, very dark, and very violent, but the accusations of misogyny and "metaphysical vulgarity" ("neither author nor director"--and elsewhere it's pretty clear that he's referring to Moore as the author rather than the guys who wrote the actual movie-- "has much grasp of what genuine, unhyped suffering might be like, or what pity should attend it; they are too busy fussing over the fate of the human race") seem off base. The story revolves around moral ambiguity and is, largely, a very critical examination of the idea of "superheroes" (it doesn't seem to have occurred to Lane that the "Nite Owl" character is supposed to resemble batman). It is a critique of the very "cod mythology" Lane decries at the beginning. The ending can be read as a final extension of the sort of morality supposed by the superhero idea (or the conflict between two moralities, neither of which is satisfactory). It is not supposed to be a satisfactory conclusion, and you are not meant to wholeheartedly endorse any of the protagonists.
It's highly possible that Hollywood's intolerance for moral ambiguity has destroyed the original point of the story (though Lane would apparently accuse me of feeling that the adaption is not "slavish enough"), producing a really terrible movie in the process. Certainly Hollywood sensibility sucked a lot of the ambivalence out of "V for Vendetta" ("Fight Club" also comes to mind, although the end product was still very edgy and a pretty good movie). And, probably, Watchmen is a poor choice for a movie adaptation anyway. If this is the case, it seems odd that Lane blames so much of it on Moore. If it isn't the case, it seems surprising that Lane missed the entire point of the work. While the quality of the comic as a piece of literature can certainly be debated on any front you like, it does have to be interpreted as a reaction to and critique of a genre -- as far as I can tell, Lane instead seems to think that it's more or less an exceedingly joyless X-men analog.
But what puzzles me about the review is Lane's apparent contempt for comic books (yes, I do mean comic books, dammit, not graphic novels) and their readers and for Alan Moore himself. Moore's work here may be very, very dark, and very violent, but the accusations of misogyny and "metaphysical vulgarity" ("neither author nor director"--and elsewhere it's pretty clear that he's referring to Moore as the author rather than the guys who wrote the actual movie-- "has much grasp of what genuine, unhyped suffering might be like, or what pity should attend it; they are too busy fussing over the fate of the human race") seem off base. The story revolves around moral ambiguity and is, largely, a very critical examination of the idea of "superheroes" (it doesn't seem to have occurred to Lane that the "Nite Owl" character is supposed to resemble batman). It is a critique of the very "cod mythology" Lane decries at the beginning. The ending can be read as a final extension of the sort of morality supposed by the superhero idea (or the conflict between two moralities, neither of which is satisfactory). It is not supposed to be a satisfactory conclusion, and you are not meant to wholeheartedly endorse any of the protagonists.
It's highly possible that Hollywood's intolerance for moral ambiguity has destroyed the original point of the story (though Lane would apparently accuse me of feeling that the adaption is not "slavish enough"), producing a really terrible movie in the process. Certainly Hollywood sensibility sucked a lot of the ambivalence out of "V for Vendetta" ("Fight Club" also comes to mind, although the end product was still very edgy and a pretty good movie). And, probably, Watchmen is a poor choice for a movie adaptation anyway. If this is the case, it seems odd that Lane blames so much of it on Moore. If it isn't the case, it seems surprising that Lane missed the entire point of the work. While the quality of the comic as a piece of literature can certainly be debated on any front you like, it does have to be interpreted as a reaction to and critique of a genre -- as far as I can tell, Lane instead seems to think that it's more or less an exceedingly joyless X-men analog.