No, unfortunately, your humble correspondent, despite his long history of being obsessed with the upcoming Zack Snyder adaptation of Alan Moore's brilliant Watchmen comic, was not one of those recently invited to view 26 minutes of the footage at a special preview screening. Nor was I numbered among those who got to see the entire film at a preview in Portland, to decidedly mixed reviews. Why I wasn't included despite my spooky fixation on the movie is unclear; it might have something to do with the fact that I've predicted the movie will suck raw pork knuckles since it was first announced. Whatever the case, I haven't seen the damn movie yet, and so that's not what I'm going to be reviewing today.
What I'm going to be reviewing today isn't even, technically, a movie. I'm not sure what it is. Its producers call it a "motion comic". It's not an animated film, exactly, nor is it a motion picture, nor is it a webcomic or anything else that we have the critical language to talk about. It's also not playing at a theater near you: it's available (the first three chapters, at least) exclusively as a download from the iTunes music store. Even though it isn't music, either. So what is it? It's basically the entire comic, written by Moore and drawn by Dave Gibbons, panel by panel, with a very basic, stripped-down sort of cutout animation. It's also narrated, but not dramatized -- that is, the dialogue is read aloud, in a sort of dramatic fashion, by character actor Tom Stechschulte. But he's the only member of the cast, which means it's not really a dramatic adaptation of the story -- or any kind of adaptation at all, really. It's almost like a book on tape of a comic book, only it movies. Kinda.
While it may be difficult to describe what Watchmen: The Motion Comic (no, really, that's what it's called) is, it's a lot easier to say whether it's any good: no. Since I have nothing to compare it against, lacking any other "motion comics" and not even sure what is supposed to be accomplished by them other than to serve as a promotional tool for the comic and the movie, I can't honestly say if it succeeds or fails on its own terms, because I don't know what those terms are. But I do know it's really boring. The only original element is a soundtrack that virtually defines the word "perfunctory", and while many people have pointed out how ridiculous it is to hear Stechschulte performing the female voices, equally ridiculous is hearing him perform any of the voices when there's no particular reason to do so. The animation, such as it is, can be clever, but it doesn't really add anything to the illustration -- it's too limited to do so. If you've always wanted to pay someone fifty dollars to get the same effect as reading a book to yourself out loud in the living room, this is the...uh...book? Movie? Comic? whatever...for you. Otherwise, the whole thing is pointless on a rather grand scale; take half the fifty and go buy a copy of the original Watchmen comic. You'll still have enough money to see the book, and enough to spare on a bottle of gin to forget this ludicrous endeavor was ever launched.
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