I have no prior exposure to Watchmen whatsoever, so I had the fortune to come to the 3-hour director’s cut fresh.  On the one hand, I wanted to be cynically skeptical of over-wrought, gratuitously wasteful Hollywood production values; and on the other hand, I just wanted to have a good time.  I mostly had the latter.

What I didn’t expect was the intelligence and tautness of the film’s first two hours.  And then, having thus far been pleasantly surprised, I did not at all expect the film to devolve into sillyness over its last third. 

But that’s where Hollywood comes in.  As with otherwise outstanding films like Enchanted and Iron Man, Watchmen concludes with a routine, unimaginative smackdown… and goes one step further by abandoning the narrative rigor of its first two acts in favor of clichés and surprisingly uninvolving genocide and character revelations.  We should care when the elder statesman of the Watchman dies, shouldn’t we?   But we don’t, really.  And director Zack Snyder proves he is capable of making the annihilation of even millions purely an exercise of the atomization of matter.  Hmm… very… interesting.

But let me praise the first two acts.  The story of Watchmen envisions an alternate past, shaped primarily by the victory of the United States in Viet Nam… and the subsequent election of Richard Nixon to a third term.  This fundamental historic shift is the result of a scientific accident which turned Jon Osterman into Dr. Manhattan, an atomized and recombinated being who is alternately an unstoppable weapon and the most disengaged, self-absorbed being known.  He turns the tide of war, and is one of the Watchmen: masked superheroes who dispense vigilante justice when the wheels of law enforcement turn slowly or corruptly.

But as America grows more smug and tensions with the Soviet Union escalate, Congress enacts a law that criminalizes the activities of the other Watchmen, some of whom are now second-generation protégés, while Dr. Manhattan continues his government-sponsored work with former Watchman genius Adrian Veidt to pioneer new energy sources.  The film opens with one of the original Watchmen, The Comedian, brutally murdered… and with fellow original Rorshach on the noirish trail of the culprits.

In the early going, the inventive tale is a compelling examination of the nature of justice, a critical self-examination and celebration of right-wing values, and a witty tour through pop culture history.  The opening sequence is plausibly set to Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” and the production design overtly reeks of nostalgia. Nite Owl’s new profession as a classic car repairman isn’t just an occupation; it’s a metaphor.  “Obsolete models—we fix ’em.”  You just know that, by the time the tale is done, Watchmen will both cyncially dissect conservative values while arguing their necessity.  A scene in which the heirs to the Nite Owl and Silk Spectre mantles converse is particularly telling, shot through a plate-glass window in which out-of-focus reflections set the foreground tone.

The film is also remarkably un-politically correct, turning homophobia into a narrative device and promoting a sociopathic, profane hero who wages conservative, justified vigilantism.  Whiny criminals, gangbanger, and freeloaders need not apply.  As Rorschach tells the inmates with whom he’s imprisoned, “I’m not stuck in here with you… you’re stuck in here with me!”  And by that point, we’re inclined to applaud, at least internally.  Interestingly, Jackie Earle Haley and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, as the distasteful Rorshach and Comedian, respectively, turn in the film’s two truly compelling performances.

The background tension is provided the imminent threat of global thermonuclear war, and the foreground tension is fueled by the questions: Who’s targeting both Watchmen and their former arch-nemeses?  When will the Watchmen go back into action, and how?  Will the increasingly dispassionate Dr. Manhattan be persuaded to intervene?

Oh, and, of course, there’s the sexual tension in two triangles, one involving Laurie Jupiter (Silk Spectre II), Dan Dreiberg (Nite Owl II), and Osterman, and the other involving Laurie, her mom (the original Silk Spectre), and The Comedian.

As long as the plot remains abstract and philosophical it’s all in thoughtful, good fun. “It rains on the just and the unjust alike,” Laurie observes, and the biblical allusion is both apt and welcome.  Dr. Manhattan reminds us that a being of limited omnipotence is really no god at all; and Rorshach’s bitter and self-damning conclusion, “God doesn’t make the world this way… we do,” seems warranted.  It’s even amusing to consider an alternate 1980s that still produces music like “99 Luftballoons.”  Some thing’s don’t change.

But when the plot and naked bodies start coming together, Snyder’s flick just jumps the rails.  By the time Laurie explains her post-heroic ennui with the unironic line, “Just heavy, you know: war, jailbreak,” you kind of feel like you’re watching Winnie Cooper as a superhero.  And that’s not all that fun.

“Can’t you just tell us how this ends and save us all this trouble?” our heroes demand of the archvillian at the end of the trail.  And by the 150-minute mark, you’re likely to feel that way, too.  As Laurie observes at that point, “nothing ever ends.”

It’s sad that Dr. Manhattan, “the puppet who sees the strings,” as he puts it, becomes the central metaphor for a movie in which it’s ultimately hard to care about anyone living or dying.  You might end up feeling jerked around, and just as disconnected from the story as this blue, anatomically-correct superpower.

But one thing’s for sure: with this two-disc, 3-hour director’s-cut edition, packed with another several hours of bonus features, you’ll feel like you’re getting your money’s worth.  Watchmen might have been an instant classic… in an alternate present.

Watchmen is rated R for “strong graphic violence, sexuality, nudity, and language.”  I’m pretty much sure that the film is designed to be an equal-opportunity offender, sure to tweak the sensibilities of both the left and the right.  It’s designed for a culture that values provocation.  Just so ya know.

Courtesy of a the studio, Greg screened a promotional DVD of Watchmen. 

Box art display is a studio requirement.  Watchmen Director’s Cut, 2-Disc Digital Copy Special Edition.  Own it on DVD July 21, 2009.

Synopsis: Someone’s killing our superheroes.  The year is 1985 and super heroes have banded together to respond to the murder of one of their own.  They soon uncover a sinister plot that puts all of humanity in grave danger.  The super heroes fight to stop the impending doom only to find themselves a target for annihilation.  But, if our super heroes are gone, who will save us?