Where is Captain America When You Need Him?

The Watchmen reviewed by Morris T. Pevensey, The Movie Critic Who Hates Everything

Watchmen Captain America Greetings, Morris-minions! It is I, Morris Pevensey, ready to take up arms on your behalf against a sea of – well, not a sea of troubles, but how about this? Against a sea of movies that are just plain stinky!

This week, your intrepid Movie Hater went to see something called the “Watch Men.” Truth be told, I had heard good things about this film. That it was based on an award-winning “graphical novel” (whatever that is!) That it was Adult, and Thought-Provoking. That it was NOT your usual dreary overload of pointless computer-extruded hoakum-smokum.

Oh my. Let no man accuse Morris Pevensey of being a little old fashioned. But Morris Pevensey perhaps is a little old fashioned.

You see, back in Morris’ day, movies were made by professional movie makers. They might not have always made the best movies, but these folks were reliable in some ways. The scripts would be written by people who could hold a pencil properly. The director knew some tried and true tricks for telling a story. Movies had limited budgets, and the producers did what they could with them. For dramas, a living-room set. For Westerns, a corral, a saloon and some horses. For Science Fiction, some dryer-hose and a few blinking lights. Movies weren’t going to impress you with how great they looked, so movie-makers had to do things like tell a logical story.

Now, give a movie maker UNLIMITED capacity for visual wow-wow. Give him UNLIMITED money, UNLIMITED length, and especially, make sure there are NO LIMITS on how cruel, sick, violent, grotesque, immoral or stupid he can make his movie!

Welcome to the “Watch Men,” Movie lovers!

Dr. Manhattan as Colonel Kilgore in Vietnam “Watch Men” is about superheroes. Back in Morris’ day, superheroes were good guys, who rescued people in trouble, fought evil madmen and walking giant squids, and generally saved the world.

One “superhero” in “Watch Men” however, gets a Vietnamese peasant women pregnant, and then shoots her in the stomach! What a hero! The others watch, and only vaguely disapprove. Way to stand up for the victims!

We have come a long way from “Captain America!”

Let’s see if Morris can make sense of the plot of this movie. Seems back in the 1940s there used to be a bunch of superheroes who dressed up as different things for no clear reason — a moth? An owl? some woman in Spandex? OK, they were superheroes, we’ve got that.

Now it’s the 80s, they’ve retired, and other superheroes have taken over. Except things aren’t good in the superhero biz. You see, it’s an Alternate History, in which Richard Nixon got reelected five times (?) which caused the streets to be taken over by what appear to be legions of escapees from “Streets of Fire: A Rock N’ Roll Fable.” You can tell they’re Evil Punks because they wear leather jackets and nose jewelry.

Yes, that’s about the level on which this film operates.

It seems to Morris that for a film that’s supposed to make us rethink the concept of superheroes, precious little has been rethought. Where do the “Watch Men” get their hi-tech gear? One of them has a “trust fund.” Bigger than the Pentagon budget? OK. Why do they wear different costumes? Morris can’t really tell. There’s no difference between one “Watch Person” and another. They’re all indestructible, for some reason. When the hordes of Bad Guys run at them willy-nilly shouting “Aaaaargh!” (really) the Watch Men employ that painfully tired “60’s Batman” brand of Kung Fu, complete with Whack! Pow! Crunch! noises. There’s no difference in their fighting styles; in fact, they converse amiably while they dispatch Bad Guys.

Why do they even need to dress up! Do you need an owl costume to break the arms of fifty Leather Punks? Apparently not, since Hoot Owl and Silken Skank cooly murder about three hundred of the alley-dwelling hooligans as they cut through the alley on their way to Denny’s.

Lest I forget, there is one genuine Superman among them, the glowing blue Viet-Commie-Exploding Dr. Manhattan. Oh, god, do not get Morris started on this luminescent bore! He was created…in a freak nuclear accident! (I think I have heard this sort of story before.) It was not long into this film before Morris began to think of Dr. Manhattan by another name: the Big Blue Pussy.

BBP The BBP goes on. And on. And on about his miserable glowing life. His midlife crisis. His ex-girlfriend. His Duty To Humanity. Emphasizing that he is Not A God. I really think we are supposed to take this seriously! He is blue! For God’s sake!

And didn’t actors used to go to enunciation school? The BBP speaks in an oleaginous, mumbly monotone. “I’m very disappointed in you” is a typical line that he renders as ” Im very disapoynid inyu.” This is not a register that suits dreary pseudo profundity. The Big Blue Pussy warbles endlessly about his insights into the Future. “My insight is blocked. It muzz be duh nooklear holokaust” he bleats.

The script is aimed, as per usual in these movies, at the not-too-bright nine-year-old boy. Morris lost count of the times he could predict upcoming lines with dreary accuracy. “Shut up!” is followed by…”No! You shut up!” And so on. The psychopath “hero” who kills lots of people follows a bad guy into a men’s room. He emerges alone, the door swings shut, the camera pans down…Are we going to see blood leak out under the door? Need you even ask? There’s an attempt to make this a detective story, but the director has no idea how to even film a standard scene out of “Kojak.” The Owl Man and Psycho Guy want to shake someone down for information. So they walk into a crowded bar, confront him in front of a hundred witnesses in the middle of the bar, torture him “24″-style by breaking his fingers as the crowd gawks. He won’t talk. So Psycho Guy growls menacingly, and twists his fingers a little more. “OK, OK, I’ll talk!” The whole scene is badly staged, clumsy and pointless.

Lack of competence, however, doesn’t stop them slathering on the pseudo-profundity. Morris’ favorite line is burbled by the Big Blue Pussy: “Silk Spectre, when we were on Mars, I learned from you the value of humaniddy.”

I may be old-fashioned. Maybe this movie is a hip, ironic take on Super Heroes, and Morris is just missing it. But I suspect it is more likely that this film is made by poorly educated, juvenile twits with a big movie budget.

Frank Capra versus Zack Snyder If it is a hip, cool modern take on Super Heroes, then answer this question: in what way does this film reinvent the concept of superheroes? Morris found it hard to tell, except in one aspect. All these “heroes” are completely without any mission, principles, morals, sense of justice, etc. Aside from rescuing some people from a fire, they never help anyone. The majority of the world’s population appears to be comprised of generic Scum (read: leather-clad hooligans) who can be slaughtered en masse with impunity. Hence the Watch Men mow down protesters on the street, saw off people’s arms, break their fingers, brutalize, rape and murder women. For what? Why? Why do the Watch Men even exist? I have no idea. The filmmakers seem to have no idea. The Big Blue Pussy even wins the Vietnam War on behalf of Nixon, mowing down multitudes of gooks with his Pussy Voodoo. What a hero! Yet we’re supposed to sympathize with these psychopaths, and swallow their oodles of pseudo-profound bleatings about the Fate of Humaniddy, laugh like sick nine-year-olds as they split skulls in gory visceral CGI, shout “haw haw!” as the midget criminal gets his guts sliced out.

There, Morris-fans, is the impression with which I left this film. The people who made “Watch Men” are not smart. They are not clever. They have nothing whatsoever to say about all the Weighty Themes they pretend to take on in this movie. They have the philosophical depth of American Gladiators. They lack even minimal filmmaking talent. What they do have is a computer special-FX budget bigger than all the Star Wars movies put together. They use it to shamelessly replicate pictures from someone elses comical book, which, I am well-prepared to believe, is probably not any better an example of comical book art than this film is of film.

Morris Pevensey is thoroughly disheartened and disgusted. The Movie Makers who committed this thoughtless muddle should have their Cameras and Spot Lights taken away by force. Said equipment should be given back to the talented directors like Frank Capra, and John Ford, and Steve Spielburg.

And the Super Hero powers should be given back…to Captain America!