Watchmen (USA, 2009)
Directed by Zack Snyder
Starring Jackie Earle Haley, Patrick Wilson, Malin Akerman, Matthew Goode

Big-screen adaptations of Alan Moore's work have been a decidedly mixed bag, from the enjoyable V for Vendetta to the flawed From Hell and the excremental The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. In bringing what is considered Moore's finest work to the big screen, Zack Snyder has made every effort to do justice to the graphic novel and satisfy the fans. But the finished project is found severely wanting in crucial areas, resulting in either a big, long folly or a missed opportunity.
Of all the Alan Moore adaptations, Watchmen has the longest and most troubled production history. The film was first mooted in the early-1990s when Terry Gilliam was approached by Sam Hamm, who had recently achieved success writing Tim Burton's Batman. Despite being initially interested, Gilliam concluded that the novel could only work as a TV mini-series; he left the project and Hamm's script was indefinitely shelved.The project re-emerged in 2001 with a new script by David Hayter, which lay around for three years before Darren Aronofsky was attached to direct. He subsequently dropped out to make pet project The Fountain, and his replacement Paul Greengrass did the same a few months later, in order to make United 93. Snyder was first offered the project in late-2005, shortly after his success with the remake of Dawn of the Dead. The project was formally green-lit in 2007 after shooting wrapped on 300.There is no doubt that Snyder and everyone involved in Watchmen wanted this to be the best possible adaptation of the novel. This is in spite of the fact that Alan Moore has disowned it, along with all other adaptations of his work (and looking at The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, it's not hard to see why). Various stories have circulated about the cast having copies of the novel on set, so that it could be referred to directly whenever there were questions over plot or characters. The film was clearly made for the fans and not for the money: with an 18 certificate and a budget of $130m, no expense or effort has been spared to replicate the comics as closely as possible.But in spite of this obvious affection, there are a number of big problems with Watchmen which render it at least a partial failure. The first and biggest problem is that Snyder is a fanboy. He loves the comic to such an obsessive degree that either he can't explain it to the rest of us, or he isn't willing to explain it.As a result the story of Watchmen is largely impenetrable to anyone who didn't spend their teenage years immersed in comic books. Snyder is focussed so much on meeting fans' expectations that the backstories or reasoning of the characters gets buried or lost, not to mention the mechanics of the alternative universe they inhabit. This is particularly the case with Doctor Manhattan, whose origins are only touched upon about halfway through the film.The second, deeper problem is with Snyder as a director. He is not the "visionary" that he is made out to be, being visually stylish but a very poor storyteller. While the novel is purported to have substance coming out of its ears, the film gives the impression that it is all surface and no depth, amounting to little more than people in latex hitting each other. One could say on these grounds that Snyder is the new Joel Schumacher - and for all its disinterest in the comics, Batman Forever is a better film.On top of his irritating use of slow-motion, most of Snyder's visual decisions smack of impatience, incompetence or showing off. His impatience is seen in the constant cutting between multiple, similar angles in scenes which would flow much better with longer, simpler takes. His incompetence is found in beginner's-level mistakes: he shoots several scenes through windows, resulting in lens flare or distracting reflections. And his showing-off is evident in Veidt's interview being reflected through a lens of another camera, or a sex scene being captured through the glasses on the table. In each example the visual decisions are an unnecessary indulgence which contribute little, and in many cases detract from and undermine the story.Regardless of how complex or multi-layered the story of Watchmen is, it does not require two-and-a-half-hours to be told. On the one hand, it feels like the film always wants more time to develop the characters, and Gilliam was probably right that it would have worked better as a miniseries. On the other hand, if Snyder was determined to make a manageable film, he would have accepted the necessary compressions and moved the character development forward. But he doesn't do this, at least not as much or as well as he should. We have to wait nearly two hours for things to come together with the twist involving Ozymandias and Doctor Manhattan, by which time most of us will have given up.So much of Watchmen is window-dressing, confirming Snyder's pursuit of style over everything else. Rorschach's film noir narration might work in the comics, but it serves little to no purpose here: the end point involving the discovery of his journal is silly, and it does nothing to move the plot forward other than stating the obvious. Snyder's choice of pop songs on the soundtrack is lazy, particularly in the opening montage: he settles for Bob Dylan's 'The Times They Are A-Changin' where Quentin Tarantino would have put on something more entertainingly esoteric.This feeling of superficiality, coupled with the unrelenting pursuit of style, causes all of the arresting themes of Watchmen to get buried. In fact, the story raises a number of interesting issues about the ethics of nuclear war and peace, the workings of mutually assured destruction, and in particular the role of "costumed heroes" and how they could be controlled or policed. The slogan "Who Watches the Watchmen?" recurs as graffiti throughout the film but is barely addressed in a constructive way.The tone of Watchmen keeps flipping between flippant and portentous, with Snyder being unable to balance the dark or forbidding elements with the inherent silliness of a naked floating blue man. This is perfectly demonstrated by a scene halfway through on Night Owl's ship: Silk Spectre II makes a comment about impending nuclear war, which then cuts to her and Night Owl making love in their costumes. Such lurches in tone are akin to erotic fan fiction and threaten to drag the whole film into parody.Because the flippant aspects of Watchmen are so prominent, scenes which are meant to be more thought-provoking lose much of their impact. During the scenes involving Richard Nixon, what sticks in your mind is not the threat of global destruction but his comedy rubber nose, which makes the war room scenes feel less like Dr. Strangelove than Spitting Image. More problematically, when the film has a near-rape sequence, or a child abduction, or any number of brutally gruesome deaths, Snyder can't pull himself together: he can't deliver the emotion punch that such scenes require to prevent them from seeming inexcusably adolescent.Watchmen is a deeply flawed, over-long and often boring attempt to bring Alan Moore's vision to the big screen. Whatever the merits of the graphic novel, and regardless of his good intentions, Snyder was the wrong director and this adaptation will put many newcomers off the source material. It pales in comparison to both V for Vendetta and Christopher Nolan's Batman films, both as a comic adaptation and an attempt to explore serious political issues. Fanboys will leap to its defence, but everyone else will be bored, annoyed or confused.

Rating:
Verdict: A deeply frustrating failure

Batman and Robin (USA, 1997)
Directed by Joel Schumacher
Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, George Clooney, Uma Thurman, Chris O'Donnell

Most of us grow up believing that Batman and Robin is the worst film of all time, a position reinforced by countless polls in magazines. It's only as our understanding of film grows that we come to realise that Joel Schumacher's Razzie-nominated magnum opus is not so much an abomination as a case of colossal misjudgement. Make no mistake, it's utter rubbish, but it's not the worst film ever made by quite some distance.As with its processor, the best way to understand Batman and Robin is through the extent of Tim Burton's involvement. With Batman Forever, Burton stayed on as a producer; he still held some sway over the end result, in least in terms of ensuring some form of continuity between his vision and that of his replacement. But with this instalment Burton and his sense of direction are completely absent. The hefty box office of Forever, which surpassed that of Batman Returns, gave Schumacher a free rein with full studio backing - and he made a total pig's ear of it.One of the arguments used to defend Batman and Robin is that the film was made too quickly. Warner Brothers wanted a rapid follow-up to Forever, hiring Schumacher in August 1996 and telling him to have the finished film ready to release in ten months. But Schumacher was used to shooting so quickly, averaging a film a year between 1993 and 1997. This is proved by his decision to film A Time to Kill instead of waiting on Warner Brothers, and by production on Batman and Robin wrapping two weeks early. Finally, though screenwriter Akiva Goldsman was officially hired in August, he and Schumacher had already worked out the story on the set of A Time to Kill.The script of Batman and Robin is not so much a script as a list of awful one-liners. Amidst his inexplicable Oscar win for A Beautiful Mind, Goldsman has scripted such utter disasters as Lost in Space and The Da Vinci Code. There is one good line in the whole screenplay: it occurs in the museum when the guards and gassed, and one of them is heard to shout "Oh my lungs!".The rest of the time the script is lazy, shoddy and devoid of any character development. The story itself is incredibly derivative, borrowing from action movie clichés as it sees fit. The final showdown involving satellites, lasers and sunlight is a straight lift from Diamonds are Forever or Goldeneye (sticking with the Bond theme, it could almost be called the inspiration for Die Another Day). The designs of Mr. Freeze's vehicles are a total rip-off of Mad Max, and there are passing nods to A Clockwork Orange and Blade Runner which will make every seasoned film buff's blood boil.Schumacher has always been a director concerned with style above everything else, often to the point that he has forgotten how to tell a story. John Glover, who plays the mad scientist, recalled that Schumacher would shout: "Remember, everyone, this is a cartoon" before every take, and Chris O'Donnell commented that the film resembled a toy commercial. If Batman Forever was like a dark nightclub that had been turned into a disco, Batman and Robin is like a night at Studio 54 populated by characters from The Care Bears or Barney the Dinosaur.The problem with Schumacher's approach is not a problem with being light or camp in itself. There are many great action films within the camp style which still hold up - Flash Gordon, Planet of the Apes, even Mad Max to some extent. The problem is that this approach is force-fed to the audience, with every scene and action being played so far over-the-top that there is no room left for the ideas to be presented intelligently. This is reflected in the film's homoeroticism, present in everything from the bat-nipples and rubber asses to Poison Ivy's lair being in a Turkish bath. The problem is not homoeroticism in and of itself - it's that we are so repeatedly told to believe that Batman is gay that we never have a chance to think about what else might be going on.The only times when Batman and Robin even slightly works are the conversations between Bruce and Alfred about the purpose of Batman. This is in itself an indictment of the film: the villains are so boring and obnoxious that the only character we care about is the butler. Michael Gough gamely trudges his way through lines about cancelling pizza and housekeeping, and actually manages, unlike the other actors, to have more than one facial expression. If nothing else, his efforts make for welcome if mawkish diversion from an unnecessary deluge of special effects.Throughout the Batman saga, the films have always been at their weakest whenever the effects were allowed to dominate - think of the opening set-piece of Forever, the spinning Batmobile from Returns, even the chase scenes from the first film. But all of these niggles pale in comparison with Batman and Robin, which is all about the effects. From its opening set-pieces to its final scenes involving satellites directing sunlight, there is a reliance on CGI and digital trickery to such an extent that the characters become completely secondary.This feeling of superfluity is reinforced by Schumacher's direction. It's all very well constructing ten-minute action scenes with a beginning, middle and end, but the editing has to complement the action to justify the length. Schumacher's editing is terrible - there is no sense or pacing, and his angles are constantly shifting so that you can't really see what's going on. Seeing Freeze and Batman surf down to Gotham might have worked had it been done in one take, but with a cut every few seconds it feels completely devoid of energy.As far as the acting goes, it makes the characters in Rocky Horror look understated. Uma Thurman is so bad that she makes William Shatner seems naturalistic, while the gormless Alicia Silverstone thoroughly deserved her Razzie nomination. The problem with casting such seemingly glamorous women is that we only believe in them when they put the spandex on. Before their real self becomes the cover story, there's no way we can believe that Thurman is a bookish scientist, or Silverstone is a schoolgirl.The male performers fare no better. Arnold Schwarzenegger may have been the king of one-liners in his day, but even his best lines are repetitive, cheesy and can be seen coming a mile off. Every possible pun involving ice, snow or cold is used, to the point where the character has become a parody of itself. George Clooney, who has since disowned the film, walks around with air of a man who things staring into middle distance will somehow maintain his dignity. And Chris O'Donnell remains. unconvincing and spends most of his lines whinging.When Sucker Punch was released, Mark Kermode observed that getting angry about the film's sexual politics was doing it a greater service than it deserved - the biggest reaction being sheer boredom above all else. In the case of Batman and Robin, there is so much to get angry about in terms of plot holes (why would Mr. Freeze hide in an ice-cream pub? Why would people not die from focussed sunlight? How come Bane can be defeated so easily? Etc.). But to get in a huff about these things, valid overlooks the most important and cynical aspect of the film.The reason Batman and Robin's story is so terribly weak is that the film exists mostly if not wholly to sell merchandise. There is no reason for Batman, Robin and Batgirl to change costumes: it is only in the film so that kids have to buy two action figures rather than one. The same goes for all of Freeze's gadgets, Poison Ivy's hairstyles, and the infamous Bat credit card, which takes jumping the shark to a whole new level.Batman and Robin is the point where bad movies end and terrible movies begin. It's easily the worst film of the Burton-Schumacher era, ignoring all that was right about Burton's efforts and extrapolating all that was wrong with Batman Forever. Its reputation as one of the worst films of all time is such that to kick it when it so far down feels almost cruel. But suffice to say, the franchise needed a good eight years to recover before the arrival of a dark knight in shining armour.

Rating:
Verdict: Where bad movies end and terrible ones begin

Batman Forever (USA, 1995)
Directed by Joel Schumacher
Starring Val Kilmer, Tommy Lee Jones, Jim Carrey, Chris O'Donnell

Changing the director in the middle of a franchise can create seismic differences in the quality of the respective instalments. Sometimes this is for the better: Alfonso Cuaron lifted the Harry Potter series with Prisoner of Azkaban, bringing a real sense of magic and wonder where Chris Columbus had failed on both counts. On other occasions, such as this one, the franchise does not benefit, resulting in a film with none of the weight of Tim Burton's instalments and which is nothing more nor less than a little bit boring.The key to understanding Batman Forever lies in the relationship between Tim Burton and his replacement Joel Schumacher. Despite having left the director's chair after the mixed reception of Batman Returns, Burton stayed on to produce the third instalment at the behest of Warner Brothers. While this did not give him anything resembling creative control, it did give him a certain amount of power on the set, so that he could always step in if he felt that things were going too far off the rails.As a result of Burton's presence there is some degree of continuity between the universe of Returns and Forever. Despite its gaudier design and campier style, it doesn't feel entirely like you've switched over to the TV series right after watching the second film. Certain sections, such as the death of Bruce's parents, have been reshot so that they retain their existing composition but with the new colour scheme and editing style. By making the head of Arkham Asylum a goofy-haired man called Dr. Burton, the series tips its hat to his style and sensibility, acknowledging that without him we would never have got this far.But while we are ostensibly in the same Gotham City, the emphasis has been shifted away from expressionist architecture and dark anti-heroes, and onto something a lot more frivolous. Where Burton uses style as a means of expressing deeper themes or character traits, Schumacher is all about style for its own sake, and never mind the story. This reflects their respective beginnings as filmmakers: Burton cut his teeth in animation, creating drawings which had to speak a thousand words, while Schumacher started out designing costumes for Woody Allen's Sleeper.What we end up with is a film which is lit to within an inch of its life, but scripted to a bare minimum. Like the TV series, there is a central plot which is relatively thin and largely implausible, around which action set-pieces can be positioned and stretched out for as long as is necessary. There are big references to Schumacher's back catalogue throughout - the street gang with fluorescent make-up are a re-tuning of the vampires from The Lost Boys, while the scenes with Nicole Kidman's psychiatrist tread very close to the dialogue in Flatliners.Batman Forever is often cited as the point when the Batman series shifted from being about the comics to being about the merchandise. Many fans have cited Val Kilmer's opening lines about "getting drive-through" as the moment at which the franchise jumped the shark. There is a large amount of truth in this: the shift towards brighter colours, sillier villains and the increased hardware available to Batman points towards a desire to sell action figures and lunchboxes rather than something more grown-up.

But while there is a market-driven edge to this Batman instalment, it is not as crass or as cynical as it could have been. The plot is at best ironic and at worst duplicitous - creating an evil weapon which warps people's minds through television, when whole sections of the film resemble a commercial, at least in the way that they are lit. But it doesn't force the merchandise down the viewer's throat like Batman and Robin did, and compared to the work of Michael Bay it's totally harmless.For its first 45 minutes, the predominant reaction to Batman Forever is not betrayal or disgust but boredom. The opening set-piece, involving Two Face's elaborate heist and a safe full of acid, feels dragged out and is played for laughs way too obviously. The stunts become increasingly preposterous and the supporting characters have less personality than in the Burton films.

Whereas in Batman Returns there was a sense of all the villains and some of the bystanders having minds of their own, the security guard in the bank is confined to whining "Oh no!" with increasing desperation. There is less of a role for Pat Hingle as Commissioner Gordon, and Michael Gough is increasingly sidelined. During the set-pieces Schumacher's love of aesthetics becomes frequently overbearing. In the sequence on the rocks near the Riddler's lair, there is so much green on the screen that you can't see what's going on. It's like watching Flash Gordon without the wit or directorial vision.The performances reflect this sense frustration. Val Kilmer is a plank as Bruce Wayne, and has an off-putting, haughty quality which conveys that Kilmer thought he was above the role. When he's in the bat-suit, he unwittingly pouts in almost every scene, as though he saw wearing the mask as an excuse to stop acting, at least with his face. Jim Carrey does an awful lot of gurning as Edward Nigma, and he only stops being annoying when he's being reined in by Tommy Lee Jones, who genuinely gets the character and seems to be having fun.Nicole Kidman, whose character was written specifically for the film, spends an awful lot of her screen time doing nothing but wandering around in a little black dress. Like Kim Basinger in the first film, whatever attempt is made to build her character up as intelligent is eventually undone; she ends up as a damsel in distress, accompanied by a gratuitous upskirt shot as she falls out of the tube. And Chris O'Donnell never entirely convinces either as Dick Grayson or as Robin. When he pretends to be Batman while facing the street gang, we're laughing at him as much as with him.However, after we have cantered through the Riddler's backstory and drunk our fill of pouting, whinging, gurning and flirting, Batman Forever finally kicks into gear and starts to have a plot which feels like it has something to say. It stops being an overgrown kid playing with toys and becomes a film about repression of childhood memories.Where the previous two films dealt with Batman as an outsider, who may be no better than the villains he is fighting, Batman Forever asks the question of whether Bruce Wayne can ever live with himself, as Batman and as a fractured human being. There is continuity from Batman Returns in the role of women; Chase makes a passing reference to Catwoman on the rooftop, and she proves instrumental in helping Bruce come to terms with himself.The point seems to be that the central dilemma of Batman is always the same - where does the man end and the bat begin, both in terms of personality and in terms of authorit. The various villains or sideshows which Batman encounters are just different ways of asking the same questions, whether through violence (Two-Face), riddles (The Riddler) or seduction (Chase). Considering what happened with the sequel, one could argue that this is just a ploy to have infinite new villains turn up in infinite new films, but at least the film has the guts to raise one of the central issues of the comics, even if it handles it with kid gloves.Batman Forever is a noisy, incoherent and often dull third instalment of a franchise which was already showing signs of fatigue. For all its good intentions and attempts to grapple with several ideas, it never follows through enough with any of them to cut the mustard, resorting to special effects to disguise Schumacher's shortcomings as a storyteller. But despite this, it's passingly entertaining, with Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carrey eventually coming through with the goods as a double act. It's a consistent and inoffensive disappointment; if only the same could be said for the sequel.

Rating:
Verdict: An inoffensive disappointment