Review: Watchmen

"If you don't like my story, write your own."

Nominated for 26 Emmys, winning 11, a solid 8.1 rating on IMDb, starring Oscar winners Regina King and Jeremy Irons amongst other well-known faces like Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Hong Chau - Watchmen is a sci-fi, action tv mini-series released in October of 2019 on HBO. About a year later, Watchmen was released on DVD/Bluray and was available everywhere, giving non-HBO-subscribers the opportunity to watch it legally. I had heard plenty about the series and after it winning so many Emmys I went and bought the DVD to see what the fuss is all about.

Watchmen tells the story of detective Angela Abar (Regina King) investigating the reemergence of a white supremacist terrorist group inspired by the long-deceased moral absolutist Rorschach. 

First off, as expected and as the Emmy-wins show, the acting is great. Regina King gives us a layered performance portraying a mother, a detective, a wife with a complicated history and character arc, giving us emotional breakouts, WTF-moments and often speaking exactly what you are thinking while watching. Jeremy Irons, of course, does not disappoint either. As a kind of manic, weird person he gives a fully rounded performance portraying his motives and beliefs perfectly. Moreover, Steven G. Williams and Alexis Louder playing a couple fighting for their lives are definitely noteworthy. The most pleasant surprise is Hong Chau playing Lady Trieu. It took me a good 9 episodes to realize where I knew her from when finally it came to me: She was in Downsizing playing the cleaning lady Ngoc Lan Tran. Her performance in Watchmen was utterly different to what I saw in Downsizing which is the reason it took me so long to recognize her. She portrays a rather unlikeable character whose actions are often hard to relate to. Giving us a very consistent and refreshing performance, I believe Hong Chau's performance was quite overlooked.

In addition to the outstanding acting the series was very well cast. Some characters are portrayed at different ages by different actors and look very similar. We see a young Angela Abar for instance, who is played by a different actress (Faithe Herman) but still capturing the same spirit and mannerisms.

The series' strengths definitely lie in the visuals. The production design not only gives us super interesting locations and sceneries but also hints on so many different recurring objects that are important to the story. Not in a way, where the filmmakers are basically shoving you the story in your face but in a very subtle way so they expect a certain intelligence of their audience which is highly appreciated. These signals and clues are super interesting and keep you invested in every single detail of the story. The world the story takes place in, looks alternative without being illogical or over the top, like the inventions and technology used might actually be real or feasible at least. Both the production design and the cinematography combined convey highly sociocritical metaphors and above that as mentioned they give you audiovisual clues important to the story which leaves you in a state of "oh this means something but i don't know what" and it's gonna drive you crazy until the end, when they manage to tie everything up perfectly. Even though the cinematography is nothing noticeably new, it seems fresh and gives you a good view of everything. With new perspectives it captures the story perfectly. However, it seems fresh in the first episodes but you get used to it and there is not much innovation later on. The colors and settings looked great. Lots of contrast in the colors using the environment and costumes. Adding an amazing lighting, the whole scenery catches your attention from the start and doesn't let you go. They often blur out certain parts of the image to focus of specific objects. Again, adding some kind of mystery to it all.

The VFX, done by some well-known studios like RodeoFX, Framestore & Territory Studios amongst others, are great. They blend in very well and are not distracting. You will see each episode's title appear somewhere in the back of a scene giving it a "Zombieland"-esque feel. Often the picture transfers from a scene to a movie displayed on a screen within the scene or the other way around. These edits are very interesting and somehow show how much our lives are impacted by media and how much the media is influenced by current events and real life. At least I interpret it that way.

Now, the part I think Watchmen struggles with, is the writing. The episodes start off very strong, always catching my attention with a very eventful intro and making me feel everything from joy and love to fear, anger and anxiety, building up suspense, but then struggling to keep up the tension as the episode progresses. Unfortunately, this happens with almost every episode. After episode 3 it took me a good 4 days to come back since I had lost interest. Apart from that, the series gets quite dark at times but the writers manage to put in some humor every now and then, making scenes more light-hearted, while still focusing on a rather serious matter. These comedic elements are timed perfectly. Again, showing how great the actors are and that they can cover multiple genres at the same time. There is a lot of great puns - I find them hilarious but i have low standards - in the episode titles as well as in the dialogues and plot itself. The story gets really weird at times and there is a lot of stories developing at the same time eventually leading all together. However, sometimes it is hard to keep track of all the information and you lose track of the "main plot". 

The characters are very well written. They are real and their actions seem justified and even if they are not completely comprehensible, what I love is that characters admit to their condemnable actions and stick to their beliefs. Especially Angela Abar is very well written, less in her dialogues but more in her actions and beliefs. She still stays skeptical and reacts like a human-being and doesn't accept just what she's told without thinking about it. There is a conversation between Angela and an important character in a bar in episode 8, which is one of my highlights. It was funny and serious at the same time without being too much or over the top. In general, I find the characters to be written quite real and in depth. However, the FBI agent Laurie Blake (Jean Smart) stays rather superficial throughout, except for one scene. Yet, she adds some nice humor to her scenes. 

A very important aspect to the whole series is the music, which I find to be the best part and artistically extremely refreshing. It gives certain scenes the perfect feel and uses various different songs from all kinds of genres: classic, pop, rap, traditional, opera, underlining the plot perfectly. Sometimes the music will emphasize the mood that's already set. Other times it will add comedic elements to the scene.

Lastly, the series felt very diverse, in the way they represent families, people, communities, the music. What I like in their diversity is that you can see and feel that they didn't force themselves to do so just in order to look better but in a genuine way where every portrayal felt real and in place. Basically, they just got away from the mainstream music, mainstream actors, mainstream representation and looked into other options and used them exceptionally well.

A final thought: There is one specific stunt that I need to point out because it is probably one of the most unexpected things I have seen in any movie or tv show. It involves a canal and someone being chased and that's all I can say without spoiling it, but if you are curious and fine with a spoiler here you go. 

All in all the series is very entertaining. Plotwise it has its ups and downs, but Watchmen can definitely convince visually. Addressing plenty of societal issues by using elaborated metaphors the series feels important while still telling the story and without throwing you off by the urgency to fix those problems. Watchmen is well worth a watch and even more so if you are a fan of the DC universe or this genre in general.

Observations & (Fun) Facts

Disclaimer: this contains spoilers 

Those masks are hitting differently during a pandemic. 

Cute things that you will encounter: piglets and Danny Boyd Jr. 

Regina King making cookie-dough in a Tasty-like way is something I never knew I needed

What I didn't expect was a farting-joke

Next-level waffle-making

I wonder if anyone took that golden statue of Jeremy Irons and has it in their living room now

a few cool quotes:

• "There's a guy in my trunk"
• "Masks save lives"
• "White men in masks are heroes, black men in masks are scary"
• "Lot's of movies out there, why are you carrying around this one?" "She looks like me"
• "By definition, don't all relationships end in tragedy?"

those great puns include:

• "The Ances-Tree"
• "Squid-Pro-Quo"
• "A god walks into Abar"