On the Watchmen

There's a press blackout on Watchmen; no one can review it until after it's been released or, presumably, March 5^th. But a lot of the press has seen the film and they are generally agreed it rocks. Except for one niggling caveat:

Most of them either loved the graphic novel from childhood, have been caught-up in the hype and recently fell in love with it, or have never read it. "Well, that describes basically everyone," true, but go with me here. My point is that it's once again reached fad proportions, which makes it pretty impossible to get a decent review.

Reviewers unfamiliar with the source material are likely to be so impressed with the visuals that they will give it a good review - some may even be worried about pissing-off Snyder or the studio and not getting passes to future previews; those who just "discovered" Watchmen are certainly going to call it the best thing ever - next week, it'll be pink bowling shoes, then Britney Spears will release another album, ad nauseam; and fanboys of my ilk - well, my peers, nonetheless - will think it the best thing since... well, the original series.

IOW, everyone's going to give a "thumbs-up" to Watchmen, so there's no way to tell if it's going to be any good or not until it's actually in theaters.

Not for nothing, Watchmen is not the best graphic novel ever told; that distinction (so far) belongs to Elektra: Assassin, which came out the same year and was shuffled under the hype of both Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns. While Watchmen is certainly a great story, it is not, in fact, a groundbreaking piece of sequential art; as far as that goes, Watchmen brought absolutely no innovation to the form. Elektra: Assassin literally changed the way comic books are made.

© C Harris Lynn, 2009