THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

At about the two-hour point in the movie Dr. Manhattan, once Dr. Jon Osterman ( Billy Crudup ) , tiring of all the fuss on earth ( where it's circa 1985 and the threat of nuclear war appears imminent ) , decides to take up residence on Mars. Not long after he transports his onetime girlfriend, Laurie Jupiter/Silk Spectre II ( played by the underwhelming Malin Akerman ) , to be by his side on the orange planet. But Laurie's not really so into Dr. M, who can predict the future—but only his own—any more. "Can't you just tell me how all this ends and save us the time?" Jupiter asks Big Blue impatiently. At that point, Laurie was reading my thoughts exactly.

The inherent problem with director Zack Snyder's film adaptation of what we have been told repeatedly is the "most popular graphic novel of all time" is that the script by David Hayter and Alex Tse doesn't take into account the millions of moviegoers who have not read the "most popular graphic novel of all time" and haven't a clue as to how the myriad characters fit together or why we should give a rat's ass about any of them. A very long credit sequence attempts to fill in some of the backstory: A group of costumed, masked crimebusting vigilantes known as "the Minutemen" seems to have appeared on the scene sometime around 1940, becoming heroes in the process. But for reasons I could never fathom the group was banned from continuing with the crimefighting and was forced to hang up the costumes.

Apparently, this played havoc with their psyches. Further, some of them had children who also dressed up in costumes and masks and fought crime. This second group called themselves "the Watchmen" but they, too, apparently were stopped in their tracks once the government had no further use of their special abilities. But what exactly were those special abilities? From what I could discern the only one with a qualifying "superhero" talent was the aforesaid Dr. Manhattan, who was not part of the original group but was the leader of the second group after being morphed into the big blue guy after a laboratory accident went wrong in 1958.

Laurie/Silk Spectre II is apparently the daughter of the original Silk Spectre, a.k.a. Sally ( played by Carla Gugino ) , who was almost raped or maybe was raped or went willingly with The Comedian ( Jeffrey Dean Morgan ) . The Comedian ( a.k.a. Edward Blake ) chomps on a stogie nonstop and is a horribly violent, nasty, cynical type—the badass of the group ( or groups—I think he was in both ) . The Comedian is murdered in the opening sequence—which takes place in 1985—in the first of many, many gory fight sequences. ( The excess gore and stylized violence here echo Snyder's previous CGI spectacle, 300. )

The rest of the picture alternates between Rorschach ( Jackie Earle Haley ) the certifiably crazy Watchman with the cool, shape-shifting mask; trying to figure out who killed The Comedian and wants to kill the others; and the backstory of each. In between, there's a subplot that involves world domination by a supervillain ( who gets a James Bond-like supervillain lair in Antarctica ) and a desperate effort to prevent nuclear war between the United States ( still headed by Richard Nixon, heading into his fifth term ) and the Soviet Union. The historical alterations also include cameos by Kennedy, Kissinger, Ted Koppel, Pat Buchanan and former Chrysler chairman Lee Iacocca, who gets it right between the eyes.

The mixture of 20th-century culture references and history-making events and characters is great fun at first, and the music on the soundtrack supports them ( everything from Simon & Garfunkel to Nena singing "99 Luft Balloons" ) but eventually the historical fantasies wear out their welcome as they aren't particularly involving and have nothing to do with any of the main characters. Every 13-year-old boy's fantasies ( gay and straight ) seems to be incorporated into the material, along with the historical whimsy. Not surprisingly, very little of it makes much sense. The slapdash material causes the movie to move in fits and starts, going off into those superhero backstories one moment and heading off into sidebars so often in another that the film never finds a proper tone as it lurches about.

On the plus side, the movie is a technical marvel—it's beautifully shot, art directed, scored, costumed, etc.—but even memorable scenes like the eerily beautiful sequence in which we get Dr. Manhattan's backstory ( scored to the gorgeous music Philip Glass wrote for the wonderful '80s documentary Koyaanisqatsi ) get lost in the seemingly endless plot deviations. ( The film could have easily lost an hour on its running time. )

Sure, the movie's not-so-subtle homoerotic content will draw in gay viewers, as it did Snyder's 300. But contrast the simplicity of the 117 minutes of that movie—Gerard Butler and 299 other bikini-clad warriors defend the honor of Sparta against an invincible army until they're all killed—compared to Watchmen's convoluted 163. That's an awfully long time to expect a lone blue cock ( attached to an admittedly spectacular body ) to remain entertaining—especially one that's not even real to begin with and never gets hard. Watchmen could have used lots and lots of trimming and a fluffer to boot.

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