April 22, 2009
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Some people thought WATCHMEN would be a test of how much audiences could really be "trusted" to embrace deeper thinking, serious comic book films that fully examined the psyche of the masked hero. I think this is a mistaken expectation, however. WATCHMEN was based on a supposedly “un-filmable” comic book, without any characters immediately recognizable to mainstream audiences, and filled with themes and violence that truly pushed the boundaries of the genre as people understood them. This was a test of whether the new framework could sustain perhaps the most difficult of adaptations – unknown characters in an "unfilmable" story likely to garner an R-rating for the graphic nature of its content.
These changes in comic book films signify something more important than most people seem to realize. The film industry has undergone precisely the sort of reassessment of their perception of the comic book medium that is needed among the general public. Studios have at last realized that comic books are an actual source of good literature, and the industry no longer treats the medium as first and foremost something for young kids (and within the context of the studios' perceptions of kids' sophistication).
The significance of this change must be understood – at last, one of the largest mediums in our world, a mainstay of entertainment and culture, experienced a shift in their concept of the comic book film. Where the mainstream news media had failed for decades to appreciate comic books or to promote the medium as a legitimate artistic outlet and source for adults, the film industry was now onboard.
With critics and news articles discussing the ways in which THE DARK KNIGHT and IRON MAN had redefined the comic book film genre, with Oscar buzz building for Batman's film, and with eyes turning toward the future in anticipation of WATCHMEN, the sense that the film genre had at last become a permanent and now serious fixture in the film industry was undeniable. There was a lot more news coverage than usual related to the genre. The message was spreading that these films were to be taken seriously.
WATCHMEN hit theaters in March of 2009, amid a wave of anticipation. Mixed with that anticipation, however, was a quietly growing backlash just waiting for the opportunity to unleash itself. WATCHMEN was, I believe, another triumph for the genre. It was very faithful to the source material, it was obviously a labor of love for the filmmaker, it introduced thought-provoking themes, and it maintained the maturity and depth of the comics while being another solid entry in the new framework of the genre.
Whatever mistakes the film made, the final result is a film that should be seen as the important step for comic book films that it is – probably the best possible follow-up to THE DARK KNIGHT in terms of what it represented for the genre, what it proved about the strength of the new framework even in the midst of relative "disappointment", and the degree of controversy over its content and its message. While the film severely underperformed compared to expectations, it can hardly be said that the film didn't meet some "objective" standards of success for a March-released R-rated film about unknown characters played by unknown actors and full of graphic violence and explicit sex. It had a big opening weekend, it looks likely to finish with about $200 million in total box office (not to mention the likely success on DVD as well), and domestically it topped $100 million. Films that are unpopular "duds" don't pull in $200 million, however much that figure is obviously far below expectations.
With all of the talk about the rise of comic book films and their evolution into serious filmmaking, there arose a panic among some critics. Although it took about a week for the negative sentiments to really gel into a single narrative about the film, once that happened most critics and members of the press got in line. The reality of films based on comic books becoming Oscar-contending works, evoking emotional responses from audiences, containing mature narratives, and existing within contexts familiar to viewers was all too much for a significant segment of film critics to bear. And it suggested something equally unacceptable for them – if these films were capable of attaining such lofty places in filmdom while remaining "faithful" to their source material, that demands a rethinking of comic books as legitimate art as well.
Within the film critics' community, the segment engaging in this backlash didn't just begin with WATCHMEN – it started in fact with THE DARK KNIGHT, and then from there grew larger until "Watchmen" saw the more overt expressions of outright bias. That bias was also on display at times in reviews of THE DARK KNIGHT, where some critics lashed out not only at the film itself, but also at the comic book genre and comic book fans themselves. Insulting stereotypes of fans, mocking the artistic merit of the source material, and from that perspective hammering the film was the common face of negative critical reception for THE DARK KNIGHT.
This band of critics were lonely in June of 2008, outnumbered almost 16 to 1 by their colleagues who liked or loved the film. In 2009, however, they were in a majority. They were again insulting, condescending, and dismissive of the film genre, sending the message, "Enough is enough, it's time to stop treating comic book films as serious art." The backlash even had a retroactive effect. A few articles crept up suggesting that the "hysteria" over THE DARK KNIGHT was misguided, that reactions were overstated, and that Oscar talk was hyperbole. The old bias rears its ugly head, reminding us that however much the mindless throngs filling theater seats might approve and see these films as having deeper meaning and important themes, in the end that is simply a reaction of teaming masses ill equipped to judge true artistic merit.
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