'Watchmen:' Rich in detail, epic scope

“Whatever happened to the American dream?” someone asks in the dark, nihilistic “Watchmen.”

Looking out over a blighted urban landscape, an even more nihilistic being answers: “It came true.”

“The Dark Knight” got rave reviews for its darkness, but it is child’s play compared to “Watchmen.” This R-rated epic takes the masks that we all wear and elevates them to operatic scope.

Set in an alternative world in 1985, it is based on the graphic novel (comic book) of the same name, which quotes everyone from Carl Jung to Friedrich Nietzsche. The source material quite imaginatively poses basic existential questions. The novel was named by Time magazine one of the 100 best in the English language since 1923 (Time’s first year). The movie, which opened Friday after two decades of legal and creative haggling, has been greeted by feverish comparisons of book to film. 

Our job is to review a movie, however, not to compare it to the novel. This is not a cop-out. Baffled by the movie a month ago when I was there for the first public screening, I did read the novel. Half of it, that is. Then I turned to the massive DVD presentation of the novel, called “Watchmen: The Complete Motion Comic” ($19.99, or around $25  for Blu-Ray, available in stores this week, six hours long, divided into 12 chapters). After this, something unexpected happened – I got hooked.

“Watchmen” – movie and graphic novel – has its profundities, amid writing that ranges from poetic to overripe. Most of all, it has its rich detail – street signs, pop-culture visual hints everywhere, such as theaters advertising the original, 1951 “The Day the Earth Stood Still.”

But will the uninitiated appreciate that?

“Watchmen” is going to get a huge audience this weekend, but it’s going to be a tough sell to reach the mainstream and become a hit. 

This is one of the most imaginative and challenging movies ever made in the superhero genre, even if, in reality, it is an anti-superhero treatment.

It has moments of outright brilliance. Most notable is the stunning opening sequence, which runs as a kind of surrealistic newsreel of the alternative era, with Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’” in the background (suggesting a nostalgic 1985 look back to the 1960s). Musically, the movie offers kernels of sound from things like Nat King Cole’s “Unforgettable,” Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence,” Nena’s “99 Luftballons”  (the original German version) and a Muzak version of Tears for Fears’ “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.” Many are used to great effect, as the waltzes were in “2001: A Space Odyssey,” to counter the visions on-screen.

The film offers a mischievous rewrite of history. A paranoid world teeters on the edge of nuclear disaster. Only the vulnerable “masks,” people who dress up in costumes and rid the streets of criminals, seem to care. The Russians have successfully attacked Afghanistan and are marching into Pakistan. Richard Nixon is in his fifth term (after amending the Constitution) – tremendously popular after winning the Vietnam War. 

All but two of the “masks” have been outlawed by the government. Of the “superheroes,” only Dr. Manhattan has any special powers. He is America’s superweapon – used to win the Vietnam War. The Russians fear us because we have him. Along the way, watch closely for amusing cameos by Nixon, Henry Kissinger, Fidel Castro, Albert Einstein, Norman Rockwell, John F. Kennedy, Andy Warhol, Mick Jagger and, yes, the Village People.

The actors seem somewhat superfluous, but scoring most effectively is Jackie Earle Haley as the psychotic Rorschach, complete with changing ink-blot face. He, alone, refuses to retire when the government outlaws the crime fighters.

Patrick Wilson adds Nite Owl II to his rapidly increasing canon of outstanding performances from “Angels in America” to “Hard Candy” and, most of all, “Little Children.” The Norfolk native captures the blandness of a simple man called to heroism, and virility, by his costume. 

Jeffrey Dean Morgan (from TV’s “Grey’s Anatomy”) has the showiest role: The Comedian, a mercenary killer who is tolerated because he works for the U.S., which is portrayed as corrupt on all levels. 

The plot, if you can get to the center, is a multilayered mystery adventure that is set off when The Comedian is murdered. Rorschach suspects a conspiracy to wipe out all the former superheroes and goes about his investigation in much the way Bogart did in “The Maltese Falcon” (with a Raymond Chandler kind of film noir narration that sounds as if it came straight out of the 1940s). Come to think of it, put this plot up against “The Big Sleep,” and it’s not nearly as convoluted.

Dr. Manhattan is driven off this planet by false claims that he causes cancer. Naked and glowing in the dark, he goes to Mars for solace. He’s played, with computer-effects assistance, by Billy Crudup, who captures some of the  confusion he suffers. It’s not easy to be the most powerful man in the world.

Is all the plotting pompous, self-inflated nonsense or profound imagination by Brits Dave Gibbons and Alan Moore, the original co-creators? 

Take your choice, but it is to the credit of director Zack Snyder that he allows you enough room to take it satirically when you simply fear that it might drive you to Mars.

Mal Vincent, (757) 446-2347, mal.vincent@pilotonline.com