Josh Reviews the Animated Watchmen: Chapter One

I’ll admit it, I was very dubious when I read that DC/Warner Brothers were releasing a two-part animated adaptation of Watchmen.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons’ seminal series from 1985-86.  It was thunderously influential at the time, and it remains a masterpiece of comic book storytelling that I’m not sure has ever been equalled.  I have read it many, many times, and I love it even more every time.  But I feel like the DC/Warner Brothers folks have gone back to the Watchmen well far too many times.  There was Zach Snyder’s 2009 film adaptation (of which I am a defender, and I like the extended director’s cut even more), Damon Lindelof’s magnificent HBO sequel series (click here for my review), DC’s series of Before Watchmen mini-series (an assortment of comic book mini-series serving as prologues to the events of Watchmen, released in 2012), Geoff John and Gary Frank’s Doomsday Clock mini-series from 2017-19 (which brought characters and themes from Watchmen into the DC universe), and more.  It’s a lot of Watchmen, particularly considering how vocal Alan Moore has been over the years about his not wanting there to ever have been any sequels or adaptations of the original mini-series.  While I feel like 15 years ago I’d have been over-the-moon excited about an animated adaptation of Watchmen, here in 2024 I felt a little “been there, done that.”

Holy cow then am I surprised and pleased to report that I thought the animated Watchmen: Chapter I (the first of a two-part adaptation) was fantastic!

I was impressed by the lush, smooth CGI animation.  The animation is gorgeous, with a beautiful color palette.  The character designs are incredible in how faithfully they bring to life the distinct look of Dave Gibbons’ iconic illustrations.  I was particularly taken by how detailed the backgrounds were, and how they incorporated so many of the background details Mr. Gibbons had woven into his drawings: advertisements, signs, etc.  Those details are a crucial element of the world-building of the original comic, and I was so impressed by how much of that background detail they were able to incorporate into this film.  (Boy did my heart sing to see those “Gunga Diner” signs!!)

The script, written by J. Michael Straczynski (the mastermind behind Babylon 5 and the author of many great comic books), is meticulously faithful to the original comic.  Mr. Straczynski of course has to do some reorganizing and reshuffling of events, to condense the first half of the Watchmen story into this 84-minute film.  But he does it so skillfully that, watching the film, I didn’t notice any changes.  It just felt to me like an incredibly faithful retelling of the comic book story.  I was blown away.  (I want to make note of how happy I was that this adaptation made use of Mr. Moore’s frequent device of carrying over the last line of one scene into the first image of the next scene; that often led to playful juxtapositions, and I was so happy to see many of those famous beats incorporated here.)

The voice-cast is top notch.  I thought Zack Snyder’s casting for his 2009 live-action film was perfection, and subsequently those voices have become inextricably intertwined with these characters in my mind.  I wasn’t sure how I’d react to new voices depicting these characters, and for the first 5-10 minutes of this film it did take me a little getting used to.  But then I settled in, and the story and these new performances sucked me right in.  Bravo to the team here for assembling such an incredible voice cast that could make me forget those 2009 actors and easily accept these new versions of these characters.  Let’s start with Titus Welliver (Bosch, Gone Baby Gone, Lost) who has probably the heaviest lift as Rorschach.  It would be very, very easy for his gravelly-voiced narration to tip over the edge into silly, but Mr. Welliver does a great job in selling the reality of this ill-tempered, hyper-focused, socially maladjusted crime-fighter.  Matthew Rhys (The Americans) is wonderful as Dan Dreiberg, a nice guy who has left his super-heroing days behind him.  Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck on Battlestar Galactica, Bo-Katan on Star Wars Rebels and Clone Wars, as well as on The Mandalorian) is equally perfect as Laurie Juspeczyk, who took after her superhero mom back when she was a teenager, and now is somewhat lost.  Mr. Rhys and Ms. Sackhoff had wonderful chemistry together and beautifully sold Dan and Laurie’s burgeoning romance.  Adrienne Barbeau is terrific as Laurie’s mom, Sally Jupiter.  Jeffrey Combs (who played both Brunt and Weyoun on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) brings a lot of life to the small role of washed-up supervillain Moloch.  Troy Baker is great as Adrian Veidt, as is Rick D. Wasserman as Edward Blake.  I don’t know those two actors, but they both felt perfect to me as Veidt and Blake.  I was thrilled to hear the familiar tones of famous voice-actors Corey Burton and Phil LaMarr; Mr. Burton played several characters, including Captain Metropolis, while Mr. LaMarr was the voice of the Black Freighter narrator.

Speaking of The Black Freighter, I was so happy that this adaptation found a way to incorporate that comic-book story (that a young boy is reading in the original Watchmen comic) into this film.  (I really missed that in the theatrical release of Zack Snyder’s 2009 film adaptation, and I was overjoyed that the “ultimate” edition of that film included animated Black Freighter segments; that’s a key reason why the “ultimate edition” is my preferred version of Zack Snyder’s film.)  The story of the Black Freighter provides an important counterpoint to the main Watchmen narrative, and I think the overall story is weaker without it.  But this could have been an easy cut — it’s a long story that doesn’t connect to the rest of the already long and complicated narrative until the very end.  I am delighted that Mr. Straczynski & co. made the choice to keep it a part of this adaptation.

The only aspect of the original Watchmen comic that was missing here was the musical connections.  Each chapter of Watchmen ended with a quotation, many taken from songs.  Zack Snyder cleverly incorporated many of those songs into the soundtrack of his 2009 film.  None of them made it in here, which isn’t a surprise — I’m sure licensing those songs would have cost too much money for the budget of this direct-to-blu-ray animated adaptation.  It’s a bummer, but in the end this film works so well, I didn’t miss those songs.

I’m surprised and happy how much I enjoyed this film!  This is a top-notch effort, and I’m counting the days until Chapter II is released.

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