DVD Review: Director’s Cut of ‘Watchmen’ Gives Fans Half a Release

Submitted by BrianTT on August 4, 2009 - 3:42pm

CHICAGO – Despite the serious problems I had with Zack Snyder’s “Watchmen,” it was a Blu-Ray and DVD title that I was highly anticipating. With the film’s detailed production level, lengthy running time, and broad scope, it would seem to be tailor-made for a loyal home audience. Whether you like the film or not, that audience is getting screwed.

DVD Rating: 2.0/5.0

Let’s leave aside for now any possible disagreement over the actual movie. We’ll get to that later. The DVD is undeniably, irrefutably, a place-holder. There is no way this is the final word on DVD and Blu-Ray on “Watchmen,” a film that has not only seen its share of controversy but also had secondary home releases to date, including “The Complete Motion Comic” and “Tales of the Black Freighter”.

Watchmen: Director’s Cut was released on DVD on July 21st, 2009.
Photo credit: Warner Bros.

Why don’t we look into the DVD/Blu-Ray crystal ball? I can guarantee that there will be a future release of “Watchmen” that delivers a far-more-complete package, including at least “Freighter” and maybe even the “CMC” in one set and with literally hours of special features about the making of the film, artwork, promotional material, interviews, etc. Heck, there will at LEAST be a version that includes the theatrical and director’s cut on one DVD. Is that too much to ask the first time around?

Watchmen: Director’s Cut was released on DVD on July 21st, 2009.
Photo credit: Warner Bros.

It also feels like this is probably not the last “Director’s Cut”. This version includes 24 extra minutes which we’ll get to, but is not the long-rumored 205-minute version of the film that will reportedly splice “Freighter” material back into the film. Anyone want to bet that hits stores in 2010?

Now that I’m done ranting about the blatant double-dip I feel is inevitable, let’s move on to the film itself.

I love the book. I wanted to love the movie, but it is a deeply flawed film that misses a lot of what makes the book work. Snyder undeniably recreated a majority of the imagery from his source material, but he compiled them in a way that made for a brutally disjointed experience. Like a karaoke singer, “Watchmen” gets a lot of the words right but misses the meaning.

“Watchmen” is about the very definitions of the words hero and villain. When our good guys are working on weapons that could end the world and our bad ones are taking out the scum of the Earth vigilante-style, who is the real superhero? What can a masked man possibly accomplish?

The biggest problem with “Watchmen” is an overabundance of ideas. “Watchmen” could have been a 12-hour HBO mini-series. It simply doesn’t work as a 3-hour film. None of the action is given any time to sink in. “Watchmen” is an experience to be savored, to be read in installments, not to be pounded into a viewer’s head. It’s like watching an entire season of highlights from “Lost” in 160 minutes. It’s not given a chance to breathe, as each revelation, each origin story, and each character arc is hurried through to get to the next.

Watchmen: Director’s Cut was released on DVD on July 21st, 2009.
Photo credit: Warner Bros.

On a positive level, I do admire the ambition of Snyder’s work, Jackie Earle Haley steals the movie as Rorschach, and Billy Crudup gives a genuinely sad performance. Watching the film again, I didn’t react as negatively as I did the first time, although I still think all of my criticisms of it hold true and any theory that this is a film that will be rewarded and revered by the passage of time is just wrong.

So, what’s new in this version? Most of the new footage involves minor changes - a line of dialogue here and there, a new character beat every once in awhile. None of it is major and none of it rescues the film from its flaws. I do think this version is a bit more fleshed-out, but it certainly doesn’t solve Snyder’s pacing problems or radically change anyone’s opinions of the film. This is not “Blade Runner”-level differences. So, don’t expect your opinion to change by more than half a star at best.

Watchmen: Director’s Cut was released on DVD on July 21st, 2009.
Photo credit: Warner Bros.

Special Features:

“The Phenomenon: The Comic That Changed Comics” (28:46)

You would think that this feature would be driven by the graphic novel, but when it starts with a sound bite from Malin Akerman, you soon realize that it’s driven by the film and the actor’s experiences with one of the best books ever written. Ever wonder what Carla Gugino thinks of “Watchmen”? Wonder no more. Luckily, there are enough journalist and industry insights to keep the featurette from becoming too much of a commercial for the film. It’s essentially a love letter to the book by Alan Moore (whose name is, almost hysterically, barely even mentioned in the featurette, clearly because of his disassociation with the film) and Dave Gibbons. Even though it’s odd to hear from the lead singer of My Chemical Romance about “Watchmen” but allow almost no recognition of the actual AUTHOR, there is enough interesting material here to warrant a look.

“Watchmen: Video Journals” - “The Minutemen” (3:36), “Sets and Sensibility” (3:57), “Dressed For Success” (3:06), “The Ship Has Eyes” (4:23), “Dave Gibbons” (3:25), “Burn Baby Burn” (2:15), “Shoot to Thrill” (3:17), “Blue Monday” (3:02), “Attention to Detail” (2:56), “Girls Kick Ass” (3:06), and “Rorschach’s Mask” (3:46)

Watchmen: Director’s Cut was released on DVD on July 21st, 2009.
Photo credit: Warner Bros.

These are a series of EPK-style quickies at behind-the-scenes material and certain characters mostly fueled by cast & crew interviews. Why not organize these into one documentary about the making of the film? I find mini-featurettes annoying, especially without a “Play All” feature, although there is some interesting material spread throughout the 11 journals.

“My Chemical Romance - “Desolation Row” Music Video” (3:15)

A decent video for a pretty good song.

All in all, without BD-Live functionality (and we tried to get a Blu-Ray copy for review but were denied one by Warner Brothers), the special features on a film that will surely have a loyal following run just over an hour. Anyone really think this is the final word on “Watchmen”?

‘Watchmen’ is released by Warner Bros. Home Video and stars Malin Akerman, Carla Gugino, Billy Crudup, Jackie Earle Haley, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Matthew Goode, and Patrick Wilson. It was written by David Hayter & Alex Tse and directed by Zack Snyder. It was released on July 21st, 2009. It is rated R.