I did see a short scene in the graphic novel — not sure if it made it into the movie — involving the psychiatrist/analyst who was interviewing Rorschach in an earlier scene… The analyst’s wife ends up leaving him because he is putting himself too much into his job, starting to care too much about about his patients. She confronts him later saying that she will come back to him if he transfers to a different type of patient, because she “can’t live with someone who feels driven to help hopeless cases.” She insists that she’s “not going to share [her] life with them.” As they’re talking, he notices another couple on the street beating each other up and he moves to help them. His wife says “don’t you dare get involved,” testing him. He replies, “I have to. In a world like this, I mean, it’s all we can do, try to help each other. It’s all that means anything. I’m sorry. It’s the world. I can’t run from it.”

I thought that scene, in the graphic novel at least, was part of the “reconstruction” of heroism and of humanity.

I agree that is one of the themes, but as it is done in the movie, I feel the value is lost, because the deconstruction is done without reconstruction (so to speak). The deconstruction of the hero was done far better by Frank Herbert (and was done keeping the humanity intact). What got to me was not the rejection of heroes as such, or the soteriological claims of government (as most know, both are issues I would agree with), but the imbalance in which I see it done in the film, which included no real redeeming feature in humanity itself. The ideology of the Comedian becomes the ideology of the film, making the deconstruction half-done, for if you are going to show why heroes are not soteriological, your ultimate position should not be that of one of those heroes you are using to show this. Again, my criticism is with the movie on this part (having not read the graphic novel, and knowing Moore himself was critical of the movie).

While I agree that the vision of Watchmen is almost entirely devoid of light and goodness – unrelentingly bleak in the words of John Henry – I didn’t get the sense that this vision is being proposed as an accurate statement about reality. My small encounters with people in the movie theater show me otherwise. Rather, I think the story is purposefully inaccurate. It doesn’t present the light, but not presenting something isn’t the same as rejecting or denying something. The ways of the Watchmen may not work, but that doesn’t mean there are not alternatives worth trying. The story seems meant to subvert the superhero mythology, not everything. More precisely, what is reveals as absurd is Adrien’s statement, “We can save this world.”

I recently finished a book called An End to Evil by David Frum and Richard Perle. They conclude the book with the following: “A world at peace; a world governed by law; a world in which all peoples are free to find their own destinies: That dream has not yet come true, it will not come true soon, but if it ever does come true, it will be brought into being by American armed might and defended by American might, too. America’s vocation is not an imperial vocation. Our vocation is to support justice with power. It is a vocation that has earned us terrible enemies. It is a vocation that has made us, at our best moments, the hope of the world.”

That’s the kind of nonsense that Watchmen characterizes as absurd.

The issue in the movie is far more than that one incident (as I pointed out in my review, it is deconstructing the modern Western idea, such as in the use of Nagasaki); however, it doesn’t really raise what the real solution is. Instead, it points to the absurdity of even trying; that there is nothing to save — life is a joke. The image of God in humanity, the good within humanity, is rejected. And that makes it a dangerous story. I can accept the deconstruction of the war imperative (as you would guess), but, I also think exaggeration without showing the good only leads to nihilism. Which is, to me, something seen throughout the film. Manhattan was used to deconstruct religion, and God, making God best used as a monster to control humanity, since God would be so different from us, he couldn’t love us…

I agree. There were some interesting themes, and I wouldn’t necessarily write off the book. But I would recommend against seeing the movie (unless you’ve read the book and really liked it).

Ideally, movies are nuanced and enjoyable even when they are morally problematic. Watchmen was neither subtle, nor particularly enjoyable; and, as you said, the traces of truth/beauty/goodness were few and far between. The vision of humanity was unrelentingly bleak, which I think undermined the dramatic force of the narrative. Is humanity, as portrayed in the movie, even worth saving? I saw it with four friends; we all disliked it and one, a priest, walked out midway through. In fairness, none of us had read the book. But it wasn’t a great movie.

The theme of Watchmen isn’t the absurdity of salvation itself, but the absurdity of trying to “save” human nature – or at least establish lasting peace – by killing human beings.

I had never read the graphic novel, but I knew the general plot outline (from discussions before the movie came out). As one who appreciates post-modernism and deconstruction, if done well, I thought there was potential with the film. There were so many areas where, if the story was not so superficial, it could have ended up being good. I won’t judge the graphic novel based upon the movie (every film based upon his work, like this, he has rejected putting his name to it, like V for Vendetta), although I think I would find the same problems in his story as well (it’s clear he has an issue with sexuality). Still, there is something within this, a diamond in the rough, which could have been good, which is what makes it difficult to entirely dismiss the story, even if, as a whole, it is, as we both see it, something which is quite difficult to write a balanced review.