Watchmen: Chapter 1

In an alternate version of 1985, where masked vigilantes and superheroes once patrolled the streets, a fractured group begins to reunite in the wake of a growing conspiracy in this serviceable adaptation of the first part of the seminal book. The story is excellent, and its themes of right-wing overreach and left-wing complacency remain as resonant as ever; however, by recreating the book almost frame by frame and word by word, the old adage that Watchmen is unfilmable feels newly reinforced. Dialogue that was meant to be read and shaped by the reader’s own headcanon loses something when delivered aloud verbatim, creating an unintentional—and likely unfair—comparison that can never fully compete with a viewer’s imagination. Like Dr. Manhattan’s own transformation, this is a story that requires disassembly and reconstitution to survive outside its original form.