Review: The Watchmen Chapter Two

Alan Moore gets ripped off than any comic book creator pretty much ever. I mean if you look at the movie endings of Avengers: Endgame, Kingsman: Secret Service, and The Dark Knight Rises, elements of how The Watchmen wraps its 12-issue comics series set in the 1980s can be seen everywhere. It also doesn’t hurt that The Watchmen has since had several sequel comic series, a live-action adaptation, a live-action series set after the events of the comics series, and now the conclusion of the animated adapted DC comics masterpiece produced by Studio Mir, directed by Brandon Vietti and written by J. Michael Straczynski.

I’ve never liked the idea of splitting up The Watchmen into two animated chapters and right from the get-go when this thing opens up, it does so with The Tales of the Black Freighter and while I love the source material, seeing the comic produced almost like an Comixology walkthrough made me wish that the producers did something a little more original, perhaps a motion comic that would make a nice contrast versus just showing the comics or going the route that Snyder already did with the aforementioned live-action adaptation released now almost two-decades ago and is still ahead of its time.

The rest of the near 90-minute runtime features a rather faithful adaptation of the source material but just without the panache that Snyder gave it in the aforementioned live-action adaptation. No real soundtrack to speak of, the kids gloves seemed to be more prominent in both the love scenes and in the action sequences some of which were quite a bit sloppy. The crass language also seemed to be a bit laid back whence compared to other adaptations of the original however the ensemble cast including Matthew Rhys, Katee Sackhoff, Titus Welliver, Troy Baker, Adrienne Barbeau, and Michael Cerveris were still very serviceable if not excellent in most cases.

For any comic fan, The Watchmen is a must. A standard-bearer for a time when comics were produced with no fear and by people who didn’t give a fuck about what anyone thought of them. That time is largely over save for a few creators here and there, but the animated adaptation keeps most of the spirit intact from the original material, however, the spirit of the industry of the time to take chances and try slightly different things to help augment that source material doesn’t seem evident.

Buy The Watchmen Chapter Two here.