The New Yorker really, really hates Watchmen. And comic book fans.

Here's a very bad review of the Watchmen movie - not bad as in "a negative review", but as in "a very badly done review."  Anthony Lane snarls and sneers his way around his simple hatred for comics as a whole, while hawking an arrogance that he's the first grown-up to observe the medium.

To begin with, Lane sets up a hatred for genre.  He's speaking of comics, but the pattern is generic:

For every masterwork, such as “Persepolis” or “Maus,” there seem to be shelves of cod mythology and rainy dystopias, patrolled by rock-jawed heroes and their melon-breasted sidekicks.

This is possibly an example of "introductions start with the obvious" school of essay writing.  But Lane, having identified what he thinks is a dog, can't resist kicking it:

Fans of the stuff are masonically loyal, prickling with a defensiveness and an ardor that not even Wagnerians can match.

Ouch!  Secret societies and Wagner both.  We get fascism, too, later on ("the film ends up twice as fascistic as the forces it wishes to lampoon").  Lane clearly has a hate on for comics, or at least their readers.

And it gets worse:

“Watchmen,” ... it should meet the needs of any leering nineteen-year-old who believes that America is ruled by the military-industrial complex, and whose deepest fear—deeper even than that of meeting a woman who requests intelligent conversation—is that the Warren Commission may have been right all along.

Wow.  No cliche left unturned in this sneer-fest.  No nineteen-year-old women read comics, apparently.  And the politics... Lane doesn't bother to explain why the politics of the film are stupid.  At the review's end he snarls that the movie is "grimy with misogyny."  No explanation.  It's comics, see?  We should expect all sorts of awfulness.  What else needs to be said?

Little needs to be read, apparently, since it seems likely that Lane never tried to read the book:

Whether [Dr. Manhattan's] fellow-Watchmen have true superpowers, as opposed to a pathological bent for fisticuffs, I never quite worked out...

This question doesn't take a lot of working out, in the book, since it's a major plot point.  I can't speak for the movie, not having seen it yet, but the advance materials and online campaign make this quite clear.  So perhaps Lane both refuses to read and resists paying attention.  Not the best mix for a reviewer.

(thanks to FilmFlam, where someone first caught the final quote above)

Comments

[Steve B]

Wow, and I thought the frothingly negative "think of the children" review I read was badly-written. Enough of that.

-------------------------

I wanted to share a review written by a man deeply involved with comics for his professional life: Todd Klein, known primarily for his work as a letterer in comics (including Sandman, other Neil Gaiman works, and Alan Moore's _Promethea_) posted his no-spoilers review of the film in a note-perfect Rorschach style:

Klein’s journal. March 7, 2009. Major film of greatest graphic story ever created just opened. Based on work of two good friends. One completely opposed. One supportive, enthusiastic. No gray area. Troubling. Needed to judge for self.

Klein's Journal: WATCHMEN

The last two paragraphs of Klein's review: I agree with him and he says it better than I did in my review I posted yesterday.

[Jesse Walker]

Don't forget this passage:

You want to hear Moore’s attempt at urban jeremiad? “This awful city, it screams like an abattoir full of retarded children.” That line from the book may be meant as a punky retread of James Ellroy, but it sounds to me like a writer trying much, much too hard; either way, it makes it directly into the movie, as one of Rorschach’s voice-overs.

So Lane is incapable of distinguishing the author's voice from a character's voice -- in this case, if I recall correctly, a character writing in his diary. Very lazy.

[Account Deleted]

I think Lane needs to go and watch Ratatoille again...

[Bryan Alexander]

@Steve B, do you have a link to that ""think of the children" review"? Might be interesting to compare.
I like Todd Klein's piece.

That's right, @Jesse, it's from Rorschach's journal. One would think reviewers are trained to spot unreliable narrators.

I still need to see it, @Randy!

[Steve B]

Because you asked, here's the review I characterized as "think of the children":

The Watchmen Lie: Hollywood Sends More Depravity Your Kids' Way Costumed as Superhero Flick

[Bryan Alexander]

Whoa, Steve, that's awful! Thank you.

[moviesplanet on facebook]

The Watchmen movie was ok type. I saw the trailers of this movie and really impressed. And when i watched this movie. It really disappoint me. It was ridiculous movie.