Born in Northampton, England in 1953, and living there today in a state of self-imposed exile, Alan Moore is without doubt a literary giant. A darkly philosophical scribe in the medium of comic-book storytelling, who is perhaps England’s best kept secret.
For those who have more than a passing knowledge of comics, you’ll have heard of his works as they have been seminal in reshaping the genre: Watchmen, V for Vendetta, From Hell, and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen to name the most popular. If you’ve dug deeper you may have also discovered other mesmeric marvels such as Tom Strong, Lost Girls, Smaxx, Promethea, Supreme, Top Ten, Tomorrow Stories. The point is that he’s written a lot, and as with anything of his that has been remotely successful, and fiscally rewarding, Hollywood wants to make a movie out of it.
Now Alan Moore has said, on more than one occasion, that his stories can only be told within the medium of comics, and that they are therefore impossible to translate successfully into film. However, with another of these ‘translated’ films, V for Vendetta, being released this year its time to take a look and find out just why these movies do or don’t work.
From Hell (with artist Eddie Campbell) involves a fictional version of events based on the Whitechapel Murders, the ‘Jack the Ripper’ crimes, which took place in London in 1888, and concerned the ritualistic, grisly murders of five prostitutes and the cover-up that ensued. A dark Victorian tale that took ten years of exhaustive research by Moore, its complexities are realized through painstaking analysis and an in-depth psychological look at how people relate to the city they inhabit. The characterization doesn’t lose out however, with an evocative story told from many points of view including that of the victims, the chief inspector and the killer, as well as others, all fleshed out and all seemingly ‘real’.
The film captures the dark and visceral style of the comic, as well as the time period, with a kind of moody ambience. In terms of the story however, it fails on many levels. What should be a multi-faceted tale is reduced to a standard detective story involving ‘Jack the Ripper’, and apart from the use of some elements of the novel, is no different to any other film based on these murders.
The clichés are the usual ones; a wildcard detective with unconventional methods, by-the-numbers emotional burden and designer whiskers, developing feelings for one of the potential victims, in this case a prostitute with a heart; all the while using his intuition to get into ‘the mind of the killer’. The love story is flimsy and forced, the portrayal of the murders and subsequent investigations becomes increasingly repetitive, and it all culminates in an ending that is lackluster and without a satisfying conclusion. Problems also relate to the choice of casting, namely that of the inspector and the prostitute/love interest; these choices relate more to the audience-appealing demographics than they do to the need to portray realistic characters or tell an interesting tale; and don’t get me started on those accents.
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (with artist Kevin O’Neill) is a light-hearted Victorian-set adventure series involving a dysfunctional team of literary superheroes: Alan Quatermain, Captain Nemo, Mina Murray, Dr. Jekyll (as well as Mr. Hyde of course) and the Invisible Man. This motley crew must together try to deal with increasing threats to the British Empire, as well as the more arduous task of having to cope with each other.
Considering the format of this comic-book series, it had the most potential for a successful film version. With the premise of a team of dysfunctional heroes battling evil, it easily fit the basic mould of other comic-to-film properties such as X-Men and Fantastic Four. However, as with From Hell, drastic changes and alterations meant that the wonderfully eccentric comic became a sub-standard movie. Not least of these was the marketing of the film as a ‘Victorian X-Men’, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen transforming into the easier-to-brand ‘LXG’, as well as the inevitable addition of an American literary character to bridge that Atlantic divide.
The film focuses on Alan Quatermain and again gives us a brooding, emotionally burdened hero, having to reluctantly do his duty ‘one last time’. Its made all the worse by not even allowing him a love interest, which smacks of ageism if anything. The ‘LXG’ themselves turn out to be a fabrication in the film’s storyline, an elaborate con masterminded by some generic villain with an equally generic name, who wasn’t in the comics and shouldn’t really be in the film.
The movie isn’t truly awful, just frustratingly bad when compared to its source material; a wasted opportunity to put something fun and unique onto the big screen. The Nautilus looked nice though.
V for Vendetta (with artist David Lloyd) is a dystopian story about a fascist Britain of the near-future under siege by a terrorist/anarchist revolutionary wearing a Guy Fawkes mask and known only as ‘V’; who wages a campaign of vengeance against the totalitarian government that wronged him.
A socially and politically relevant story at the time of its writing, Moore foresaw many things that are prevalent today, including CCTV cameras on every street corner and questionable government policies regarding national security and personal freedoms.
A film based on this comic, where the protagonist of the story is a terrorist and the antagonist is the government, was always going to be risky and is made especially so by the current world climate and the ‘War On Terror’. Surprisingly, substantial parts of the film do work and that’s mostly because they remain faithful to the comic, in both the look and the content of the story. But again there are problems to be found, thanks again to alterations.
The humour is inappropriate and doesn’t gel with the themes and tone of the story as a whole. It attempts to humanize ‘V’ and fails badly; most probably because he works better as a comic-book character. He is after all a ‘living idea’, the embodiment of an idea-form, something more than ‘human’; ‘V’ wearing an apron doesn’t really embody anything meaningful in that respect. Unsurprisingly, the latter parts of the film slip into standard action movie territory, with the expected Matrix-style showdown involving bullets and computer-generated knives.
As we have seen it’s been a hit-and-miss affair with the adaptations so far. There is one remaining major work by Alan Moore to be made into a film, namely: Watchmen
Described as the ‘Citizen Kane’ of comics, Watchmen (with Artist Dave Gibbons) was the reinvention of the superhero genre by Moore. Once again, a multi-layered and multifaceted story that encapsulated social and political themes, whilst exploring the human condition through the eyes of multiple characters. An alternate America where Nixon is still President and a Superhuman keeps the power balance. A whole generation of masked crusaders have ensured law and order and the story follows a conspiracy to murder the remaining caped crusaders who have become outlawed, leading to a far greater and much more sinister scheme with repercussions that will affect the entire world.
Because of its scale and epic qualities, Watchmen will be the most ambitious and difficult of comics to adapt into a movie, but one that will be widely anticipated by the comic community. Success it seems has been elusive so far, with the only benefit from past failures being that perhaps lessons will have been learnt and maybe, just maybe, a film that is based on an Alan Moore comic will one day be made that turns out to be…good; and if these ‘flawed’ movies make people go out and read the comics…then it can’t be all bad.
Mo Ali was born in a haunted hospital and has exceeded all expectations and kept breathing.
A digital artist, poet and writer, he needs to find some paid work before the inevitable apocalypse. To make matters worse he lives in Berkshire.