Alan Moore is one of the most famous comic book authors of all time . He has been considered by many readers —and also artists— as the best writer in the history of comics . His works have transcended the borders of comics consumption and have reached a truly diverse audience.
This has made "everyone" know Alan Moore. While there are other comic book authors who are essential to the medium, but have little media relevance beyond the industry, the name of the Northampton bard has reached a truly mainstream spectrum.
It is reminiscent of the case of Japanese animated films and Hayao Miyazaki . One of the architects of Studios Ghibli broke down the barriers of anime in Europe and placed himself in the middle of Western popular culture, thus allowing other films from his nation to slip into our collective imagination.
The case of the British author, however, is curious to say the least. Alan Moore's comics are true masterpieces, but his adaptations have not enjoyed the literary significance that his comics did. These adaptations are, in short, somewhat poor and slightly superficial.
Movies based on Alan Moore's comics don't meet with widespread applause, and somehow many readers agree that they aren't great adaptations. There are better and worse, obviously, but its transfer from one medium to another, as also happens with novels, was questionable.
Today we review in this post all the films that have been based on comics by Alan Moore , the screenwriter who denies cinema. Let's go there!
From Hell (2001)
The Hughes brothers, directors of Money to Burn (1995), American Pimp (1998) and The Book of Eli (2010), were responsible for adapting one of Alan Moore's most ambitious, amazing and acclaimed comics. We are actually talking about the work known as From Hell .
This graphic novel by Alan Moore , drawn supremely well by the talented Eddie Campbell, tells the story of Jack the Ripper , but it is an almost journalistic exercise, a deep investigation of the facts from historical events, getting as close as possible to reality. .
In that shaker of reality and fiction - only the annexes to From Hell would make twenty books today - Alan Moore blurs the borders and plunges us into madness, as if he had inherited the pen of Joseph Conrad. Everything seems real, or could be, but nothing is what it seems at the same time.
The movie From Hell is a poor adaptation of From Hell . Alan Moore's work is nowhere to be found. It is neither there nor expected, seen what has been seen. Johnny Depp tries to articulate a good performance in a translation that sticks closer to horror than the source material. At least, the setting is up to the previous work.
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003)
We were living at the dawn of modern superhero cinema, with hits like Sam Raimi's Spider-Man and Bryan Singer's X-Men . In that context, 20th Century Fox saw a gateway to immediate fundraising. The ticket offices were more securely controlled than now. It was a good bet.
Why not, right? Why not adapt Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen ? And there they went. Stephen Norrington had managed to place Blade in 1998. He seemed to handle the mix between darkness and superheroes well. He was the right director, the studio thought.
Clearly, from the beginning, we knew not. Alan Moore's story was made into a film as a pastiche of fantasy, science fiction, action, steampunk and superheroism. However, nothing could be understood in the film starring Sean Connery, who was also a producer of the film.
Once again, as with From Hell , The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen preferred the superficiality of Alan Moore's work to its narrative complexity. Which is why it flopped as an adaptation, in the same way that From Hell did .
Because sometimes it's not worth just looking alike. After all, a comic is a comic and… A movie is a movie. They are different media.
V for Vendetta (2005)
Difficult, very difficult to talk about V for Vendetta without being jumped on our necks. Let's see, let's be honest and take off our Guy Fawkes masks . The film is a good generational tape, it works as a blockbuster and has given away dozens of captions on Instagram.
It has become the symbol that the main character of the film would like to be and his mask evokes political activism close to terrorism, but also to the revolutionary concept or social struggles. We must accept it, value it and praise it.
However, the V for Vendetta movie is a far cry from Alan Moore's comic . As an adaptation, it's bad, very bad. This does not make it a bad movie, understand us; It makes it a bad adaptation, so it is always recommended to also read the original material, to get to know it.
Alan Moore's V for Vendetta is much more prosaic in its narrative construction. In short, it does not have so many "fireworks". After all, it is a comic very close to literature, it shares many features with it and is sustained in a truly formal story.
Everything the blockbuster movie has is missing from the comic. The subtlety of the cartoons is replaced in the film by violence, theatricality in the forms and the one-liner narrative that worked in other revolutionary works with an anarchist spirit, such as Fight Club (1999 ) .
Constantine (2005)
The truth is that this film is not really based on an adaptation by Alan Moore , but rather by Garth Ennis, the man who created The Boys . However, the character of John Constantine is the work and grace of the Northampton bard. Therefore, it is worth mentioning it.
Constantine's film , starring Keanu Reeves, seemed unappealing to us in its day, but over time it has gained strength. Maybe it's our desire to see The Hellblazer in modern cinema, but... It's not such a bad movie, is it?
Action, fantasy, science fiction, supernatural worlds, a thriller roll. Constantine combined everything that made the character great in DC comics, perhaps losing some depth along the way. But of course, his magical spirit and nature permeates the entire movie. Rugby World Cup 2023 Schedule
Watchmen (2009)
And we come to the most important work in the history of comics . Probably Alan Moore's best comic , although the writer of this article applauds Swamp Thing with much more force and adoration . Be that as it may, Watchmen is no small feat; it would be caviar, if anything.
The Watchmen movie was probably adapted by the least suitable person for it. We are talking about Zack Snyder, a filmmaker who dominates the physical and the superficial, the aesthetic, and places all of this above the rest. Something as deep as the Watchmen comic was far from his style.
However, Warner Bros. Pictures trusted the man who articulated 300 (2006) and agreed to bring Watchmen to the big screen. The result? One of the worst comic book adaptations on record. A conceptual hodgepodge that is limited to placing bullets on the screen, forgetting about the content.
Despite this, Watchmen is a movie much loved by the superhero public. A vast majority believes that it is one of the best films that the genre has produced. In our case, if we talked about Watchmen without having the comic in mind, we could come to think very similarly.
It is not the case. Watchmen is the "sacred cow" of the comic book world. Her beauty, her triumph, does not lie in the superficial, in the banal, in the aesthetic. The story, its narrative, its content, the message that underlies the entire layer of Dave Gibbons... Therein lies its brilliance, its true identity.
That's what's missing in Zack Snyder's movie . The filmmaker, faithful to his style, puts the beauty of the images before the message. The video clips of the film are superb and its introduction is capital. But the Watchmen of the comics is nowhere to be found.