Alan Moore has managed to piss off a lot of people in recent years. After elevating comic books to previously unimagined levels of maturity with his post-modern superhero series Watchmen, the writer told anyone who’d listen how juvenile superheroes are. That’s fine. Moore has ambitions for his beloved medium, but is he right to condemn its spandex-clad staples as junk for the under-developed?
The answer arrives in rapid order in director Marcus Alqueres and screenwriter Jeff Juhasz’s faux documentary Warden. This scintillatingly clever, post-modern take on the superhero genre is the closest thing to Watchmen I have seen, besides Zack Snyder’s brilliant but uneven retelling.
Giovanni de Lorenzi plays Daniel, a native of Sao Paolo, Brazil orphaned as a baby when his parents succumb to a mysterious form of radiation sickness. During his adolescence Daniel develops superpowers, leaving behind his life as a shy teenager to grapple with the deep dilemmas of crime and punishment as a slouchy version of Dr. Manhattan dubbed Warden.
“It’s extremely unwise to be rich and not befriend the authorities.” observes one of the talking heads interviewed, which well describes Warden’s precarious relationship with the Brazilian state. It also can’t help but bring to mind the current political climate, especially that of Trump and Musk. It’s a clever way to frame the conflict between the young, inexperienced superhero and the professional yet corrupt machinery of government.
“During his adolescence, Daniel develops superpowers…”
Warden is an intelligent and diverting meditation on power. It leans lightly on the crash-bang action of Marvel movies, sweeping all that mostly to one side to instead focus on the political and ethical implications of being immensely powerful. This is not to say that the crash-bang is lacking. The special effects are basic, but the little bursts of action are nestled nicely within news footage and social media posts. This has the twin benefits of grounding things within everyday life and framing the modest amounts of CGI in an impactful way. The titular character looks believable as he leaps across the city in haphazardly captured wide shots, and the chosen action is entertaining.
The film struggles towards the end as the plot philosophizes, with the political questions becoming more overt and on the nose as Warden assumes ever more authority. Also, this is not really a film to watch for the acting. Besides de Lorenzi’s nicely solemn performance, most everyone here is confined to interviews. They are all convincing as media pundits, etc, but the format can’t help but restrict their range. Happily that same format is otherwise one of this film’s cleverest gambits. Juhasz’s script has a knack for rooting out fun ways to present all the interesting ideas. Plus, the dialogue is excellent.
Warden is a nice little film, and the fact that it is leaping and bounding into view during an encroaching age of ‘great men’ seems timely indeed. Alqueres’s direction is inspired, marshalling a lot of potentially absurd material into something with a tone closer to All the President’s Men than SpiderMan. This is a fresh interpretation of the superhero genre, made all the more impressive by its low-budget roots. It’s worth seeking out.
"…worth seeking out."
