Yeesh, the voice of Rorschach in this new trailer for the animated film “Watchmen”

Warner Bros. Discovery’s upcoming animated adaptation by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Guardian continues to be the gift that keeps on giving (a reason for us to shrug). Today, the studio released a new redband trailer for the upcoming Guardian Chapter 1an animated adaptation of the classic graphic novel that raises a number of questions – none as pressing as “What the hell was Titus Welliver thinking with that Rorschach voice, huh?”

To be clear: We like Bosch And Deadwood stars Titus Welliver, an actor who has done a great job both on camera and in the voice-over booth. And we admit that voicing the psychopathic vigilante from Watchmen is a challenge, as the guy intentionally speaks like a noir detective with a bottlebrush shoved down his throat. (Jackie Earle Haley got around this by basically whispering 90 percent of his dialogue in the Zack Snyder adaptation.) But that doesn’t stop Welliver’s version of the character – which, as GuardianThe narrator speaks much in this trailer – it sounds like every bad imitation of Christian Bale’s Batman voice you’ve ever heard (or done) all rolled into one. It’s incredibly distracting, so much so that we had to keep pausing the trailer to recover before we could really take in anything else he was trying to do.

That is, yes, adaptation Guardianwhich very faithfully recreates many iconic images from Moore and Gibbons’ original work. (Though with some very stiff-looking faces and characters in the 3D animation.) We have to give the film a little kudos for at least essentially matching John Higgins’ glorious color palette from the original comics, but even with exploding heads and hands being shoved down throats, the whole thing feels pretty redundant. (It doesn’t help that WBD is somehow bringing the whole thing to life after it was announced years ago under different management; the film is coming straight to VOD on August 13.) We at least have a more confirmed cast list at this point, which, in addition to Welliver, includes Katee Sackhoff, Matthew Rhys, Troy Baker, Adrienne Barbeau, Corey Burton, Michael Cerveris, and Jeffrey Combs.