Review: Watchmen
It was known as the un-filmable graphic novel, the one that couldn’t be done…not for lack of trying though. For the last twenty years or so ‘Watchmen’ has been in some form of production. Desperately trying to find the right mix to do justice to the graphic novel that Time magazine called ‘One of the greatest novels of the twentieth century’. I’m glad to report that they did finally find the right guy for the job in Zack Snyder.
The film is set in an alternate 1985 where costumed superheroes are part of society and the US is locked in a nuclear stalemate with the USSR. Nixon has been in office for five terms and the country is in constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Some years before the film’s start congress passed a law banning costumed heroes and while some of the Watchmen still practice their craft, either through government sanctioned vigilantism or in the case of the film’s centerpiece, Rorschach, outright law breaking. When one of their own, The Comedian, is killed Rorschach begins an investigation which, sees his old cohorts out of retirement and seems to unravel a conspiracy to kill off the Watchmen.
Wow, really I don’t know where to start. This movie was simply amazing, and while popular thought is that people who didn’t read the graphic novel or weren’t fans won’t like this flick I have to disagree. I’ll start off with a disclaimer that if you are completely unfamiliar with the characters head on over to Wikipedia and get a quick background as it will help with your understanding of the first hour of the movie. The story is unforgiving, relentless and pulls no punches, Spiderman this is not. The flick is stocked with wall to wall brutal violence, sex, and adult themes, none of which really seem gratuitous and all help to further the story and characters along. Rorschach, who will without a doubt be the fan favorite, is played perfectly by Jackie Earle Haley. Every nuance is on point from the way he walks and moves to the gravelly voice (Take notes Christian Bale). The Comedian is played devilishly well by Jeffery Dean Morgan and comes off perfectly as the son of a bitch that you love to hate. The rest of the Watchmen were well played but the aforementioned two really stand out and keep you engrossed. Now while the trailers will have lead you to believe you are going to see a movie with nonstop action, I have to tell you this is not the case. The film really moves like a murder mystery for the most part with investigation and interrogation but have no fear it is done perfectly and stays interesting. The action scenes are second to none from the unflinching violence of Rorschach and The Comedian, to the finessed martial arts of Nite Owl and The Silk Specter even the world’s smartest man Ozymandis, the last Watchmen to be mentioned, has a quick action beat. Visually the movie is stunning, if there were no story, no action, and no decent characters, you would still have 2+ hours of amazing scenery. This dirty, dingy, slum of 1985 that we see is so detailed and well done that I’m sure it will take multiple viewings to fully take in everything that the CGI wizards had to offer. From Nite Owl’s ship, Archie, to Dr. Manhattan’s fortress on Mars everything fanciful in this movie was done so well you hardly notice the impossibility of it all.
I struggle to give you some negatives, but I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t. Personally there was nothing about the film that I truly disliked, that being said I am a bit of a geek so I’m not the majority. For those of you out there who had no idea who the Watchmen were prior to the media parade of the last few months here’s what you may not like. Snyder was slavishly faithful to the graphic novel, leaving very little out…this translates to a 2hr 46 min runtime which may seem a bit long for the average moviegoer. The story I will admit can be a bit confusing in the first hour if you have no idea who any of the characters are, again brush up on your Watchmen back story for ten minutes before going to the theater, I guarantee you will enjoy it more. Lastly the makeup used for some of the characters, especially Tricky Dick Nixon was horrendous, although it’s hard to tell if this was intentional or not.
So there’s your very brief review of Watchmen, trust me had I gone into detail on every great thing about this flick you’d be reading a ten page thesis right now instead. Just take my word for it that you NEED to see this film in theaters, if you want to avoid the crowds wait a week or two, but see it. This film takes comic book movies to a completely new level of credibility, farther I think then even The Dark Knight. Is it a better movie than the The Dark Knight? Well, that’s debatable, but personally I think so. The adult theme and tone, not to mention the amazing if not cold ending bring the superhero out of the kid’s room and to the fore front to show us what a gleaming example of great storytelling that can be found in the medium.
9/10
