Watchmen: Movie Review

Watchmen: Movie Review

Rating: 8/10
Cast: Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Malin Akerman, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Jackie Earle Haley, Carla Gugino, Patrick Wilson
Director: Zack Snyder
Right - let's get this straight.
This film is going to divide the audience in two - 1) those who love, cherish and adore the original graphic novel and 2) those who've never read it, have heard the hype and wonder if it's like The Dark Knight.
Superheroes generally have been going darker as a genre over the past few years - and Christopher Nolan's take on the Batman franchise has plunged them deeper into noir.
So, the inevitable question with Watchmen has to be - does it measure up or does the weighty expectation piled upon it in the past few months sink it?
Watchmen is the story of a group of "superheroes".
Set in an alternative 1985 where Richard Nixon didn't leave the White House in disgrace and where the threat of nuclear war with the Russians is always around the corner, Watchmen tells the tale of a band of ordinary men who became the self appointed vigilantes of America; even fighting in Vietnam to help the cause.
But all of these dysfunctional guys - bar one, the atomically blasted apart Dr Manhattan - have no superpowers whatsoever and are racked with morality issues.
Things get worse for the Watchmen when Nixon introduces legislation outlawing the masked vigilante fraternity for good.
Cast aside and no longer wanted, the Watchmen are in their twilight years.
And when The Comedian, (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), one of their number is murdered, a lone vigilante known as Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley) sets out to discover who was behind the brutal death - but what he discovers is infinitely more terrifying than he could have expected as the conspiracy runs a lot deeper and with consequences for the entire human race.
As I say, this film from visionary Alan Moore and illustrator Dave Gibbons, was always likely to appeal a lot more to the fans of the book (of which, I will admit, I am one.)
It's a dark, bleak, moody affair which is expertly realised and true to its original source material.
It's also quite a verbal film which demands a lot of concentration from its audience as the strands of the conspiracy are drawn together.
That said, it is truly stunning when viewed up on the big screen.(I'd recommend seeing it in IMAX if you get the chance)
Director Zack Snyder, who made the highly stylised 300 with Gerard Butler, has once again captured the feel of the graphic novel and created some truly bone crunching fight scenes (complete with some slow-mo moments).
However, those scenes don't resort to the Matrix bullet time effects which give them an original feel.
The opening credits sequence is audacious - to the sounds of Bob Dylan's The Times They Are A-Changing, the entire history of the vigilantes and how they've become what they've become is laid out - it's the perfect scene setter and leaves Snyder more time to concentrate on the latter day action without having to resort to wads of exposition to explain who everyone is and so on.
The central protagonist in Watchmen is Rorschach (played with spitting venom by Jackie Earle Haley) - as the last of the "superheroes" to continue working behind a mask (a cloth white balaclava which has moving ink blots on it a la Rorschach test) he is yet another anti-hero - but as the film goes on, you root more for the guy - even if he is pre-disposed to settling scores in a quite violent way.
Also central to the film is the glowing blue Dr Manhattan who's lost touch with all of his own humanity, despite being charged with looking over the rest of the human race.
There's Nite Owl (Patrick Wilson) and Silk Spectre II (Malin Akerman), a pair of former heroes who're struggling to get by day to day without the costumes - and who can only really come alive when they embrace what they were - not what they are now.
These are characters suffering crises of identity, who have lost their sense of self by being unmasked and unwanted.
If you're in the dark about the novel and wonder if the film will appeal to you - I can safely predict you will enjoy it - but with the caveat that if you like comic book films as a genre.
It's a complex, dense conspiracy with unconvential heroes - and one which may suffer because it doesn't appeal across the spectrum in the way Superman and Batman have throughout the years.
But to be fair, that was always author Alan Moore's intention - his "superheroes" were based in reality, riddled with foibles and regrets and his vision was to portray a universe where heroes were a reality rather than a the hyper-reality of Gotham City and Metropolis.
Watchmen is an, at times, violent affair which is definitely not for the younger generation with more violence and sex than was in The Dark Knight.

However, it's yet another stunning entry into the "superhero" genre.