Watchmen (1-Disc) [DVD] [2009]

Release Date: July 27th, 2009
Distributor: Paramount Home Entertainment
Actors: Jackie Earle Haley, Patrick Wilson, Carla Gugino, Malin Åkerman, Billy Crudup
Director: Zack Snyder
Certificate: Suitable for 18 years and over

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About Watchmen

In the same vein as The Dark Knight, Watchmen arrives with a bold vengeance to claim its position as one of the most important and psychologically impressive superhero movies ever made. The film is visceral and compelling, cashing in on its graphic novel strengths. The cinematography, sound effects and character development add pride to a genre that has become fairly standardized in the film industry. Visually, the film feels odd, almost as if you're watching a comic book truly come alive, bursting out of the page against the desires of its creators. At times the film feels entirely alive, avoiding the trappings of too much plot and focusing on the destruction of America's value base and overall hope.

The film takes place in a parallel universe in the year 1985. Richard Nixon is in the White House and superheroes and masked avengers operate out of the privy of the law. Drawing on the parameters of the original graphic novel, this film challenges the assumptions that superheroes are are indeed super. These costumed people can truly only be in one place at one time, while the rest of the world faces a variety of dangers. Basically, all the super heroes are stretched far too thin to save the world. In response to this, and other factors with law enforcement, Nixon outlaws all superhero activity. Suddenly, the Comedian, a vigilante portrayed by Jeffrey Dean Morgan is killed. This brings the Watchmen together to find out who will be next.

The roster of superheroes have no superpowers with one exception: Dr. Manhattan, portrayed by Billy Crudup, who has power far beyond that of time and space. Ozymandias, played by Matthew Goode, is the world's smartest man. Rorshach, played by Jackie Early Haley, looks for patterns in situations that only appear in his mind. The Nite Owl, Patrick Wilson, a technophile who has lost his humanity. The cast is rounded out by the day-to-day challenges of Silk Spectre, portrayed by Malin Akerman, who faces the legacy of her mother, an earlier superhero.

The presentation of Watchmen is rich and complex. The Cold War era rhetoric is thick, along with the overwhelming sense of losing some sort of innocence that probably never existed. The film focuses not on the individual characters or even them as an overwhelming team. The actors are merely props put in place by the director to act out what the film means rather than how it will turn out.

Unlike other traditional superhero movies, this takes the genre and spins it on its ear. Its not necessarily a film with strong merchandising appeal. It acts more as a psychological drama that happens to involve masked crusaders.

Synopsis/Review

From Amazon

Everybody's favourite graphic novel comes to the screen (after years of rumours and false starts), less a roaring work of adaptation than a respectful and faithful take on a radical original. Watchmen is set in the mid-1980s, a time of increased nuclear tension between the United States and the Soviet Union, as Richard Nixon is enjoying his fifth term as president and the world's superheroes have been forcibly retired. (As you can probably tell, the mix of authentic history and alternate reality is heady.) Things begin with a bang: the mysterious high-rise murder of the Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), a masked hero with a checkered past, puts the rest of the retired superhero community on alert. The credits sequence, a series of tableaux that wittily catches us up on crime-fighting backstory, actually turns out to be the high point of the movie. Thereafter we meet the other caped and hooded avengers: the furious Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley), the inexplicably naked Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup, amidst much blue-skinned, genital-swinging digital work), Silk Spectre II (Malin Akerman), Nite Owl II (Patrick Wilson), and Ozymandias (Matthew Goode). The corkscrewing storytelling, which worked well in the comic book, gives the movie the strange sense of never quite getting in gear, even as some of the episodes are arresting. Director Zack Snyder (300) doesn't try to approximate the electric impact of the original (written by Alan Moore--who declined to be credited on the movie--and illustrated by Dave Gibbons) but retains careful fidelity to his source material. That doesn't feel right, even with the generally enjoyable roll-out of anecdotes. Even less forgivable is the blah acting, excepting Jeffrey Dean Morgan (lusty) and Patrick Wilson (mellow). Watchmen certainly fills the eyes, although less so the ears: the song choices are regrettable, especially during an embarrassing mid-air coupling between Nite Owl II and Silk Spectre II as they unite their--ah--Roman numerals. In the end it feels as though a huge work of transcription has been successfully completed, which isn't the same as making a full-blooded movie experience. --Robert Horton

From Play.com

Based on the graphic novel written by Alan Moore Watchmen is a complex multi-layered mystery adventure which is directed by 300's Zack Snyder and stars Jeffrey Dean Morgan Carla Gugino Malin Akerman Billy Crudup Matthew Goode and Patrick Wilson.

Watchmen is set in an alternate 1985 America in which costumed superheroes are part of the fabric of everyday society and the 'Doomsday Clock' - which charts the USA's tension with the Soviet Union - is permanently set at five minutes to midnight.

When one of his former colleagues is murdered the washed up but no less determined masked vigilante Rorschach sets out to uncover a plot to kill and discredit all past and present superheroes. As he reconnects with his former crime-fighting legion - a ragtag group of retired superheroes only one of whom has true powers - Rorschach glimpses a wide-ranging and disturbing conspiracy with links to their shared past and catastrophic consequences for the future. Their mission is to watch over humanity...But who is watching the Watchmen?