Watchmen

By now, you have heard about how the original Watchmen graphic novel changed comics forever, made them darker, more complex and on the level of true art, but can this story and this cast of characters do the same for superhero movies?

Set in an alternate version of the 1980’s, Jackie Earle Haley stars as Rorschach – a masked hero who is deeply disturbed, but dedicated to justice and what is right, even if his methods are questionable. Years ago, he was part of a group of superheroes who dubbed themselves The Watchmen. However, these do-gooders were forced to go into hiding and give up their crime fighting ways. Now, they are needed again.

Someone has killed one of the most famous and controversial of the Watchmen, The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), and Rorschach is convinced all of the heroes have been targeted. Meanwhile, Adrian Veidt (Matthew Goode), one of the most intelligent men on the planet and one of only two heroes to reveal his true identity, has been working with the most powerful of all Watchmen, Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup), on a scientific breakthrough that could change life as we know it. Oh, and the world is on the brink of nuclear war.

Who is after the Watchmen?

Can they stop this nefarious foe?

Will the world be annihilated by nuclear war?

Will Dr. Manhattan please put on some pants (I’ll explain that one later)?

Watchmen comes in with huge expectations from fans and non-fans alike, so it would be almost impossible to live up to the hype, so don’t be shocked when it doesn’t live up to the hype, but don’t think you are in for a total disappointment either.

At times, Watchmen is an action packed movie full of visual stimuli ranging from slow motion fight scenes, focus on parts of the action you might never notice before and a fantasy world with characters that are bigger than life and clearly not part of reality.

Yet, Watchmen is like having too much of your favorite thing. I love ice cream, but I can’t eat an entire gallon in one sitting (OK, I could, but I would get horribly ill, even though you know I would be smiling the whole time). Director Zack Snyder lets Watchmen get bogged down to the point of being ponderous as the audience is treated to an over abundance of story and character development.

Writers David Hayter and Alex Tse (based on the graphic novel by Alan Moore) provide THREE storylines, and all three do come together, after each one is lost for long periods of time, but, by the time they do, I almost didn’t care. Plus, we don’t need everything to go into slow motion, do we?

Ultimately, Watchmen is worth seeing because it is that ambitious, and I’d rather see a movie where everyone tries too hard, than not try at all. We are treated to a decades long story with all sorts of background about each character, the mistakes each has made, the regrets they live with, and the world as it is in Watchmen. It has equal parts cartoonishness and depth. It isn’t afraid to show a dark nastiness and extreme violence that impacts the audience in ways most movies don’t. I might not need the extremely detailed background of each character, but, at least, someone cares to provide it and flesh it out and challenge the audience to take it all in to better understand why this action and this story is happening on screen. Sadly, I got a little bored by it all, and craved a little more action, which led my mind and eye to wander, and witness a part of Dr. Manhattan that is quite shocking.

I hate to bring this up, but this is why you read my reviews instead of those by someone like Roger Ebert. One of the most distracting features of Watchmen is Dr. Manhattan’s proclivity to walk around naked. Nude. In the buff! Not only is this the wrong kind of nudity, but a certain part of his anatomy is, how do I say this, quite prominent. He proves himself to be a super hero in every sense of the word. If that is the side effect of getting caught up in the strange electrical shock that made him into Dr. Manhattan, I am willing to stick my finger in the nearest electrical outlet.

Watchmen won’t change movies forever, and the ending will make you think or scream out in repulsion, but it’s worth seeing.

Watchmen is rated R for strong graphic violence, sexuality, nudity and language.