Monday, March 09, 2009

Watchmen movie review

Watchmen: The first major “event” film of the new year came barreling into theaters this past weekend. With it comes a peculiar conversation regarding how you are going to judge the film. The conversation always opens up with this question – have you read the novel? The Watchmen graphic novel is held in the highest esteem by its followers. They want to make sure that the movie stays true to the source material. I believe the answer to that question is yes it does. Not that I myself have read it, but hearing from fanboys who have, they seem to really like the final result. However, it also seems to me that the people who have read the novel appear to generally like the movie a lot more than those of us who have not. Let us not forget this is a movie review site, I should not have to read something prior to seeing a film to get the full enjoyment of the movie. What I think that ultimately says is that the movie failed to capture all of the complexity of the characters and of the story lines.
The Story takes place in an altered 1985. It is a 1985 that has Richard Nixon as the president of the United States and has the world on the brink of nuclear war. The Watchmen are a group of people who dress up in costumes and fight crime, but they themselves have no superhuman powers. There is only one hero with powers and that is Doctor Manhattan – he can basically control matter, meaning…he can do basically anything he wants. Can the Watchmen save mankind from destroying itself? If they can, what is the best way to do so? The themes of the film are thoughtful, but I think they are themes that we have seen before (although some may have been stolen from the Watchmen). In the end we have a respectable adaptation that did not live up to the hype for this reviewer. For those on the fence about seeing it – don’t wait for DVD, because the fun I did get out of the movie was just how cool it all looked on the big screen.
Ry's Rating: B-

If this movie had parents they would be: X-men & Dr. Strangelove

With a runtime of 162 minutes
This film is rated R