Yeah its time for Brotherton to review the WATCHMEN, very flashy looking film based on a 1980s comic series. I've just read the comics and to be honest i weren't that impressed by the story line really its all a bit BOLLOCKS but hey thats just me, lets see what B-TON makes of it all..
Watchmen
Its the comic book adaptation that fans have waited 20 years for since its inception, and now that its finally here; as an ardent fan of the comic I can only say; this film is just fantastic!
While not the complete masterpeice as you might have hoped, as far as the recent adaptations have passed (From Hell, V For Vendetta and LXG) Watchmen is by far the most faithful translation of Alan Moore's works and is the one that fans across the globe will be frothing at the mouths once they sit down at their local multiplex.
Set in an alternate 1985, Nixon is still President after 20 years, the Cold War is reaching cataclysmic levels, and the streets of New York was once flooded by costumed vigilantes. One of which is murdered in the film's opening scene. What follows is an incredibly dense story surrounding a group of retired crimefighters reluctantly teaming up to uncover a wider conspiracy that threatens not only their lives but also the future of the world they live in. And these aren't the typical flawed superheroes that carry baggage, these people are genuinely messed up.
Adapting Watchmen has not been an easy task. Since its announcement back in 1988 when Fox purchased the rights, Watchmen has gone through such directors like Terry Gilliam, Daron Aronofsky and Paul Greengrass before landing onto Zack Snyder. The biggest problem facing of course was its overwhelmingly complex plot that involved profound themes of existentialism, political philosophy and sociological insights into violence and vigilantism. That being said, its a miracle that its been turned into a $120m Hollywood blockbuster stretching over 160 minutes, let alone being made at all.
But the real reason why Watchmen is considered such a seminal classic in the comic-book medium; its a deconstruction of the superhero genre. Each of the characters representing the common archetype of past superheroes, stripped apart and shown under a new light. For example: The Nite Owl (Patrick Wilson) is a retired Batman-like figure, disillusioned from his hero days and battling with sexual impotency. There's Dr. Manhattan, (Billy Crudup) a genuine superbeing with omnipotent powers who is so transcendent, that in body and mind, he exists out of time and matter with humanity and can no longer truly coincide with them. And then there's Rorschach, a violent, unhinged headcase who refuses to retire his crimefighting days and looks upon society with distain, happliy killing any criminal remotely walking in his path, and he is the narrative drive of the film.
Zack Snyder has done an incredibly impressive job replicating almost shot-for-shot from the pages of the novel, its cinemagraphically gorgeous. Of course, Snyder doesn't try to pretend to place this film in the real world like The Dark Knight, by creating a parallel between the dark look of the city's seedy underbelly and the glistening colourations of the costumed characters on screen, this world presented is a highly stylized and superficial world which is in many ways a grim satire of every comic book universe created.
Naturally its not without its flaws, however minor they may be. With a plot waist-deep in its themes, there is a great lack of emotional investment in the characters. Not that was a major problem to begin with, as each of the characters are representations of the story's antithesis to typical comic book personas. And there's also the violence. Watchmen has garnered a high amount of critisizm of late with the high amount of very graphic, gory bloodshed. As previously seen in both 300 and Dawn Of The Dead, Snyder clearly loves his violence, and doesn't hesitate in gloriously flooding the screen with viscera in slow-mo when he gets the chance, some of which might even repel viewers who were expecting another PG-13/12A rated comic book flick. This film is rated 18 for a good reason.
While Snyder's over-use of slow-motion becomes at times unnessecary and could have been handled with a little more restraint, these minor gripes does in no way affect the overall quality of the film. This is the film fans have been eagerly awaiting. And with a proposed director's cut running at a supposed 190 minutes for its DVD release, there will be plenty more on offer for fans to come.
Rating: 5 out of 5
