The Watchmen


Following months of hype and a studio battle over distribution rights, The Watchmen have arrived, and to my pleasant surprise, I am very happy that they have. After seeing director Zack Snyder’s visually stunning but ultimately brainless 300, I had little enthusiasm for his next directorial effort, but The Watchmen stimulates the mind and the senses, an Apocalyptic vision of a world that sees Richard Nixon, in 1985, his fifth term in office, leading the US in, as Major “King” Kong in Dr. Strangelove would say, ‘nuclear combat toe to toe with the Roosskies’ There is a lot to like here – interesting characters like Dr. Manhattan, a super being who exists outside of time and space, living an existence only Einstein could fully appreciate; and delicious dialogue, as when a masked Watchmen named Rorschach screams to his fellow prison inmates, many of whom he helped lock up, “I’m not locked in here with you! You’re locked in here with ME!” Wasting no time, the story opens with a spectacular fight in the 30th floor apartment of The Comedian that leads to his death, and his story is mercilessly revealed in flashbacks that imply that his death may have been a deserved one. We learn early on that The Watchmen are masked crusaders, but they certainly are not heroes.

In this alternate 1985, The Watchmen have retired. They are unwanted members of society. A picket sign says, “Who Watches the Watchmen.” One of the group, Adrian Veidt, has revealed his identity, he is known as the smartest man in the world, and has used his fame to rise to the top of the corporate world. Dr. Manhattan, the only member of the Watchmen with super powers, lives a life of scientific study in a quarters he shares with Laurie Jupiter, an ex-Watchman herself, and he is becoming more and more distant from the human world. A being who can seemingly appear at any moment in the Universe, Manhattan is an introspective sort of God, probably the most powerful superhero ever imagined, who sees no molecular difference between a live human and a dead one and tells others that they mean no more to him than the planet’s smallest termite. Ouch. However, as the story imaginatively explains, he helped America win the Vietnam War and his presence is a major deterrent against the Soviet Union’s ability to escalate the Cold War.

The rebirth of The Watchmen arises from The Comedian’s death. Rorschach suspects foul play and begins to investigate the crime. He shares his concern with two of the other Watchmen and the group gradually comes together. The movie seamlessly fuses the back stories of the Watchmen into the main plot of the movie, and the Armageddon clock ticks down as the Soviets mobilize their war heads in preparation for an all out nuclear war. In an effort to remain true to the original vision of the graphic novel, the film pushes past the two and a half hour mark, each minute dense with details. Listen to and consider the comments of Dr. Manhattan, revel in the clever barrage of Rorschach’s verbal abuse, and ask yourself if you can agree the logic of the world’s smartest man. I will need to see this movie again, and I look forward to reading the original graphic novel by Alan Moore.

Posted on October 26, 2009 at 3:59 pm by admin · Permalink
In: Movies · Tagged with: , , , ,

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  1. Written by EVERETT
    on July 21, 2010 at 5:50 pm
    Permalink


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