Cast: Malin Akerman, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode,
Dir: Zack Snyder
Rating: 5/5
It may have taken twenty years to get Alan Moore's popular graphic novel, which is widely regarded as the greatest graphic novel of all time, but at last Watchmen is here and it was the first event movie of 2009.
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, moves closer to midnight.
When one of his former colleagues is murdered, the outlawed 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 disbanded 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.
2008 saw the superhero movie genre change forever with the release of The Dark Knight a dark and brooding movie that was aimed at an adult audience and Zack Snyder's Watchmen very much continues this trend.
The film grabs onto the themes of darkness, violence and sex that are very present in the graphic novel and with an eighteen certificate it very much is a movie aimed at adults.
Watchmen is visually spectacular and a very faithful script, Snyder vision and superb special effects bring to life Moore and Gibbon's vision.
Snyder clearly cares about the source material and instead of throwing it out of the window like many do when it comes to adaptations he has produced as faithful a movie as possibly could. It's a brilliant piece of filmmaking that is breathtaking, emotional and densely packed with action.
And while the effects and film visuals are stunning at the centre of the movie are a string of flawed heroes that really are larger than life. And cleverly Snyder didn't go for superstar names so you end up seeing the character not Angelina Jolie of Tom Cruise in a funny costume.
The acting is superb with Billy Crudup's Dr Manhattan the film's central force, the effects surrounding this character are also amazing. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is also brilliant as the troubled Comedian who sees humanity for what it really is.
And although he dies in the opening minutes of the movie we get to see plenty of the character through flashbacks and his influence on the rest of characters.
But with his constantly changing mask the film belongs to psychotic vigilante Rorschach and Jackie Earle Haley really is brilliant. There are clear lines between good and evil for this character and in this respect he is the most traditional of the superheroes.
But the scenes in the prison really are superb for this character as this small weasely man have the jail's hardest inmates cowering in fear.
But the length of the movie really is an issue at a whopping two hours forty three minutes Watchmen is a tad long, however you feel if they had slashed the running time everything would have felt rushed.
This really is the event movie of the year and while the film is no where near perfect to have got what was considered an unfilmable graphic novel to the screen at all is an achievement in itself.
At times it's a difficult watch it's violent and brutal, definitely not for the squeamish. It moves at a fast pace, is action packed and exciting and an absolute must see.
Watchmen is out on DVD now
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw
Tagged in Watchmen