BLOG REVIEW: WATCHMEN

Directed by: Zach Snyder
Written by: David Haytler, Alex Tse
Produced by: Lawrence Gordon, Loyd Levin
Staring: Jeff Morgan, Patrick Wilson, Malin Akerman, Matthew Goode, Bill Crudup


---Superhero movies seem to be the new trend in Hollywood these days. Film makers of all kinds have been sorting through their old comic book collections and bringing them to life of the big screen. Zack Snyder’s Watchmen is the latest superhero blockbuster to make its way into theaters. Don’t be fooled however, Watchmen is not your normal superhero movie...
---Set in America in 1985, Watchmen takes the audience on a twisted journey through the lives of several superheroes and shows a side of them we are not used to seeing. The basic idea behind the film is that history is portrayed as it would have played out if superheroes had existed in the 20th century. In the early 1900s, a group of individuals decided to dress up in costumes and fight crime, a tradition that carried over up until the 1970’s. At this time, President Nixon outlawed superheroes, and the group known as the Watchmen were forced into retirement. The film begins a decade later in 1985, with Nixon still president and the Cold War tensions high between the US and the Soviet Union. The first scene shown is the murder of one of these superheroes known as the Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). The murder ignites a sense of paranoia in another one of these heroes Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley), who goes on to investigate why one of his own had been killed. As the plot develops, the audience is introduced to the other Watchmen, including Daniel Dreiberg (the Night Owl II, played by Patrick Wilson), Laurie Juspeczyk (the Silk Spectre II, played by Malin Akerman), Adrian Veidt (Ozymandias, played by Matthew Goode) and Dr. Manhatten (Bill Crudup). The film goes on to unveil the back stories of all of these characters and how they relate to one another. The movies then becomes a bit of a psychological thriller as these group of superheroes must uncover a conspiracy among themselves, as well as saving the world from a nuclear holocaust.
---Watchmen’s story line is very elaborate and has plenty to tell. This fact however proves to be the films greatest strength, as well as its greatest weakness. The skewed view of American history that the film offers, as well as the many interest characters, gives the audience plenty to think about through out the movie. However, in the end there seemed to be just too much to fit into one film. The characters of Watchmen are very powerful, but there just was not enough time in the film to fully develop them for the audience. Snyder had the challenge of introducing this complex world to the audience as well as introducing all of these characters, but it all was just a little too much. The film proved to have many twists and surprises in the plot, but because of the lack of character development, those moments failed to stimulate much emotion in those watching. It became a challenge to really connect with any of the characters because they were introduced so quickly, it felt throughout the film as if the audience was just getting to know them. To Snyder’s credit, the film did flow well and the story was presented cleverly in a series of flashbacks and narrations. However, their just was not enough time to present all the details that the story deserved. At a run time of two hours and forty minutes, the film was already too long for most people’s liking.
---Overall, not a bad attempt. Watchmen had plenty of superhero action to keep the audience entertained, and with an R rating, the graphics could reach an extreme beyond most comic book movies. If you are a fan of these kind of movies, Watchmen is worth seeing, even if it is just once.