Last night I was one of the lucky ones to get a chance to see the premier of the highly anticipated movie ‘The Watchmen’
Was I blown away? No.
Did I think it was the best movie I’ve ever seen? Nope.
Did I think it was better than Dark Knight? Not a chance in hell.
Did I enjoy it? Hell yeah!
For me, as seems to be the case, I went into the theater having next to no knowledge about the original Graphic Novel. See, I never read it. Ever, and no, I’m not kidding.
All I knew was that it was supposed to be one of the best Graphic novels ever written. Personally I had picked it up on occasion and flipped through it but to be honest, the art kind of turned me away.
Yeah, yeah, I know the whole art Nazi thing I’ve been accused of numerous times over the years.
So, I went in without a god honest clue of what to expect.
My usual disclaimer. I will not give away any spoilers about the movie other than those you can get from watching various trailers.
The movie was more than just a superhero movie. It was a human movie. It showed superheroes as individuals, as humans - in all their glory and at their very worst.
Frankly, not a single one of these so called heroes were saints, and some, well, let’s just say that you wouldn’t want to cross them or get on their bad side – hell, get on their good side on the best of days.
The movie begins with the death of one of the Watchmen, a super-soldier type of character known as the Comedian. Personally, when I first saw the movie, I figured he was going to be a rip off of the Joker, but was I wrong.
Another one of the characters, one who fights the good fight but is definitely one of those people you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley, named Rorschach, decides to investigate and find out what happened.
It’s set in 1985, Nixon is still in power, MTV is on the Air and history isn’t quite as one would expect. Including the US winning in Vietnam.
Oh, and the States and Russia are on the brink of nuclear holocaust.
Ok, enough with the possible spoilers.
The movie was incredibly violent. If you are at all squeamish, it will get to you. Some scenes were hard to watch because of the violence.
To top it off, there was plenty of male full frontal nudity, and (thankfully) a little female nudity to offset it.
The F-bomb is also dropped with regularity. A comic book movie this may be but by no means is it a movie for kids. Adults only people!
The special effects were quite amazing, as one would expect, the soundtrack was a revisit to the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. Not my style of music, but I’m sure it’ll appeal to many, many others.
Even though there was one main plot, there were several subplots involved, ones that helped flesh out this alternate world, and also gave life to many of the characters.
Speaking of characters, there were no big name stars in the movie, and that is what really helped. No one had to deal with egos, nothing along that line.
Although I feel sorry for some of the actors, as I bet they had to put up with a lot of crap from rabid fan boys.
So, there you have it. The basics without any real spoilers. It’s really worth seeing, and if you are familiar with the work then you can decide on your own how faithful it was to the graphic novel and to the characters.
Not in my top five of the year, but then again, the year is still young.
3.5 out of 5