Watchmen (Warner Brothers)
Dont Watch the Watchmen
Sometimes the anticipation for a movie can be so high that what is finally delivered on screen has got to disappoint. And sometimes an anticipated movie is so bad it just flat out disappoints. Watchmen falls in the latter category. This movie, which audiences have been awaiting for months, is so muddled, so confusing, so stupid that one can hardly endure its two hour and forty-five minute running time.
Maybe, just maybe, if you have read Alan Moores graphic novel on which the movie is based, you might have some better comprehension of what it is trying to say. If however you come to the movie cold you are going to bog down in the criss crossing plot elements that do not add up in any way to a solid whole.
The film starts in 1985 when the Comedian (Jeffery Dean Morgan) is murdered. He is a superhero of sorts who has been around since the 40s. At that time the Watchmen were an honored group of men and women who fought for liberty and justice. But later they fell out of favor with the country and were harassed as vigilantes.
This was especially hard on the second generation of Watchmen who finally just hung up their costumes and reverted to normalcy. However when the comedian is killed it stirs some of them to go back to their heroic mode.
Dr Manhattan (Billy Crudup) is the true superhero with fantastic powers. He has been created by exposure to atomic rays of some sort. It turned him blue and he strides about totally naked and totally unconcerned about the fate of the country. His ex-girlfriend Silk Spectre II (Malin Ackerman) leaves him and attaches herself to Nite-Owl (Patrick Wilson).
The movie features flashbacks to the 40s and 50s and changes history on a whim. Dr. Manhattan ends the Vietnam War, and a nuclear explosion leads to an unexpected outcome. At least I think it did.
The acting in the movie is perfunctory with Jackie Earle Haley being the best of the lot as Rorschach. Ackerman, Crudup, Matthew Goode and Wilson are all only adequate. Carla Gugino is barely recognizable as the original Silk Spectre.
The film is rated R for violence, profanity and nudity. This is not the typical Iron Man, Spider Man or even Batman type of super hero movie. This one is meant for adults.
Director Zack (300) Snyder has some good moments but they are few and far between. Mostly the movie just ambles on and on and on with very little action to break up the monotony.
For the uninitiated Watchmen is too deep and dense to penetrate. You go into the theater unaware of what the story is and you leave the same way. The only difference is you are two and a half hours older.
I am sure there will be devotees of this movie. They will love every frame of film and every quirky character. More power to them. The rest of us will just have to place it in the loser column and move on to something else.
I scored Watchmen an unseen 4 out of 10.
