I confess the first time I saw the trailer for this movie I was blown away. I knew that I would end up seeing this movie and would end up seeing it on opening day. I learned quickly that it was based on a graphic novel. I ended up getting the Watchmen
I did see the movie on opening day. I saw this movie on an imax screen at a theater in Little Rock. I arrived close enough to the scheduled show time that I was on the third row watching this movie on an imax screen. (yes this will be important later).
The Watchmen is set in 1985 in an America where people really do dress up in costumes and go out and fight crime. One of these superheroes was created due to an unfortunate accident involving uranium in a physics lab. The US won the Vietnam war and Nixon is serving his third sentence. We are still on the verge of nuclear war with the commie russians.
Don’t worry, the tacky 80s fashions and music is still the same stuff we knew and loved.
The movie opens with one of the costumed heroes being murdered (he was thrown out of a window of his high rise NYC apartment). The other heroes are on the case. Drama ensues. There’s sex, blood, domestic violence, male frontal nudity, and conspiracy theories.
The movie itself is three hours long and manages to put a lot of the graphic novel into the story. This movie gets an A+++++ for attention to detail. The characters and set design look exactly! like the frames in this graphic novel (or comic book for folks that don’t know what graphic novel means).
It was interesting and worth seeing. It wasn’t the BEST DAMN MOVIE EVER…
Oh and if you go to an Imax theater, don’t sit on the third row because being eye level with blazing blue radioactive testicles that are larger than your head is a little scary and more than a little distracting.
The Onion’s A/V Club has a great book/film comparison up that doesn’t make me fear to go see the movie.
It’s fairly accurate and they kept most of the main plot. They took out the sideline plot of the kid sitting in front of the newsstand reading a comic book but he and the newsstand guy get a cameo elsewhere. There are references to the highlights of all the superheroes’ pasts, just like the book.
A lot of it is there or at least referenced.
Check out this Watchmmen marquee. The Squid is all in your head:
http://fullbodytransplant.wordpress.com/2009/03/12/bring-your-own-squid/
Brilliant.
Hi,
We have a review of WATCHMEN on CinemaDiscourse.com. Take a look. Tell your friends to check it out. Post a response/comment.
Thanks,
John
OK, we’re just going to have to disagree on this one. Check out my review-like-thing that was posted online today:
http://wondersinthedark.wordpress.com/2009/03/21/no-magic-at-all-in-alan-moores-watchmen/