Watchmen (2009)As most of you know i'm a comics geek, a HUGE comics geek so when i say that the Watchmen movie had a lot to live up to i'm not kidding.
Alan Moor's vision of a world gone to hell ruled by a corrupt government with a sinister agenda pulling the strings of a man so powerful some believe him to be god was one of the foundations for my childhood reading comics, So as any hardcore geek i went into the cinema with one though in mind "This will suck".
I'll say it now and with a smile on my face I WAS WRONG!
From the opening scene's heavy hitting combat and the frankly majestic demise of The Comedian at the hands of our "unknown" assassin to the gruff aggressive tone of the worlds smallest vigilante to the flashbacks and frankly amazing storytelling i cannot remember the last time i had such a geekgasim over such a widely hyped and advertised film.
There were inevitably going to be changes and tweaks to the script to make it flow properly and fit in the two and a half hour limits imposed on the director and thus some things were cut and tweaked and in some cases removed completely from the end film, but the spirit was there, the characters were authentic and real and most of all faithfully human.
There are however two things that kinda annoyed me and despite my almost universal praise for Snyder's vision and translation of Alan Moore's master work i have to throw them out:
Rorschach's reduced background and mask origin:I love this character, due to his background he becomes the downtrodden everyman with a REALLY bad attitude but despite that manages to hold onto the ideal that people despite being filth ridden diseased scum are basically capable of being better...until one killer crosses a boundary so perverse and disgusting that his mind shatters and Kovach's turns himself over to Rorschach in both body and tainted soul. This always struck me as an excellent counterpoint to the Batman mythos, what if Bruce Wayne had come across the Joker doing what the "butcher" killer had done and cracked utterly? what if he had turned himself over to the Bat completely? would he have become as uncompromising? so brutal? would he kill? personally i always though it was just a matter of time...pity DC killed him off before it happened, oh well theres always Jason Todd.
the second problem can be summed up in two words without (hopefully) spoiling the film:
NO SQUID!:Say what you like, killer calamari in the comic was bloody funny and yes i understand why it was changed but the whole damn point of it was as an EXTERNAL threat, an ALIEN threat something that humanity as a whole could rise up as one people and fight against. How this was changed although understandable negates this almost completely and somewhat annoys me on a number of levels.
With this said i am somewhat surprised to say i not only enjoyed the film but will be buying the extended version on DVD (all three and a half hours of it!) with the cut scenes included as soon as humanly possible.
so its a hearty
9/10 for Watchmen (2009)
Watch it NOW!
At midnight tonight the World of Warcraft finishes its startling alteration to the new "old world" at the hands of Deathwing.
