Film Reviews

Watchmen

• Rating:
• Director: Zack Snyder
• Starring: Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Billy Crudup, Malin Akerman, Carla Gugino, Patrick Wilson
• Details: US/162mins (16)

After over twenty years in the making, the greatest graphic novel of all time finally reaches celluloid. Guided by Zack Snyder - the man who brought 300 to life - Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons's groundbreaking work is a dense, multi-layered, and often nihilistic look at America in a parallel 1985. Richard Nixon is still President, having passed a bill that saw him re-elected five times - but needless to say, things are not going well. America stands on the brink of nuclear war with Russia, and mass panic is beginning to saturate the streets. With the Doomsday clock edging ever closer to midnight, The Watchmen, a group of costumed vigilantes who have retired, partly reform to investigate the murder of one of their former brethren - the vicious and extremely right-wing Comedian (Morgan). What unravels is a deeply complex, but frighteningly intelligent plot that explores the background, motivations and sometimes moral ambiguity of each and every one of the group, as a conspiracy unfolds that will shake the foundations of humanity. From the vicious opening scene in which The Comedian is murdered, to the beautiful title sequence that condenses decades of back-story and subplot into a mere few minutes, you know you are in store for something truly special with Watchmen. It takes balls to do what Synder has done here; delivering a film that is almost endless in terms of scope and ambition, as well as one that will also appeal to those oblivious to the source material is no mean feat, and he does so without shying away from the complicated material, too. This is not Iron Man, or even The Dark Knight - it's something even more visceral and multi-faceted. It is, without a shadow of a doubt, the best comic adaptation to ever grace the big screen. Snyder has taken the brilliance of the book and amped up the action, sex and violence, giving fans exactly what they wanted: a fiercely loyal take on the material that they all hold so dear. Everything is spot on, from the aesthetically accurate casting, to the moody ambience and grubby visuals of a mid-'80s Manhattan. It is a long film at over two and a half hours, but there is an awful lot packed into that time - it could have clocked in at well over three hours, and still not manage to include everything. Watchmen works as a character-driven action flick, and as an adaptation of one of the best pieces of literature of the past twenty-odd years. Some critics will undoubtedly not 'get' this, and you may need to see it more than once to take everything in. As it stands, however, this is a stunning cinematic offering that demands to be consumed by an intelligent, responsive audience.

Review by Mike Sheridan