Watchmen, a comic book that redefined the industry, made it to the big screen this year,and now has hit the little screen with its release on DVD and Blu-Ray.
Well just as Watchmen the graphic Novel, redefined the whole superhero genre, Watchmen the film redefines the superhero movie genre.
I first read Watchmen in 1989 when I received it as a Christmas present, my parents believed it was a comic annual and it wasn’t until I was reading it did they realise that it was an adults book!
This has taken 20 years to get onto the big screen with its writer Alan Moore claiming that it was unfilmable, but Zack Synder, the guy who brought us 300, has pulled it off
This film is defiantly not suitable for children, its dark, a very dark film, I can’t put it any better than the reviewer from the Metro who stated that:-
“You thought the recent Batmans were dark? They’re like My Little Pony compared to this existentially doom-laden blockbuster.”
So what is Watchmen about, well its 1985, Richard Nixon is still president America won the Vietnam War, and a masked avenger, The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), a vicious patriotic paramilitary figure, kind of a mirror image of Captain America , is killed being thrown from the window of his apartment.
Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley), one of the few masked avengers still active, investigates and comes to the conclusion that someone is gunning for masks. And this is where the movie takes off, with Rorschach, a vigilante who sees the world is black or white, good or evil with no compromise, warning the other ”Watchmen”, a society of costumed heroes, outlawed several years previously.
The other Watchmen are, Nite Owl II (Patrick Wilson) the “Batman” type hero, an inventor, a gadget man, Silk Spectre II (Malin Akerman), the femme fatale, Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup), the only one with any actual powers, but they leave him detached from humanity, and Ozymandias (Matthew Goode), the smartest man on earth,who has revealed himself to the world and used his business acumen to amass a huge fortune.
The Watchmen are very much unlike the superheroes we have gotten used to, these characters are hugely flawed and human, The Comedian is seen to enjoy burning people, shoot a woman carrying a child, and attempting to rape a friend, but he is also shown to be good, fighting crime, serving his country and trying to save people “from themselves”. The comic makes the reader conflicted over the character and Morgan’s acting really pulls it off
The main protagonist Rorschach, whom narrated the film through his journal with random attacks on homosexuals, politicians, prostitutes and liberals, gives an insight into his twisted psychosis, and cause us to sympathise with his uncompromising vision of the world.
The rest of the cast manage to pull off their roles quite well, Wilson plays Nite Owl II, quiet and lacking in confidence, and when he has problems downstairs we genuinely feel for him. Though in my opinion, Carla Gugino is woefully miscast as the first Silk Spectre and Mother to Silk Spectre II, the character is meant to be of Polish descent and she looks,well far too Italian to pull it off, which is probably why all references to both Silk Spectres, Polack roots has been dropped, a real shame.
The way the story is told might be difficult for some to grasp and I must admit, that if I was not as familiar as I was with the original, I might actually struggle to follow the movie, for the Watchmen virgin, it will take a couple of viewings to really get it. Its told in a series of Flashbacks which jump all over the place and you really need to be following them to get the characters.
Not one second of this film is wasted, every scene is relevant, but what was left on the cutting room floor seems very important, this film is missing a few scenes, that in my opinion are crucial, the conclusion of Hollis Masons story line is the biggest gapping hole, without that where Nite Owl II ends up is missing some explanation, also we are missing a crucial scene between the Comedian and Silk Spectre II, a scene which really would bring home the humanity that lies just beneath the surface of the Comedian.
The presentation of the movie on Blu-Ray itself is brilliant, the colours are just right, only ever vibrant or subdued when and where they need to be, the audio is crystal clear and it just draws you deeper and deeper into the film
The European edition is published by Paramount and comes with a 2nd disc packed full of extra features, which are brilliant in themselves, my only gripe is that the US version which is published by Warner Brothers is a directors cut which features an additional 24 minutes of footage, (whereas ours is just the theatrical cut), but no extras, which means its very difficult to decide which version to buy. However in December, Warner Brother is publishing a 5 disc “Ultimate Edition”, featuring additional scenes, the motion comic, Under the Hood, and Tales of the Black Freighter woven in to the film, just like in the comics, but this edition is not coming to the EU so just like with the Blade Runner 5 Disc Collectors Edition, us Europeans will be forced to import it.
The movie also comes with a Digital Copy, something I had yet to come across, though they are becoming very common in the US, basically its a DVD, you pop it in your computer and authorise it using supplied code and it will transfer a copy to your PC or Mac, so you can watch it on the computer or transfer it to an iPod,however with extremely restrictive DRM, I can’t see it being a massive success, lets hope the movie industry wise up soon and copy the music industry and start offering digital copies with out restrictive DRM, I mean I would like to house the digital copy on a home server and stream it to other computers in my house,or watch it on my Xbox, PSP or even Blackberry, but with the DRM used here, this is not possible, sorry going off on a tangent but really wish the movie studios would stop trying to restrict what I can and can not do with content I legally purchased.
Anyway, Watchmen great film, I highly encourage you all to give it a try, 10/10 from me, but then again, I am a fan boy 
