Post #7 - 3/10/09 The Watchmen

I read quite a bit about "The Watchmen" in a newsweek magazine and I have to say that I am really impressed. I haven't personally seen the movie, though despite the mentioned setbacks, I think it looks like a great film and may be well worth watching.

The movie was based on a comic back in the day about a group of vigilantes in 1985 where tensions heighten between the United States and Soviet Union. The vigilantes themselves are very interesting. They are: Nite Owl, Rorschach, The Silk Spectre, Doctor Manhattan, Ozymandias, and The Comedian. Each has a unique superpower which helps make the cast a memorable group of heroes over the course of the film. Their profiles can be found at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0409459/.

As for the reviews, they were mostly mixed, spanning great to horrible. Like the last hero movie, The Dark Knight, this movie was very long and lasted at least three hours. That was a major complaint. On the other hand, Newsweek states that "The 'Watchmen' novel is funny, gory, sexy, sleazy and heartbreaking. And for years it was considered unfilmable." The directors tried to reproduce an exact copy of the comic as hard as they could, and yes, they succeeded. One review claims that "The best and worst thing to say about the Watchmen film is that, if you read the book, the movie you made in your head probably looked a lot like this." That review can be found here: http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1883200,00.html

What do you think? Is it worth watching? Would it be able to match The Dark Knight's potential? I will see it this weekend to figure that out for myself, and I must say I am very excited and am looking forward to seeing what could be the best movie I have ever seen.