A breakthrough film for the comic book genre

Rating: 9/10 (8 March 2009)

I don't want to give anything away, so I'll just say this: Watchmen is to comic book movies what The Clash's "London Calling" was to music. Not brand new... or I would have referenced The Ramones. Sin City, 300, and The Dark Knight are all precursors. But the movie is such a new amalgamation, such a new spin on an old genre, that it is kind of stunning.
It's long, involved... a lot happens, and yet in other ways, very little happens. A friend told me to bring no-doze, he was so bored by it. So maybe you'll be bored, too? But if The Dark Knight got it's foot in the door on reinventing the comic book movie? Watchmen kicks the door down and deconstructs it into a gory, fascinating, piece of modern furniture.
One interesting side-note. I thought as I came out the film, despite all the good work done in the past 10 years by directors like Alexander Payne, Clint Eastwood, Paul Greengrass, and others... the movies that are likely to draw the most ink or future twitters about this era - and surprisingly, with the most to say about our times - have actually been SF or comic book movies like the first two Matrix films, X-Men 2, Revenge of the Sith, TDK, and Watchmen. If I'm wrong on this, challenge me. But when was the last time you saw an indie or foreign language film with political or cultural commentary as involved as any of the aforementioned films? With the possible exception of Slumdog Millioniare, which was visually stunning. But in many ways, was almost a traditional Capraesque throwback film.
Don't wait for Watchmen on DVD. Go see this in the theater and be mesmerized by everything good and bad about it. It will take you somewhere, though I can't guarantee everyone will like that. But you won't see or feel anything else like it in the theaters this year.