Outstanding!

Rating: 9/10 (2 March 2009)

An ex-superhero is thrown through a plate glass window, many stories above the city. Was his murder somehow connected to the feared imminent nuclear holocaust between the United States and Russia? Someone seems to want the former do-gooders out of the way in this thrilling, one-of-a-kind, jaded look at superheroes that turns conventional comic-book wisdom on its head.
It's an alternate 1985. Richard Nixon has been elected to a fifth presidential term. But the USSR is encroaching on Afghanistan, and the US isn't taking too kindly to it. Enter the smartest man in the world, Adrian Veidt (Matthew Goode), formerly known as superhero Ozymandias, who is working with the ethereal Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup), a physicist who has achieved immortality and near-omniscience owing to a long-ago lab mishap. With Dr. Manhattan's help, Adrian hopes to dissolve the tension between the two superpowers.
But that's not the only conflict, not by a long shot. Since the characters here are unfamiliar to most audiences, there's plenty of backstory, seamlessly edited into the main story as important details that inform the characters. (For one thing, we get to see the rather graphic - more on that later - origin of Dr. Manhattan.) The superheroes have conflict within their own group, which has gone its separate ways - with different goals and outlooks. Not only that, but the world at large isn't entirely on the side of masked avengers, labeling them as vigilantes. By the present, most of them have ditched their costumes for traditional lives; some tinker with their gadgets in their basements, in hiding, and some merely blend into society.
Here's who's left in 1985, in addition to Ozymandias (who's revealed his true identity to the world) and Dr. Manhattan: Nite Owl II (Patrick Wilson), Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley), Silk Spectre II (Malin Akerman), and The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). Others have gone insane or been murdered themselves in years past; all suffer as everyday humans now.
So how does Watchmen skewer comic-book tropes? Well, they're not always good, you see. Some are, but some maliciously kill, albeit for the greater good. Some take delight in the suffering of man if that man is, say, a child killer. That sort of thing. The truth is, no one here is perfect, not even the superheroes. Another difference is the high level of violence in the movie. This isn't a comic-book movie where the bad guys fall down when they get slapped, no sir. No, the heroes beat the stuffing out of them, with blood, entrails, and the like splattering all over the place. Limbs are dislodged, brains are exposed. It's wildly violent, much like director Zack Snyder's last film, 300, but without the detached, this-can't-be-real tone. This isn't a movie in which the bad guys are brought in for questioning or sent to prison to think about what they've done. This is a movie in which the bad guys are annihilated, period.
In case you're still contemplating taking the kiddies to see this superhero fare, here's another caveat: there's nudity. No, it's not Malin Akerman (although you do get a glimpse), it's the blue-hued Dr. Manhattan himself. Sometimes he's in a thong, but often he's just letting it all dangle there. Funny thing is, it's not really all that shocking. If it'd been one of the humans, perhaps, but Dr. Manhattan is more humanoid than human at this point.
At 160 minutes, the action really doesn't let up. But that's nothing - most movies are fast paced now. This one has a plot that can keep up with the action. In fact, the intricacies of the plot are delicious to unwrap; this was not a movie - superhero or not - where you can predict the end without just taking a wild stab.
I can't understate how tremendous an achievement this movie is. If we're all lucky, this will open the door for more adult comic-book films. The good guys don't always have to be about justice and truth and all that junk, and the bad guys can sometimes get what's really coming to them. I do want to point out that among the outstanding cast, Jackie Earle Haley as the haunted, masked Rorschach is tremendous. Wilson, who appeared with Haley in Little Children a few years back, is also dweebishly strong as the aging Nite Owl II.