The Sum of Good Parts May Not Add to a Good Film

Rating: 5/10 (18 March 2009)

I didn't read the comic book, but I had a good expectation on the Watchmen, and it disappointed me. The movie does have good moments, but the problem is they don't add up to a good movie. The movie spends a lot of time focusing on some aspects of the story, but some are just not developed at all. It is interesting to see a superhero movie that pictures them not as paladins of justice but as normal men and women with "shades of grey" and psychological problems, but they should do that for the right characters. Roscharch is a very interesting character, well played, but in the end he is not the main character and there is a lot of focus on him when the movie villain is treated very shallowly. Spectre II is presented as a troubled women by her mother's past but not well played by Malin Akerman. The Nite Owl seemed just like a weak guy with no will and completely submissive to Spectre's whims. Dr.Manhattan and the Comedian are reasonably well developed characters. The movie tries to show how the Watchmen interacts with the general population, but it seems a bit loose in the end.
*** SPOILER ***
For a story that supposedly wants to explore in depth the geopolitical conflict between two superpowers in a (not so) parallel universe, the writers could actually have studied history better. In World War II, the USA and the USSR did become allies to defeat a megalomaniac genocidal leader, but even before the war could end, these two nations were already on the path of conflict. For the "world's most intelligent man" to overlook this "detail" and believe that history would not repeat itself, well I just don't buy it. Whatever "pluses" the story had for me as a non-conventional superhero one, that big "minus" just blew them.