Epic film, epic cast ... VERY adult

Rating: 9/10 (15 March 2009)

First off, I never read comic books as a kid and had no idea who The Watchmen were. I just knew that there were major issues in releasing this film and that a friend of mine saw it and all he would say was that "it was worth seeing".
I was completely blown away, although you don't leave the cinema on a high, but rather reflect on all sorts of issues that the film addresses. It's amusing to see the number of people that have given this film a bad rating saying that the acting was poor or the story didn't make sense. I do entirely sympathise with these people, because they obviously weren't born with enough furniture in their brain to understand the multitude of complexities that this film contained. I don't think that a film should get 1 star because "you don't get it"!?
The acting was first class for most of the cast; noticeably Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach and Billy Crudup as Dr Manhatten. I'm sure that the majority of people that have watched this film were hanging off their every word (or punch / kick) and I loved Rorschach's mask! The noticeable exception here was Matthew Goode who I thought was extremely weak as Ozymanias, actually making any section of the film that he was involved with much more mundane than the rest. I also thought that Malin Akerman was a little out of her league compared to the other cast members (and I didn't think she was a fit as everyone made out)!
However, the story was interesting, involved and the flashbacks really kept me excited about who these watchmen were and what they were about. Additionally, I thought that the extreme violence was a significant part of this film. It was clearly adult in nature from the beginning, but some of the character's gruesome endings and the bone-crunching fight scenes kept the film firmly in the fantasy realm, even though much of it was about the gritty, uphill struggles of human life and human nature (albeit with a glowing blue, quantum physics superhero)!
In all, I walked out of the film a little bewildered about what I had just seen in regard to every aspect; the story, the acting, the effects (which were all amazing apart from the Mars scene which was unusually very poor) and the overall theme of the film. However, this was a good thing. I had an hour's drive to get home as I was visiting friends that evening and after that time I concluded that this was an absolutely epic film that was interesting, bold and very adult. However, this was in a mature way (unusual for a superhero film) and not purely through extreme violence or sex (of which there was plenty also)!
This will definitely be one to buy on blu-ray when it's released to take another look!