A Hit and Miss film

Rating: 7/10 (8 March 2009)

To anyone who knows anything about comic books, Watchmen is the best of them all. It is a multi-layered, dark read which tackles themes such as the Cold War, the dark side of human character and deconstruct the superhero mythos.
Watchmen starts with the murder of Eddie Blake/the Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) in an excellent fight scene and has a four minute opening credit scene looking at the quick history of the world of Watchmen. The film is set in an alternative verison of 1985 where America is more powerful because they have the only real superhero, Doctor Manhattan, (Billy Crudup) who radically changed America's industry and military complexes. This is a world where superheroes did exist and have been outlawed by the American government. A world where America won in Vietnam, but also a world where America and the Soviet Union were edging towards war. Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley) is the only superhero still working illegally and he investigates the Comedian's assassination. He believes that they is a masks killer, but he is also famous for being a paranoid conspiracy nut. However his suspicions are confirmed when Doctor Manhattan exiles himself because of claims he gave people he used to work with cancer and he himself has lost interest in humanity and then an assassination attempt on Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias (Matthew Goode). Rorschach himself gets arrested for murder and its left to Dan Dreiberg/Nite Owl II (Patrick Wilson) and Laurie Jupiter / Silk Spectre II (Malin Akerman) to stop the world from destroying itself.
After a number of director being attached to the film, including Terry Gilliam who claimed the graphic novel was unfilmable, fan-boy Zack Sydner took the challenge. He has done challenges before, he made a good remake of Dawn of the Dead and the very entertaining 300. He wanted to make the film as loyal as possible to the book. He did have to cut some of the subplots, but the ending was changed and the focus of the film seemed to be on Doctor Manhattan rather then Rorschach. Even Rorschach's origins seemed to be skipped over, and that was my favourite chapter in the graphic novel. The actions scene sinces were done excellent, similar in style to 300, especially the fight scene in prison. There are also easter eggs for Watchmen fans. However the end of the film was changed and there were areas that were skipped over or changed a bit too much. As well some of the CGI was a bit too obvious.
Jackie Earle Haley was perfect as Rorschach, getting the look and the voice right and he was the best actor in the film. Patrick Wilson was good as Nite Owl and Billy Crudup did well with the monotone Doctor Manhattan. I thought Matthew Goode wasn't so good, he had a strange lisp and he lacked the charisma that Ozymandias and Malin Akerman was the weakest performer in the film.
The Daily Mail critic criticised the fact that the Comedian killed a pregnant woman and tried to rape the original Silk Spectre and that Rorschach killed a man for murdering a six-year-old girl. That is the whole point. There are not superheroes in the traditional scene, they are all faulted and some are not very nice people. Their political views range from a strange type of liberal to neo-conservative to fascist. The whole point is to de-construct the superhero mythos. The film is violence, sexual and you get a lot of blue willy action. It's is a strong 15/18 rated film.
Watchmen is decent, but it does change a bit too much for Watchmen fans, and will be hard to appeal to non-fans. You should read the graphic novel first and maybe it might be worth waiting for the 3 and half hour director's cut.