Simply a Masterpiece

Rating: 10/10 (20 March 2009)

In the 1980s, Alan Moore helped comics come of age. He created adult story lines of great complexity, filled with profound and sometimes unsettling ideas. Hollywood has consistently botched these ideas with the likes of Constantine, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and the uneven V for Vendetta.
Until now.
This is a film you must see. Right from the opening tiles, where an alternate history of a USA full of costumed (and sometimes psychopathic) superheroes unfolds to the songs of Bob Dylan, this is Alan Moore's "Watchmen" as it was intended to be. The filmmakers have preserved exactly the spirit of the original. If you're looking for The Matrix, you will be disappointed, because this film is better than that. It is at once profound, eloquent, complex and visually stunning, action-packed, gory and beautiful.
The script manages to distill the best moments from the comic books and make the overall theme clearer. Fine acting from all the leads, a brilliant soundtrack that borrows from the likes of Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Leonard Cohen and even Koyaanisqatsi, reveals the true reverence the filmmakers have for the original graphic novel. Forget the muddied philosophising of The Dark Knight, this is Hollywood at its best - insightful, thoughtful, dramatic and exciting.
Go see this film...then go read the book.