The greatest superhero or comic-book or graphic novel based movie

Rating: 10/10 (14 August 2016)

I am someone who don't have any experience in reading Superhero comics, due to that the only Superheroes I knew about were the ones I was introduced to through Cartoon network in my childhood. Because of that I've never heard about the comics Watchmen. That's why I was this late to watch this movie.
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This movie is based on the comics Watchmen created in 1986-87 by Alan Moore and Dane Gibbons for DC comics . I think its right to call it a graphic novel for matured readers rather than calling it a Comics. Terry Gilliam thought it was unfilmable, Darren Arnofsky and Paul Greengrass tried to reinterpret the story into a contemporary time line but the studios didn't wanted that either and ultimately Zack Snyder was chosen to be the director.
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The story begins in 1985 at the peak of cold war. By this time most of the superheroes are retired by the request of the government due to protests from a section of people. A retired superhero The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) gets killed in this situation. Even after the retirement of every other superheroes Rorchach (Jackie Earle Haley) who's still fighting crime as a vigilante tries to unravel the secrets behind the murder and also warn his old superhero buddies his theories about the murder.
Everyone in the old superhero team Watchmen were living an ordinary life . Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias (Mathew Goode) is a successful business man who has revealed his superhero identity to the world .The most powerful living being Dr Manhattan (Billy Crudup) helps American government in many projects and stands as their biggest nuclear war power .His girl friend Laurie Jupiter/Silk Spectre II (Maline Akerman) works along with him.Technical expert Daniel Drieberg/Nite Owl II (Patrick Wilson) also lives a retired life .
Going through these characters we are also introduced to Minutemen the first generation of superheroes through flashbacks.
The mysterious story unravels conspiracies and turning points into a morally complex ending.
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The depth given to each character gives the movie an extra darker edge to it.
We get more familiar with the Comedian through flashbacks. The Comedian who was the only superhero to be in both Watchmen and Minutemen is portrayed as a very cruel and heartless person. But even though there is no scenes trying to justify him, the viewers doesn't hate him as much for the cruelties he has done . He can be seen as a nihilistic character .
The name and mask of Rorschach itself shows much of his character. His mask with ever changing black and white patterns reminds the Rorschach ink blot test pictures used by psychiatrists. Rorshach is ready to go to the limits for justice.He and Comedian felt like two sides of same coin. Rorschach who will give no mercy to culprits has already left his real identity, in his mind Rorshach is the only identity he's got left .
Rorschach and Comedian seemed to be two people who condemn the state of the world . When Comedian embraced the darkness for the sake of an end,Rorschach fought the darkness through darker alleys .
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There is nothing impossible for Dr Manhattan who got his super powers through an accident in between an experiment . The story becomes more of an alternate history when America uses Dr Manhattan to win the Vietnam War.America's biggest weapon in the cold war is also Dr Manhattan himself. Dr Manhattan's character contain almost every power imaginable by a human being. With his power his intellect and mindset were also grown beyond human comprehension . To think that human race is nothing at all in the universe and that there would be more peace in some other planet without any humans he must have grown into a thinking capacity of Gods .
Laurie who tries her best to live with a person thinking like this ultimately gets close to Daniel who liked her from the beginning
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In between all this mysteries gets unraveled and chances for a nuclear war rises.
Through all this we see lots of dark sides of America and how it affects the world and societies.
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Just like in 300 Snyder uses comic book as the story board here .With great visual effects, we get a visual treat that stays true to neo-noir super hero movie genre .
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In the starting credits sequence the history from the beginning of Minutemen is shown through photographs and news clips .Through that many historic incidents are referenced by slightly changing them for superheroes. A lot of famous photographs and paintings comes to our mind watching that credits .
In the Minutemen retirement party photo Sally Jupiter/Silk Spectre I (Carla Gigino) is sitting in the middle and to her side is The Comedian . This picture is very similar to the painting of The Last Supper by Da Vinci .In the painting Jesus is sitting in the middle and many believe it is Magdalena Mary sitting right next to him , if you have seen the movie and know about the Da Vinci code you can read it together .
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The Comedian's badge of smiley and the blood spread on it is a recurring image in the movie and it shows the mood of the movie. Amidst all the tragedies there is also comedy a twisted sense of humour.