Awful watch-men

Rating: 1/10 (11 March 2009)

Where to start?! It's an incoherent rambling mess, eliciting absolutely no empathy for any of the characers. There is no dicernable narrative of any substance, instead a jumble of impenetrable, heavy-handed scenes with no obvious function. There is never a story of interest to progress and the whole drawn-out, self-indulgent work culminates in a clique-ridden scene which could have been written and directed by a five year old.
In fact the film, minus it's boring sex scenes and gruesomness, would struggle to challenge the intellect of a five year old. 'It was Nixon or the Communists' is the critical summary of the 1968 Humphrey/Nixon US Presidency election campaign. What is that rubbish-comment all about? Are American really this mindless of their own history. And the scenes of Viet-Cong being flame-throwed to death by a smiling 'super-hero' is sickeningly Imperialist feel-good trash.
The utterly misplaced and gratuitous use of 10 or so well-know classic songs is stomach-churning and clearly a very desperate act. The opening sequence with a Bob Dylan back-track goes on and on...for the entirety of the song! But the defining scene of the film for me was a sex scene where we were treated to a lingering shot of a mans bare buttocks, mid-act, with the sacred ballad 'Hallelujah' sung by Lenonard Cohen as a sound-track. Proper sacrilege, hard to achieve but done effortlessly here.