WATCHMEN {Theatrical Version} (Zack Snyder, 2009) ***

Rating: 7/10 (13 March 2010)

A friend of mine had been so disappointed by this one that he wrote so as to spare me from wasting the cost of a cinema ticket and three hours of my life! Having finally caught up with it myself, I could not disagree with him more – not just that but, due to the film's essentially muddled plot line (despite an overgenerous running-time of 162 minutes), I even went so far as to acquire the mammoth 215-minute "Ultimate Cut" of the film immediately afterwards! To me, this is easily one of the better among the recent flood of comic-strip-inspired blockbusters – with, unsurprisingly, perhaps the one to have the biggest heart. Given Heath Ledger's somewhat over-hyped performance as The Joker in THE DARK KNIGHT (2008), Jackie Earle Haley's turn as Rorschach here (with his classic faceless, yet sentient, mask and mouthing the film's one outstanding line to a bunch of angry jailbirds i.e. "You don't seem to understand: I'm not locked in here with you – you're locked in here with me!") proved no less memorable or genre-defining. Incidentally, before the project was announced, I had no prior knowledge of the source material (let alone its quasi-legendary status) – so there were no preconceptions about the rigorousness (or not) of the adaptation involved on my part (the result features both uncompromising violence and surprising, albeit vaguely laughable, sex scenes). By the way, having watched all three of Snyder's films (again, this is clearly superior to the others), I would like to see him tackle an original subject next – since DAWN OF THE DEAD (2004) was obviously a remake (of a horror title held in very high regard by many, though not myself!) and 300 (2007) was both that (of the 1962 Rudolph Mate' spectacular) and, like WATCHMEN itself, a cinematic rendition of a graphic novel. What I really liked about this one is its blending of outright fantasy (apart from the typical sci-fi elements of a scientist rendered superhuman in a freak lab accident, there is the gleeful re-write of history – where, among other things, America has not only emerged victorious in the infamous Vietnam conflict but Richard Nixon is still 'serving' as U.S. President in 1985!) with an oppressive noir mood (in which the volatile, cynical Rorschach operates – traded in the climax for an equally forbidding icy wasteland). Also notable is its expert use of music (bafflingly criticized by some) highlighting giants in the field such as Bob Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel, The Jimi Hendrix Experience and Leonard Cohen and the intricate but admirably fluid editing wherein, at various points, an incident recalls some past event of particular import. Though, at first, I felt this was going to be undercast, most of the actors involved (many of them new faces to me) acquitted themselves well enough under the circumstances – including Malin Akerman as the sensuous Silk Spectre II and Matthew Goode as the deceptively anodyne Adrian Veidt aka Ozymandias (who seem to have received the lion's share of the flak in this regard). That said, another aspect which was not properly defined here for the uninformed is the individual quality of each 'superhero' (for instance, the Jeffrey Dean Morgan character known as "The Comedian" is quite the antithesis to what is expected of one, even if only Billy Crudup's Dr. Manhattan – nobly bearing the potential hilarity of his naked blue appearance[!] – is really prodigious in the normal sense). A dense, dazzling and surprisingly satisfactory effort, then, but one that actually leaves the viewer asking for morewhich is why I took the, for me, incongruous plunge of getting hold of an even longer version.