Justice is coming to all of us. No matter what we do.

Rating: 7/10 (7 March 2009)

An adaptation of Alan Moore's landmark comic book series, Watchmen is a story set in an alternative 1985, where the world is ticking closer to the brink of nuclear war, and a plot to eliminate a band of ex-crimefighters is instigated, but why? and by whom? It is up to two of those ex-crimefighters to investigate the plot that seems to go beyond the unthinkable.
"Watchmen" fell into traps. The first trap was a lawsuit from 20th Century Fox to Warner Bros. For better or worse, they negotiated a deal and had the film released in its appropriate date. The second trap is from the publicity itself. Now I'm sure many beloved fans would love to see the movie, and there's no reason to blame them. However, there are many other people who have never read the graphic novel in their entire life. However, that won't stop them because the marketing looked fantastic, the trailers and commercials showing cool, zesty special effects with some cool actions scenes all directed by the cool guy who did "300," Zack Snyder.
This is the downfall. What the marketing don't show is that the film is about three hours long, has very little to no action scenes, and it's very talky. Now why is that the problem? For those who haven't read the graphic novel, including myself, they'll be stuck in a, jumbled, incoherent piece of narrative that doesn't stop until the end. Throughout the movie, I wanted to kill myself, honestly. I was so tired by the first act that even I wouldn't have cared if the movie ended or not. It just wasn't interesting. And that's what many of you non-fans will suffer through the film.
I'm not saying the movie is bad. It just appeals more to the fans than account to the others. Like I said, the movie is so very long and the pace is just uneven. Action scenes come up randomly just to keep the audience awake. Other elements that would keep them awake is the visually extensive look of the film. I must say, by technical standards, the movie looks fantastic, giving a noir-neo look. Just like "300," Snyder would get every chance he has to milk some visually creative scenes for some time.
When there are some action scenes, which won't be very many, they are done very well, to say the least. Like the rest of the film, the scenes are set up perfectly to bring out the best possible response from the audience. The music choice is very odd, though. Sometimes, they work well, like the opening sequence and other times, they're downright horrible. As for the performances themselves, nobody actually stood out for me. Many are saying Jackie Earle Haley did a good job, but I found him quite annoying with his "Christian Bale-in-Batman-form-voice." I found him very incomprehensible that I begged for subtitles to appear to understand what he's trying to say.
Overall, the film was just confusing and incoherent. I wasn't interest at all of what's going on and who's going to die. When the plot does start to move, it's sometimes very predictable on what's going happen, which is pretty ironic because the film tries to be thought-provoking. Under the messy, uneven film, one can actually see it has little to nothing to say or that it didn't say anything different from previous superhero films that have been done before already. Director Snyder has a good eye, I'll give him that, but the rest of the film just falls down from a non-fan point of view. If you're not a fan, don't bother wasting your time. After all, it's almost three hours long. If you're a fan, go ahead and watch it. Enjoy it.