Overrated mental disorder eye candy.

Rating: 3/10 (8 March 2009)

I had a friend that own a video rental store who was a huge fan of the graphic novel. When heard Watchmen was being made into a movie he was ecstatic. So I had high hopes this would be good. But first time I saw the trailer, I thought "Huh, that's pretty odd. Superheroes that look like Power Rangers. I thought this was for adults." I hoped the trailers weren't doing it justice. After a few more came out that looked better I started thinking "This might actually be a good movie."
Sadly, that was not the case. The previews before the movie were the highlight of the 3 hours and 30 minutes I spent in the theater. The whole movie dragged on after the first scene, where an old hero is murdered.
Rorschach is the only likable character and the best part of the whole movie. His fight scenes are the most intense, his attitude actually fit the world of "Watchmen". The rest of the characters had no redeeming qualities, nothing to attach any real emotion to.
One is a geeky "rich kid" whose only apparent purpose in the film was to create unrealistic gadgets and be a part of an unnecessary, forced love scene.
Another is an average looking woman with zero emotional depth, wearing an extremely poor looking costume, and whose sole purpose was to strip so the guys watching have something to drool over. I like nude/sex scenes don't get me wrong, but this one was obviously just for show, it had no passion at all.
These two character's big fight scene happens in a jail house. The choreography and style is reminiscent of Power Rangers. (Their stances, how they jump, the way they fly in the air...) None of their punches or kicks looked to have any power behind them, but anything they hit goes flying insanely away. I kept waiting for them to call their zords. The only redeeming quality of the scene was not using a shaky cam as so many movies use for fight scenes these days.
The last character worth mentioning is the blue man. The explanation of his powers is he got "trapped" in a vaulted door machine that sends bolts of electricity at him. But what the machine's purpose was is pretty much disregarded. As he gets trapped a group of people just stand and watch. I guess they never heard of an emergency shutdown. The character's special effects are great, but his explanation is lacking any depth. He ends up with near god like powers; the ability to teleport himself and others, to see his past and future, telekinesis in the extreme, and genius intellect.
After his change he begins disassociating himself with humanity (Although the exact reason for this is shady at best), but he keeps a girl friend, until he cheats on her. I guess even gods who are above humanity still get horny. Maybe he's Greek.
He even attempts to develop technology that will stop a global nuclear war. But again, they portray him as uncaring and beyond humanity the entire movie. It was like a yo-yo. I care, no I don't, yes I do, no I don't. As though the writer had a split personality, each taking control at different moments and wanting a different story.
It didn't make sense. The highlight of his disassociation is when he is made to believe he is causing all the people around him to get cancer and die (yet the time line it happens in doesn't make sense) so he freaks out and goes to of all places... Mars. (Because he doesn't care, yet it upset him). While there, he waves his hand and magically creates a pointless eye candy clock like thing, which serves no purpose but to look cool. Another pointless aspect of him, which is done solely to look "cool" is the way he goes around blowing people up, popping them like balloons full of blood. As apposed to teleporting their guns away, or knocking them unconscious. Even removing limbs would make more sense and be more logical. Otherwise, he just walks around nude the whole movie.
There are no real explanations as to how any other character's come by their powers. There is, however, a long unneeded sequence at the beginning of the movie that shows a previous bunch of superheroes who are almost identical to the current bunch. These "heroes" act like a bunch of degenerates, raping and beating each other, as though the entire bunch has bipolar disorder. One of the so called heroes even goes so far as to try and seduce his own daughter. In a way it's as though the movie is an allegory as to what if the people who ran Hollywood were superheroes.
The ending made no sense what so ever. The "heroes" allow millions to die because they are too crappy at being heroes to save the world. And the whole idea is that an American which the whole world is afraid of and is why they are about to go to war then blows up half the earth but this is what causes all the other nations to decide to disarm their nukes is ridiculous. Its like saying "Well the U.S. bombed the entire world, and themselves, so we are going to just forget about the supposed nuclear war we were just about to have cause this is different since it was done by a U.S. citizen that we were all supposed to be afraid of because the U.S. might have him use his power against the world, but now that he did, we aren't going to retaliate, like the whole premise of the movie was in the first place........." WTF?! Did we lose track of our own convoluted plot?
I could go on for days about how bad the rest of this movie is and all the problems it has. It is no where near as epic as the previews pretend and fans of the graphic novel claim. Unless the film butchers the source material in which case I feel sorry for fan's of the novel. The idea of anti-superheroes with adult themes may have been great, but the story is ridiculous and lacks logic. If you must see it, save your money and wait to rent it. At least then you can fast forward through all the needless dialog and shoddy explanations of nothing. If you are into eye candy, pointless passionless love scenes, poor dialog, convoluted plots and zero explanations, you will love this film.