Watchman Much more successful movie than reviewers made it out to be.

Rating: 8/10 (23 January 2010)

Watchmen 2009 is set in an alternate 1985 America in which costumed superheroes are part of the fabric of everyday society, & the "Doomsday Clock" - which charts the USA's tension with the Soviet Union - is permanently set at five minutes to midnight. Based on Alan Moore's cult graphic novel, Watchmen is an action-adventure mystery set in the mid-1980s, in a mythical USA, where a nuclear attack by the Soviet Union looms large. Government-controlled, costumed vigilantes are an accepted segment of society, but independent crime fighters are no longer allowed to work their magic. When one of his former colleagues is murdered, the washed up but no less determined masked vigilante Rorschach sets out to uncover a plot to kill & discredit all past & present superheroes. As he reconnects with his former crime-fighting legion - a ragtag group of retired superheroes, only one of whom has true powers Rorschach glimpses a wide-ranging & disturbing conspiracy with links to their shared past & catastrophic consequences for the future. Their mission is to watch over humanity- but who is watching the Watchmen?" There have been so many big budget blockbuster films in 2009 that Watchmen kind of passed by the way side. I went into the film not expecting anything great but I found it an excellent entertaining comic book film. It is a good as several of the Batman movies. Snyder approached the material with enough reverence that fans of the comic will appreciate the film. Superheroes: cannot live ordinary lives but are fated to help mankind. Watchmen took comic books to the next level as almost literature. The R-rated, nearly-three-hour movie packs a lot of punch exciting scenes visuals & sounds. The film is really intense & leaves a memory with you long after you have seen it. The film is not the story of the triumphant reunion of a band of superheroes but of its blow up & self-destruction. Not all the Watchmen survive the film, & the world may have reason to be grateful for that. The film was made after a publicized rights dispute between Fox and Warner Bros. Rather than a comic book masterpiece it is really a dramatic compression of the Hugo Award winning novel. Fans of Alan Moore's landmark sci fi novel will love every pulpy line of dialogue and bloody act of retribution kept in director Zack Snyder's faithful and film-wise lavish adaptation. But most of us who are unfamiliar with Moore's bleak subversive comic book fiction may get lost due to multiple flashbacks. Its still a good and exciting comic book film 3 or 4 stars.