a kick in the nuts

Rating: 10/10 (24 March 2009)

In my experience, the best and most rewarding films to watch are those that completely take you by surprise. I heard a lot of great things about the graphic novel but still expected to see a somewhat typical action movie with a (pretty good) story crammed in between the action scenes...
To my extreme satisfaction, Watchmen is another proof in a recent sequence that 'comic books' too can be enriching reading material. Behind the latex costumes of some of the least fashionable superheroes that ever appeared on screen, a sublime story unfolds, in which the characters are of the deepest gray i have ever seen in a movie. Although the context and the characters may not suggest it, the film contains some of the smartest dialogues and most overwhelming ideas i've seen since the Matrix. Apart from the evident questions a godlike character like Jon provokes (how do you use such enormous powers, what is human life worth to a godlike creature that is able to see the bigger picture,...), the sardonic content of the other dialogues raise some interesting questions too. What made Watchmen really exceptional to me (apart from the sublime characters) was the ending. Precisely at the moment where you think it's going to reach a climax in the typical, all American fight between good and bad, it kicks you right in the nuts... MUST SEE!