A flashy film about a very un-super bunch of supers.

Rating: 5/10 (5 November 2010)

Watchmen starts with the death of the Comedian, named because, because, because damned if I know - he isn't funny in any case.
The opening credits go for many minutes, I mention this mainly as the movie over three hours long and at times draaaaags. The credits show an alternate version of the 80s with the Watchmen and their background integrated, they are pretty clever and if you pay attention help a little with what follows.
The only active Watchmen (Watchman?) is Rorschach, the rest were forced out by President (in this reality) Nixon. Rorschach believes that the Comedian was targeted for death - and that the other Watchmen are all next - he goes to tell the rest of the group.
Over the next 30 minutes we meet some of the ex-Watchmen, find out that their roles were passed on by others and originated when police decided to go undercover to deal with certain criminals that hid their identities to avoid justice. Some Watchmen are keeping a low profile and their secret identities secret and others are out in the open.
We also find that there is a pending nuclear crisis as the USA and Russia are still not pals, and we learn that looking at our watch will become a common event until the credits roll.
One hour and 7 minutes in (yes I looked) we get our first cool scene. Nightowl and Silk Spectre, well their alter-egos anyway, are set on by a gang of thugs in the type of alley that only exists in comic books and movies, and they systematically kick the snot out of all the bad guys in pretty violent fashion.
Then after we have the cool scene, back to the rest of the movie. Watchmen goes like this Not much happens minor plot advancement backstory not much happens minor plot advancement backstory etc. For 2 and a half hours! Now in saying that the backstories are partially interesting and actually include most of the violence and disturbing events and imagery. And I mean disturbing, there are child murderers, rape and a pregnant woman is murdered on screen. None of this really advances the main plot though which is why it is so annoying.
The plot for the actual events in the film sucks.
Let me point something out, in the entire film not one superhero apart from one, uses their special power to achieve anything out of the ordinary. Read that again, no Spidey-sense, no Hulk-Smash, no Bat-cape, not even any Speedy Gonzales-hotfeet.
I'll leave my main gripe until the end of this review, but the above paragraph runs a very, very close second. When you have a poster/DVD cover with a bunch of superheroes, and 80% of the film has them doing anything but superheroing, it feels a lot like false advertising And it feels dull. Especially a 20 minute scene set on Mars, 20 of the dullest and unnecessary minutes in modern cinema.
Other noteworthy moments include a fanboy sex scene - in full superhero outfits no less, a jail break fight with much hair flying and choreographed slo mo "action" and a supercomputer holding the secret plot that is hacked into with 4 password tries.
This film would have been better served had it been edited down to a 100 minutes, even 2 hours. As it stands it would be more accurately named Dull and Duller. There is even an in-joke where a superhero says "I'm not a comic-book villain!" Cue 100 nerds chuckling "Yes you are" under their breath. _______________________________________ My main whinge.
I have deliberately ignored outlining the various superheroes as they are largely the same, people who punch bad guys, the only difference being their name and outfit.
I saw this in the cinema and went away disappointed, and it was only when asked why I wasn't a big fan that I thought it through and realised that a superhero movie is often only as good as the superhero in it.
Watchmen came with a massive buzz, but mainly because the industry needs something to hype each year, so seldom does the film live up to the hype, (The Dark Knight is a notable example).
This is no The Dark Knight.
Final Rating – 5 / 10. A group of boring middling superheroes doing largely nothing doesn't add up to a great movie. Who would have thought?
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