A superb adaption of a classic comic book

Rating: 9/10 (17 May 2010)

Watchmen was one of those movies that spent a long time in development hell; and for good reason - Alan Moore's superb opus was always going to be difficult to get right, yet Director Zack Snyder has done a wonderful job of bringing it to the screen.
The story is a complex affair, exploring how society would be affected if super-heroes were real. All the heroes here have hang ups that would shake Spider-Man to his boots, and the film opens with the murder of The Comedian, a retired government agent whom, we discover, has perpetrated terrible acts of murder and violence during the course of his career. Heroes are now underground or retired, legislated out of existence by the government, but Rorshach, a paranoid but uncompromising vigilante, begins to suspect a "Mask-Killer" is on the loose, bumping off heroes that fought to make the world safe.
In truth that's just a brief sketch of the plot, which I won't go any further into as it would be unfair to spoil things.
Watchmen is something of an acquired taste for the mainstream, which perhaps explains its box office performance (just north of $100 million in the US). However the graphic violence and sex which caused the picture to be rated 18 in the UK and R in America also told against it. Watchmen is often uncomfortable to watch, but it rewards the patient viewer with a dark take on humanity and lets us chew over the idea that we may all be doomed in spite of the caring side of our natures. Only love, perhaps, can keep the savage animal within us at bay.
So, if you're expecting Spider-Man or The Dark Knight you'll probably be disappointed. But if you stay on board you'll be given a thought-provoking exercise quite unlike any other super-hero movie. Watchmen succeeds on this score; perhaps fans of Moore will be angry at some of the changes, but largely this is a very faithful version of his story. Jackie Earl Haley as Rorshach is a stand out, but most of the cast do well, from Billy Cudrup as Doctor Manhatten (the only hero with actual super-powers) to Patrick Wilson as Night Owl, a Batman-type character with a, er, rather severe problem. Only Matthew Goode disappoints as Ozymandias.
Explore Watchmen with an open mind and you may love it as much as I do.