a5c7b9f00b A group of heroes, forced into retirement a decade before are called together once again to investigate the murder of one of their own. What they discover is an age-old conspiracy to change the balance of power in a world not different from our own. "Watchmen" is set in an alternate 1985 America in which costumed superheroes are part of the fabric of everyday society, and the "Doomsday Clock" - which charts the USA's tension with the Soviet Union - is permanently set at five minutes to midnight. 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 and discredit all past and 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 and disturbing conspiracy with links to their shared past and catastrophic consequences for the future. Their mission is to watch over humanity... but who is watching the Watchmen?" All I can say is WTF?! Thank GOD I watched this movie in a theater where they serve alcohol because it was the only thing that got me through this over 2 and 1/2 hour beating of a movie. I cannot believe this movie received such high ratings but I am sure they were given be followers of the graphic novel. A good movie should hold it's own without having to depend on "followers". The character development was terrible, if there was any at all. I walked away from this movie knowing very little about who these people were and the plot is so empty and just drags on. The introduction was so poor I lost interest very quickly. I had high hopes for this movie because I love pretty much all comic book based movies. No I do not and have never read comic books but Watchmen is the first movie thus far that I have seen that just leaves you feeling like 2 1/2 hours was just stolen from your life. And what is up with the constant displays of male genitalia? Did it some how improve the "quality" (for lack of a better word) of the movie? This movie lacked everything. The visuals weren't even that stunning. So much hype built up only to disappoint. DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY OR TIME! Watchmen turned out to be an engrossing film, one definitely worth seeing. I have to say, I wasn't enthusiastic about watching it at first. It's based on the great graphic novel by Alan Moore. It's widely considered to be the best graphic novel ever. Films adapted form great literary works usually don't turn out well. The film also didn't have a big budget. More money was thrown at making Iron Man (2008) and The Dark Knight (2008), for example. This doesn't matter though because Watchmen surpasses all comic book films in terms of professionalism. Zack Snyder is a good action director. Just watch 300 (2007) for proof. With Watchmen he demonstrated that he is just a good director overall. He works well with actors. The acting in the film is almost universally excellent. Everyone gets to shine. Even Malin Akerman had her moments. Not one character feels like a throwaway. All this is further complimented by the good choices in costumes. No one can deny that the heroes in Watchmen look cool. The CGI is excellent too. Be it Doctor Manhattan or Nite Owl's airship, everything looks just right. Snyder staged some truly impressive dramatic scenes. The use of music is inspired. The score by Tyler Bates is obviously fitting, but the choices in songs may surprise some people. I, however, think that the songs are just right. It was good to hear Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are a-Changing" at the beginning and Leonard Cohen's "First We Take Manhattan" at the end. What made me like the film even more is its cinematography by Larry Fong. The look of each decade was captured perfectly. The 1980s are somewhat dark in the film's alternate reality though. Nuclear war seems close, and society is sick. To all this is added the sweet look that's also present in the graphic novel. There are many images in Watchmen that are memorable, even unforgettable. There are so many interesting details that I couldn't wait to watch the film more than once to pick up what I missed on first viewing. Thankfully, Snyder didn't change the politics and observations of the graphic novel for the film. Some parts are missing but the endeavour is still a thought-provoking two-and-a-half hours. Plus, it has a clear narrative. This is a comic book film for mature audiences. It stands above other comic book films because it's smart and because it tackles some of the most important issues, even mankind's existence. Watchmen was expertly made, there is a lot to like about it. I respect it and I like it more than any other superhero motion picture. It gets a high recommendation from me. For the Watchmen fan, this may be as close to the Holy Grail as a motion picture could come. For everyone else, a sense of frustration and disappointment is not unwarranted. Watchmen is many things but it is not the Next Great Comic Book Movie or the film that will advance graphic novel adaptations to the next level. Watchmen is based on a comic series written by English writer Alan Moore and illustrated by co-creator Dave Gibbons. It was originally published by DC Comics as 12 issues from 1986 to 1987 and was later republished in graphic novel format. Yes. Although earlier drafts of the script had a present day background, replacing the Cold War with the "war on terror," it was ultimately decided to retain the 1985 Cold War setting, as the film's producers decided that, as is, there are already enough eerie parallels between the world of the graphic novel and our own. One modern touch that appears in the film is Adrian Veidt (<a href="/name/nm0328828/">Matthew Goode</a>) and Doctor Manhattan (<a href="/name/nm0001082/">Billy Crudup</a>) attempting to create a new fuel source. This is very briefly touched on in the comic: Dr. Manhattan is having a conversation with Hollis Mason (<a href="/name/nm0570385/">Stephen McHattie</a>), the original Nite Owl, at his retirement party. Mason says his occupation as a vigilante has become obsolete with Manhattan coming on the scene, so he's going to retire and repair cars. Manhattan tells him that the new electric cars will soon be everywhere; there never was enough lithium to power them before, but since he can easily synthesize it, gasoline-based cars will soon be obsolete. After this point in history, there are electric cars seen frequently in the background, and one scene has a delivery man recharging his truck at a news stand. Watchmen is based on a graphic novel which emulates and satirizes the history of characters from the Charlton Comics company, which had been acquired by DC Comics. Many of the modern superheroes people know today, like the Flash or Green Lantern, are actually the second bearers of those names and, in the Charlton Comics world, there were two Blue Beetles. The first were characters from the "Golden Age of comic books" of the 1930s and '40s, when superheroes first became a growing fad. The trend eventually died away, but was revived in the late 1950s by the introduction of new characters with new costumes and altered powers, bearing the names of their wartime counterparts, thus beginning the "Silver Age", which led to superheroes becoming a permanent part of Americana. In the world of Watchmen, Nite Owl and Silk Spectre represent this pattern, with their more modern-time incarnations being the main characters, having taken off from the Greatest Generation.