by Wayne Reeves

Created on: September 28, 2010   Last Updated: September 29, 2010

The time is 1985, superheroes once fought for the common good decades before, then came a government bill, outlawing the work of the ‘masks’ who were deemed surplus to society and the world at large.

Inspired by a 12-part graphic novel series (created in 1986), ‘Watchmen’ is an adult-orientated, superhero movie.  It centers around the death of one of the retired team members, named Comedian/Edward Blake (played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan).  

Investigating the incident is another ex-member, the mysterious Rorschach/Walter Kovacs (Jackie Earle Hayley), who is content to carry on his quest to right wrongs and, ultimately, find out who killed Comedian.

Slowly, the other disbanded group are drawn into the story, Nite Owl II/Dan Drieburg (Patrick Wilson), Silk Spectre II/Laura Jupiter (Malin Akerman), Ozymandias/Adrian Veidt (Matthew Goode),and Dr.Manhattan/Jon Osterman (Billy Crudup).

Unless an enthusiastic fan (of the graphic novels) is watching the film, it makes for a long drawn-out experience.  Superhero movies are usually outrageous affairs, with special effects-laden shots and action every few minutes.  Sadly, ‘Watchmen’ is lacking in many areas.

As the characters reveal themselves to the audience, their troubled personal backgrounds are shown in, at times, violently graphic detail.  The problem is this isn’t particularly interesting material, it lingers on and stagnates the story (which there seems to be little of).

The group appear to be longing for better days, when it meant something to be a hero for the world; other than Rorschach, everyone else is reluctant to don their outfits/disguises again and fight the good fight. Except for Dr. Manhattan’s obvious other-worldly powers, there is little to distinguish the group from any so-called normal people.

So the movie meanders from flashbacks to childhood, love-scenes and the odd brutal second or two of violence.  With a weary 156 minutes running time, the film crawls in places.  A superhero movie should be a thrilling ride from start-to-finish, these characters (with the exception of Rorschach) are dull and unbelievable.

When finally arriving at the predictable finale, there is little sense of spectacle; the message seems to be a political statement rather than something exciting for the audience to take in.  Considering the quality of director Zach Snyder’s earlier works - he helmed the acclaimed ’300’ and remake of ’Dawn of the Dead’ - much was hoped for in this big-screen conversion.

Despite the decent individual performances (Jackie Earle Hayley has the most memorable role), and the overall presentation of the movie as a whole - it’s too long, without any real direction, making it hard to care about the protagonists or the story.

If this is a style that grown-up comic book fans can expect, then all our heroes are indeed dead, what we have left are just superzeroes instead.

Learn more about this author, Wayne Reeves.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.