Watchmen


Blake: "Congress is pushing through some new bill that's gonna outlaw masks. Our days are numbered. Till then it's like you always say...we're society's only protection."
Dreiberg: "From what?"
Blake: "You kidding me? From themselves."



release year: 2009
genre: dark superhero/1980s drama

viewing setting: home Bluray 11/8/17 and 4/2/16 and home DVD, 3/7/12 and 10/26/10 and theater, 3/29/09

synopsis: In a vastly different version of our country in 1985, costumed heroes have come and gone, and a single man with nearly unlimited power is all that keeps nuclear war at bay.

impressions: This was about the best adaptation of the classic comic book series that anyone could ask for. Let me preface this review with an important comment: this movie will be difficult or impossible for some people to understand. People who read the comic will get it. People who didn't read the comic but have intelligence or at least the capability to listen and understand will probably get it. Stupid people, or the kind who check their cell phones constantly during the movie, or the kind who bring screaming infants to the theater, or the kind who thought they were coming to see "Superman"...will not get it. I'd say half of the people in the theater with us were either confused or amused. The funny thing is that in a way, this movie is about them. Anyway. I'm not going to spend time and paragraphs analyzing the movie or its source material. Suffice it to say that there's a deep plot and a couple of questions: do the ends justify the means, and is humanity worth saving? This movie should make you think. In-between those parts is a LOT of fighting violence, pure destruction, and some steamy love scenes.

something this movie has that no other movie has: a naked glowing blue man walking around

acting: Patrick Wilson is Nite Owl, a retired crimefighter with a flying ship. Malin Akerman is Silk Spectre, also a retired crimefighter, who's married to Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup), the blue man who can teleport and rearrange matter. Jackie Earle Haley is Rorschach, a violent vigilante crimefighter who's started to figure out that something's not right. Matthew Goode is Ozymandias, the world's smartest man and a billionaire. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is the Comedian, who dies at the beginning of the movie yet holds it together via flashbacks.

final word: This one's a winner.

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