WATCHMEN (2009)

directed by Zack Snyder

As far as this decade is concerned, WATCHMEN is the most brilliant, most cynical, and most unnecessary thing to come along since the Christian Coalition. A big heaping helpful of Cold War graphic novel that hopes its message maintains a relevance beyond the Obama administration. To be honest, the fall of the Berlin wall brought the fall of that relevance, and the alternate reality that WATCHMEN confines itself to turns into a type of fantasy period piece. It is in no way timely. However, WATCHMEN is quite watchable. It's the second best comic book movie ever (THE DARK KNIGHT is first). It's all subjective, of course, but here's the deal: WATCHMEN, in maintaining its literary purity, dilutes itself into a product of the comic book's time.

Ironic though it may be, what makes the movie brilliant is also what makes it cynical and unnecessary. The concept behind the characters, and the characters themselves, so fully transcend the genre that they provide myriad food for thought on the whole concept of superheros. Dr. Manhattan (played by Billy Crudup as a radiactive, muscular cross between Data and a smurf), is a frightening concoction, a true Superman who, in his near-infinite wisdom, develops a thoroughly creepy lack of humanity. The same can be said for nearly all of the characters, whose various stages of psychosis and emotional turmoil put each one through a ringer all their own: one becomes a flippant mysoginist of the worst kind, one becomes so smart and powerful that ideals mean more to him than individuals (like, say, Stalin or Hitler), and one sees so much of what is wrong with us as people that he becomes a shell of a human being, wearing a mask that cleverly allows you to see whatever you want to see.

I could go on and on about various little things I found less brilliant about it. The history is of a type one would find from thirty minutes of brainstorming and thirty seconds of rational thought, the soundtrack is so recognizable, it was probably picked off verbatim from a classic rock radio station... could the makeup department have done a worse job? Yes, but not much worse. These are not huge concerns. The film, at its core, is about the superheros and the superheros are what make the film. They are the film. And after the moral ambiguity of the THE DARK KNIGHT, the next step into discussion of “supermen” is most definitely along the lines of WATCHMEN. So, watch away and discuss. That's as timely as irrelevance gets in this decade.

7.69/10